Cancer Can't Stop Us - Lori Lemke's Journey

For those that don’t know Lori Lemke, she is a spitfire mom and wife, an artist, seamstress, amazing friend, and just a doer; nothing brings her down – not even cancer. Lori & Dave have been married 14 years and have 2 beautiful children. Liam is 13 and Mila is 10; these are 2 of the most beautiful and resilient children - a direct result Lori’s positive outlook on life. Lori has made her footprint on her community through her art and photography – helping other families capture memories at weddings, births, milestones, and more. Many of you can look on your own walls for a Lori Lemke original.

In August of 2019 Lori noticed a lump in her lower right breast. Like many of us women, this concerned her – she made an appointment with her local nurse practitioner and was advised to get a mammogram. That mammogram showed nothing abnormal and she was diagnosed with dense breast tissue. Knowing something was still off, Lori went in for a breast ultrasound in November of 2019, and it also came back as dense breast tissue. Trying to convince herself to trust the medical team, she ignored her gut. As the spot grew and became more visible through her skin – on February 26,, 2020 – Lori went to see her former family physician who immediately knew something was wrong and referred her to a Breast Specialist; he got her an appointment the very next day where biopsies were done. On February 28, 2020 Lori was diagnosed with Stage 4 Metastatic Breast Cancer HER 2 Positive Invasive Ductal Carcinoma which had spread throughout her lymph nodes and liver.

Specialists in Appleton were not optimistic about her diagnosis and gave her a very grim outlook. Fortunately, Lori’s cousin was an Oncologist at UW Madison-Carbone and knew of a clinical trial that would offer Lori and her family some hope. For the next 10 months it was a roller coaster of chemo, and the trials that offered Lori some success. In fact, her liver was completely cleared of cancer and her breast was considered disease free! Everything seemed to be going well. In January of 2021 Lori began to experience some nausea and vomiting as well as other flu like symptoms. On January 21st, an MRI of her brain revealed that she had 10-20 lesions (tumors) on her brain. Her cancer had spread yet again. This made her no longer eligible for the trial in Madison and in February she began whole brain radiation & a new chemo that we had hoped would penetrate the blood-brain barrier. For the next year Lori celebrated many small victories but still some setbacks with the growth of her brain METS. In August of 2022, another MRI revealed more growth on the brain and doctors switched to another chemo that they hoped would penetrate the blood-brain barrier and destroy her cancer once and for all. In October, her follow up MRI showed the chemo was not doing what they were hoping the METS were still growing. Doctors in Appleton told Lori they were skeptical about her quality of life with the remaining options.

If you have met Lori, you know that her positive attitude through this entire battle has been nothing short of miraculous – and she handled this news with the same grace. Not accepting the end of the road attitude from her medical team, Lori and her family began looking into her next options. From Mexico to Mayo, she did her homework and found a team at Mayo in Rochester, MN that believed they could help and are extremely excited to partner with Lori to take on the fight of her life with her. She will begin spot radiation on her brain at Mayo the week of November 9, 2022;this will require a lot of travel to and from Minnesota. Lori will also be continuing her chemo and immunotherapy every 3 weeks in Appleton.

Throughout this journey, Lori has continued to run her photography business, her household, continued helping at the kids school, and much more (yes, she’s a bad ass!). Over the last couple of months, after many long and heartfelt discussions with her husband, Lori made the difficult decision to walk away from the business she built. This was to focus all of her energy on her family and health.

As you can imagine, bills have started piling up. Even with great health insurance, the cost of uncovered chemo and radiation, travel to and from appointments, and daily household costs are starting to build up and become stressful.

Lori has spent the last 15 years helping other families make memories through her art. She has captured so many beautiful moments in our community – we would love to help Lori and her family have the opportunity to make their own memories and forget about cancer for a little while.

We would love to help the Lemke family alleviate the financial burden, offset the piling up of uncovered medical bills, and help them take a family vacation together to create even more memories. Cancer has already taken so much from this family - we are all fighting with Lori & Dave to make sure it doesn’t take any more memories.

We are hoping our friends, family, and community can come together to support the Lemke family in any way you can. If you cannot donate, please keep Lori in your prayers and share her story. She is an inspiration to all who know her.