Lisa Cutchens

Welcome to Lisa's Caring Bridge website and thank you for visiting.  We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place.   We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement as well as your prayers during this challenging time.

As some of you are already aware, our family received some very difficult and sad news recently as we learned that Lisa is suffering from atonal carcinoma, a common form of cancer.  This diagnosis has been reached through a series of blood tests, CAT scans and liver biopsy.

Lisa was admitted to the Oncology ward at Mercy Hospital in Des Moines on Thursday, 4/18, and will remain in the hospital pending further testing until at least Tuesday, 4/23.

While we continue to learn new information on an daily basis, doctors are still working to fully diagnose and identify the specific type and source of the cancer in order to determine the prognosis and treatment plan.  Here is a summary of what we know so far:

There are nodules in her lungs
There are spots on her liver
There are enlarged lymph nodes in her stomach
There is a small (1 cm) lesion on the top her right frontal lobe  (this is very treatable using a highly-specialized, targeted radiation treatment)

While the diagnosis of atonal carcinoma has been confirmed, the specific type and source of the cancer has not been identified yet.  Using marker testing, they have ruled out the source as being breast, liver, ovarian or cervical cancer.  An elevated CEA (Carcinoembryonic Antigen Test) suggests that it may be somewhere in the Gastral Intestinal or GI tract - the hollow organs that make up the GI tract are the mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, and rectum.  They will be performing an Upper GI Endoscopy and Lower GI Endoscopy in the afternoon on Monday, 4/22, to see if they can locate the source.