Laurel Lawshae

Welcome to Laurel Lawshae's Caring Bridge website.  Here you can read regular updates on Laurel's fight against breast cancer.  Thanks for stopping by, and please let us know you visited.


Laurel was diagnosed with breast cancer in January of 2010.  She went through extensive treatment that included two rounds of chemotherapy, surgery, radiation treatments, and reconstruction surgery with followup physical therapy.  As of her most recent mammogram a couple months ago and her most recent blood work last January, it appeared that the cancer was gone and had not recurred.


While she was playing for a music festival in England in July and August, though, she started experiencing severe pain in her right leg and was unable to walk on her own without assistance.  Once she got home, she went to see her orthopedist, who took x-rays of her hip and discovered a severe weakening of her right femur.  After getting a PET scan and an MRI of her hip, we met with our oncologist, who informed us that her cancer has returned and is eating away at her right femur.  The cancer could either be the old breast cancer that's moved to her hip, or it could be a new bone cancer.  One good thing, though, is that the cancer is localized in her femur, and it hasn't spread to other parts of her body.  We'll be getting a biopsy soon to determine the type of cancer.  It looks like the treatment will be the insertion of a rod in her femur to stabilize it, radiation to treat the cancer, and injections of biophosphamates to rebuild the bone.  We don't know the order of the treatments yet, but we'll know more once we get the biopsy results and meet with our surgeon and radiation oncologist.  


Please keep Laurel in your prayers.