Hammer time: Whacks at Denair home to strike blows against tumor

Hughson resident Eli LoBue has friends and family members so enthusiastic about helping her overcome illness, you could say they’re bringing the house down.

And on Saturday, with help from the community, they’ll do just that – as much as possible with sledgehammers, anyway.

Project Demolition Tumor will ask people to donate $1 in exchange for a sledgehammer swing at an interior or exterior wall of a 1912 house on Santa Fe Avenue in Denair.

The 900-square-foot, one-bedroom house is owned by Sherri Morris and her mother, the Rev. Hilda Morris of Empire Assembly of God Church. When Sherri Morris was diagnosed with a malignant tumor in 2014, LoBue was “a huge support” as her friend went through chemotherapy, radiation and three surgeries, she said.

Now cancer-free, she’s taking her turn, along with her mom and brother, J.T., to help LoBue, who has been diagnosed with a pineal gland cyst/tumor in her brain.

The past four years “have been a nightmare,” 31-year-old LoBue said. The mass, more than a centimeter in diameter, has caused steady pain, migraine headaches, sensitivity to light, tremors, fatigue, nausea and “neurological problems with my right side, especially,” she said.

LoBue’s mother, Amy, said they’ve had problems getting doctors to take her illness seriously, even though the tumor is visible on MRIs. Eli LoBue said her primary doctor diagnosed her with fibromyalgia, and specialists have prescribed multiple medications and sent her to counseling for depression and panic attacks.

“They didn’t think it was large enough to be causing her problems,” Amy LoBue said. “It’s not so much the size, but what it’s pushing on.”

“The quadrigeminal plate,” Eli finished.

She said she sent an MRI to the Skull Base Institute in Los Angeles, whose director, Dr. Hrayr K. Shahinian, agreed the tumor is causing many of her symptoms. Eli has had a personal consultation with him and said he will perform a noninvasive surgery that is expected to take four hours, as opposed to about 13 for open-skull surgery.

“I’m in a support group, and a lot of people have been through everything I’ve been through and said he was their way out,” Eli said. Several people have told her that 99 percent of their symptoms went away after surgery.

But Eli’s insurance does not cover the surgery, which will cost her about $71,000, she said. So friends including the Morrises and others at Empire Assembly of God have been doing fundraisers. A walkathon in February raised about $1,000, J.T. Morris said, and in addition to Saturday’s Project Demolition Tumor, a motorcycle run/spaghetti dinner is planned for May.

For Project Demolition Tumor, J.T. Morris said, they figure to raise at least $1,000, though he has grander hopes of raising up to $10,000.

The Morrises aren’t demolishing the house for Eli, but rather helping her through a project already in the works. The house has been in the family a long time, purchased by Hilda’s father, who left it to her. Sherri Morris has lived there about 14 years, but the house’s condition has continued to deteriorate.

“To bring it up to code would be more costly than to pull it down and put something else there,” Hilda Morris said. Once the home is leveled professionally after Saturday’s fundraiser, the plan is to put a modular home on the property, where Sherri and her new husband will live.

Eli said that what friends and loved ones are doing for her is “amazing. It gives me faith and courage to go forward.”

She and her domestic partner, Leah LoBue, have been together the past six years, but 15 years altogether. Leah’s two older children call Eli their stepmom, while the two younger ones think of her as “dad.”

“You’ve got to stay strong for the ones who love you and support you,” Eli said Thursday outside the Denair home, sitting with Leah, her mother, J.T. and Hilda. They were joined a bit later by Sherri, who has moved most of her belongings out of the house and is having the utilities shut off.

Eli said she’s never asked: Why me, God?

“It never crossed my mind,” she said. “I trust him so much and I know that things will get worse before they get better, but it will all be worth it.”

Added her mother: “She knows her role now is to spread awareness of the disease and awareness of faith. We’ve met so many awesome people because of this.”

This story was originally published March 17, 2016 at 4:26 PM with the headline "Hammer time: Whacks at Denair home to strike blows against tumor."