Lisa Carlson

Lisa has been battling illness since the end of October but with her strength and determination she hides this fact from many people. With that being said she has given in and has decided to head to Rochester in hopes for some answers. 


It started with a visit to the doctor the end of October (unsure of exact date)as Lisa felt like she may be experiencing a heart attack - thankfully this wasn't the case.   They basically sent her home with it being a pulled chest muscle or acid reflux.   


Lisa continued to work and maintain her life as it always has been spending time with her husband, kids, grandkids and of course her horse.  On December 13 Lisa had a routine visit to the doctor for her physical. Her daughters Bobbi and Sam decided to go with as Lisa has shown signs of weekness and fatigue and they wanted to make sure that everything was known to the doctor.   Lisa ended up getting admitted to Rice Memorial in Willmar as they felt this weekness was due to her chrones disease.   Her labs were the big concern as they were all over the charts. Her potassium was at 3.2 which we were told is a very dangerous level.  They treated her with IV and anti biotics while in the hospital and once her potassium levels were increased she started feeling better and was discharged. That only stayed that that way for a few days and the weekness and energy level went back down. On December 22 Lisa ended up back in Rice Hospital with the same symptoms. Once again they felt this was due to the chrones and treated her stay like that. Once again her potassium was at dangerous levels  (2.4) the family is getting very concerned with what is happening and started to look for other options. As doctors felt this was due to her chrones disease they decided to schedule a colonoscopy with the GI Dr. Bhatti in Chaska.  After a endoscopy January 12 and colonoscopy January 19 and a night in the hospital in the cities those test came back fine.   Just the usually findings for someone with chrones no reason they could ba causing all these problems. So once again Lisa went home in hopes to start to feel better. 


She has never got her energy level back and it was to the point that Crystal had to dress her. That was the last straw Cheryl and Crystal loaded Lisa in the car of Tuesday (January so) this week and drove to Rochester St Mary's - Mayo Clinic. Lisa had no strength or no will to even get up she could not even walk 5 ft without being winded and the need to lay down.   The ER took wonderful care of her and monitored her very closely.   We ended up getting admitted to the cardiovascular wing as Lisa potassium again was dangerous levels 2.6 and her blood pressure was low along with a high heart rate and having to be on oxygen.  There were many concerns of things that were going on and not a lot of answers.  Everyone assured us that we are in the right place. They have ran many many tests and nothing has appeared yet to be wrong. Lisa has been getting very frustrated so we are trying to keep her hopes up.  Early this morning (February 1) she woke with a 103 temp they anticipated that this is due to some infection so the team of doctors decided to give her angiogram CT to see her lungs. The first big break as they saw that both lungs are full of infection. That is hopefully the cause to why she is feeling so week and drained.   So now the real struggles come and to try and find out what the infection is from.  Lisa was moved to a isolation room till they know the details. This infection can be caused by the weekened immune systems that she has due to the medications she takes for the chrones.  We are not sure of the details yet but we do have a great team of doctors working on her case in hopes to get some answers and Lisa feeling back to herself once again.   


I apoigize for the length of this as I wasn't sure how Lisa would feel about posting this as she was ok with it so I decided to put this out there. Please feel free to write a message to Lisa as I am sure she would love to read them.