Update from Laurie: 1/31/2025
Update: Dear Family and Friends, we are moving along on this healing journey. With all of you aboard, I feel like I’m making progress. I’m also realizing that I will have to be on this train for a month longer than originally planned. I had thought a month would be enough , turns out a month is what the staff needs to see whether sufficient progress is being made to merit continuing! I’m not surprised, it was naive to think that four weeks would be enough time to keep this going after 5+ years of struggle with the cancer. The good news is that this treatment, acc to lab reports, is working and helping me move forward. Of course I don’t make big predictions, but I feel better and am much better than when I started this process four weeks ago. The doctors’ meeting yesterday with me and Blake yesterday gave me some new directions to pursue. So I’m on the path of “tstudis”, ( let’s do this”) continuing to work with the treatments to stay on course. Thank you everyone for believing in me and cheering me on.
January 19, 2025
Dear Friends and Family,
Wanting to greet you with the news that I seem to be doing well with the treatment regime. And with a heart full of gratitude for all of your care and support in these times. I know all of it has made a difference as much as the innovative medicines and the attentiveness of the staff at the facility.
Life at “the facility” has a rhythm to it and I’m still trying to roll with it. Blake gets me there early to mid-morning. I dress warmly for the cool environment and am immediately whisked off to treatments. They consist of exposure to intense light and colors, energy work across the body, supplemental injections of Vitamin D and C, scorpion venom and more. I have “passes” of my blood exchanged for oxygenated and enriched blood and am taking small doses of five different chemotherapy medicines via a port access in my chest once a week. The providers have found, as they have here in Tucson with my oncology team, that “less is more”. And they have reduced dosages accordingly. The staff in Phoenix listens to my needs and responses and as soon as the following day and sometimes the same day make the changes they think are necessary. It may also be necessary to stay a bit longer in Phoenix in order for the treatments to take hold and have a chance to work effectively. We will evaluate in two weeks.
I am starting to feel different but am going through so much – three to five treatments daily plus supplemental injections – that I can’t yet say I feel stronger. My sense is that until the pain starts to go away for substantial amounts of time I’ll continue to struggle.
Being home for the weekend has been meaningful, seeing our birds enjoy their food in the yard and the winter plants thriving (thank you Ariel!) and your voices asking after our wellbeing — familiarity is love.
I hope to have chances to connect with all of you as the days go by. January is a deeply special month for me, for the stories, poetry and narratives of Black History Month/ Even though for this year and the past several I haven’t been able to attend the demos and the commemorative events, I feel the fabric of our community tightly wrapped around me!
Sending hugs and compassion for this particular January,
Laurie
Update from Laurie – January 5, 2025
Laurie and Blake are blessed with a circle of support, including you! They are deeply grateful to all of the people who have contributed for Laurie’s cancer treatment at the Euromed Foundation facility in Phoenix.
Your good thoughts, prayers, healing energy and love are appreciated always, and will give us strength through the month or more of treatment, which starts on Monday, January 6. I know it’ is rooted in the love we share for our community. That is how I perceive it. The knowledge of our deep caring is what sustains it. This kind of deep love 
sustains no matter how deep the threat. If I can share a portion of this collective strength with any of you who might ever need it, I’ll be there.
12/26/2024
Here is an update from Laurie:
Dear Dear Friends and Family,
I am catching you up from about a month ago when the EuroMed Foundation was just a dream. Now it is becoming more of a reality. I’ve been hearing from so many of you. You’ve given me the crucial support I need to continue to make this part of the journey. I hope to enter the EuroMed facility within the next couple weeks. In the meantime, life has been full of challenges. I am recovering from a stay in the emergency room last week due to dangerously low levels of salt, which made my electrolytes and my whole system go whacky. (Aside from Elise: when we were in the hospital for a treatment, Laurie repeatedly kept asking me if I was hearing “I Had a Little Dreydl” playing over the loudspeakers. When I said I didn’t hear anything she said maybe I should get my hearing checked out).
Laurie: I am recuperating from this short but difficult hospital stay. I am finding ways to cope and enjoy my life. I look forward to being in touch with you as best I can.
Thank you all for believing in life and sustaining mine.
Laurie
12/6/2024
My sister Laurie is a fighter, scholar (she speaks 4 languages), lover and nurturer of nature, master gardener, social justice advocate and social worker for 50 years. She has made it her life’s work to help people and to try to make their lives better. Now the tables are turned and she herself needs some help.
As many of you know, Laurie has been dealing with endometrial papillary serous carcinoma for the past 5 years. This is a serious and rare kind of endometrial cancer which tends to keep reappearing after extensive chemo and maintenance therapies. She is fiercely in love with her life, and the lives of others. Recently she has heard testimonials about an alternative cancer treatment center called EuroMed, located in Pheonix. They offer low level chemo along with other therapies to help build up the immune system during chemo, and to ameliorate the side effects of chemo treatments. Laurie would like to participate in this therapeutic program and would still be under the care of her excellent oncologist and team here in Tucson.
The treatment is expensive and is not covered by insurance. She also has to maintain a residence and possibly a caregiver while she is there for a month and possibly longer, because there are no inhouse facilities there. Laurie realizes that the outcome of this treatment is uncertain, since little peer reviewed medical research exists regarding the therapies employed. However, acupuncture also was once not covered by insurance, but is becoming established as an effective medical practice for many conditions. Additionally as we have learned, conventional chemotherapies do not have guaranteed outcomes. This alternative treatment offers hope for her and her family and friends.
Laurie’s husband Blake, and countless friends and family have been extraordinary caretakers and caregivers over these past five years. As her sister, I am asking her large and loving community to contribute financially as you can. No donation is too small, and we are gratified for whatever you can afford. We are forever grateful for your kindness and generosity.