Rutherford County Clerk Lisa Crowell was at work when her husband called to say that he was driving to her office, adding, "Dr. Poliner just got your test results and he recommended we hear them together." Lisa rushed outside to meet her husband in the office parking lot. They hovered over the cell phone together as Dr. James Poliner, a pulmonary disease specialist with Saint Thomas Medical Partners, shared the devastating news that Lisa had lung cancer.
"I was scared, numb, afraid--I didn't know what to do," Lisa says, remembering the moments of shock after her diagnosis in 2016. When she wiped her tears away and walked back inside the building, she noticed that a pastor from her church happened to be visiting the office. This felt like divine intervention. Lisa asked him to step aside and privately pray with her before she called her staff into a meeting to announce the news.
Then began a journey that included surgery at Saint Thomas Rutherford Hospital in which Dr. Ward Houck removed the lower lobe of Lisa's right lung. After a hospital stay of about 2 days, Lisa returned home. Though prescribed medications helped minimize overt pain, Lisa recalls feeling "discomfort and shifting" after surgery.
A heavy smoker since her teenage years, Lisa had actually quit smoking a year and a half before her cancer diagnosis. Today, she credits nixing her nicotine habit for preventing her cancer from growing worse faster. "I'm so glad that I quit smoking. It's one of the best choices I ever made. I thought quitting would be so much harder than it actually was," she says. "I used nicotine patches and followed the directions on the back of the box to a 't.' I was so scared to take off that final patch because I had heard so many horror stories of people relapsing, but I can honestly say that my nicotine cravings were eliminated with patches."
In fact, that theme of reality conquering fear resonates throughout Lisa's life. "My husband and I once saw a therapist who said something that rung true to both of us: 'That is not your story.' We all hear these horrible stories of people not getting the results they hoped for, but life can surprise you in the best ways and be so much greater than you imagined. Your story can be good. These days, my husband will just look at me in moments of worry and remind me, 'Lisa, that is not your story.'"
Lisa's story is, indeed, a good one. This June, the longtime Murfreesboro resident celebrated 3 years cancer-free. Her busy schedule includes balancing her responsibilities as Rutherford County Clerk with her other roles as wife, mom, stepmom, and grandma.
