Story As Told to Ashley Elvington Marriage Love &
(leſt) Speed and Lisa before prom in 1978.
(below) Speed and Lisa with granddaughter, Charlee, and daughters, Mandy and Alex with her husband, Chad.
Lisa & Speed Young
Editor’s Note: I met Lisa Young while working with her to bring Candace Cameron Bure to our She Inspires event. Early in our talks, I learned of her story and was so touched that I asked her to share it with our readers in this Love & Marriage issue. Thankfully, Lisa agreed. I’m sure it will warm your hearts as much as it did mine.
Speed and Lisa Young met one another at age 16. Speed recalls, “I went with my
friend to a rival high school girls’ soſtball game. I saw this beautiful girl that was a very good player and thought she was a complete package for some lucky guy.” Luckily for him, he had the chance to meet her when they attended a double date with mutual friends. Lisa adds, “My date and I were going on a double date with him and his girl- friend. I thought he was super cute, but I didn’t think I stood a chance.” Speed admits he knew she was the one when he couldn’t stop thinking about her
aſter that night. “The whole time I kept thinking, ‘how can a girl this beautiful have such a great personality?’ I hoped and prayed that somehow we would get together.” When they finally did, everything seemed to fall into place. “It all clicked. His beliefs, his family, his heart – they all fell in line with mine and it just felt right from the be- ginning.” In December 1978, Speed and Lisa became husband and wife at the age of 18. “Getting married was the next step. No one ever said to us, ‘Um, you’re 18, you might should wait.’ Everyone was like, ‘Oh Speed and Lisa? We knew they would get married.’ It was as obvious to everyone else as it was to me that he was the one. As we look back, we can’t imagine what we were thinking; but we know that we would do it all over again if given the chance!” Married life has been anything but easy for the two lovebirds. Since 1982, they have
faced numerous hospital visits due to life threatening illnesses. Lisa elaborates, “Our daughter, Mandy, was diagnosed by scientists at the National Institutes of Health as the only person in the world with her exact gene mutation. We’ve been told nine times over the years to kiss our child goodbye. She has suffered at the hands of life threatening bac- terial infections and scientific research on a level of pain that we can’t imagine.” Mandy
has suffered from spinal meningitis three times, countless seizures, a stroke that leſt the leſt side of her body paralyzed, as well as a misdiagnosed neuroblastoma tumor in her abdomen (of which she was given two weeks to live). “At age 3, doctors couldn’t make an exact diagnosis of what was happening to her, as she was dying before our eyes. They told us we had two treatment options and if we chose the wrong one, it would kill her. We watched the chosen liquid flow from the syringe into her lifeless arm. Our beaten bodies lay across her, praying that we hadn’t just injected death into her.” Four days aſter their youngest daughter Alex was born, Mandy was given one week
to live. She was taken to a hospital hours away from home to receive experimental treatment. Lisa only saw her new baby girl four times before she turned six weeks old while Mandy was hospitalized. When Mandy was 8 years old, doctors amputated her leg and hip in an attempt to save her life. She later contracted salmonella poisoning in her sinus glands, forming a mass that had eaten the bridge of her nose. Aſter seven sur- geries and months in the hospital, Mandy survived. These times tested their marriage, but Speed and Lisa triumphed over everything they faced together. “While we learned to be a married couple, we also had to learn how to live a life of having a sick child. The stress was unbearable and coming from different directions. We needed to be mad at someone, so we took it out on each other. But we knew how important we were to each other, so we fought even harder to stay together. Divorce was never an option. We saw many marriages and families fall apart during their child’s illness, so figuring out how to do this was our goal. We made a decision to never let anything outside of our family be more important than our family. We learned to laugh to keep our home happy. But most of all, we kept our faith first and we stayed in prayer.”
Speed and Lisa Young reside in Conyers, Georgia. They have two children: Mandy and Alex. Speed is a weight and inspection supervisor for ABF Freight Lines, where he has been employed for 27 years. Lisa is the ministry coordinator and booking agent for Candace Cameron Bure and Mandy. She also owns and operates Glam Embroidery (
www.facebook.com/glamembroidery) - an embroidery and design business - with Alex. They are the proud grandparents of one granddaughter, Charlee, and are anxiously awaiting the arrival of another in April.
124 February 2014
shemagazine.com
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