Lisa Michelle Moore’s Story: From Nurse to Patient

Lisa Michelle Moore is 59 years old. For 36 years, she worked as a nurse, caring for thousands of patients and building her life around helping others.

Nurse Lisa on the News

Her nursing career began in 1989 at Bullock Memorial Hospital. Lisa says she loved working with elderly patients and making people feel at home during difficult moments. Nursing was more than a job to her. It was a calling.

In 2017, Lisa was working at East Georgia Regional Medical Center, about 13 miles from her home, when her life first changed in a major way. On her way to work, she says she was hit by an 18-wheeler. The accident led to back surgery and shoulder surgery. In 2018, she resigned from the hospital and went on medical leave. The government later declared her disabled from the accident.

East Georgia Regional Medical Center is where Lisa was a Nurse

Even after leaving hospital work, Lisa continued helping people. Before the pandemic, she was baking for elderly people, helping them get food, giving rides, and staying involved in her community.

When the pandemic arrived, Lisa says she made the decision to receive the COVID vaccine because she was around many elderly people. There was fear, uncertainty, and pressure everywhere. She received two Moderna COVID shots in 2021.

Then, on December 12, 2021, Lisa says she received the Moderna booster.

Two weeks later, on December 26, 2021, she went to the emergency room with painful lesions on her left lateral leg. She says the lesions looked like a venous stasis-type ulcer and caused severe nerve pain. At first, doctors diagnosed her with cellulitis. Lisa says they also wondered whether a spider bite could have caused it.

But the lesions did not stop.

Lisa kept going back to the emergency room. Over time, more sores appeared. The pain continued. Her weakness grew worse. She says she knew something was wrong because, before the booster, she had not had skin problems like this.

Lisa describes the condition in simple terms: her immune system becomes overwhelmed. When her body fights an infection, she says it also attacks her. She says it inflames her red blood cells, causes sores, and attacks her skin, the body’s largest organ.

By April 2023, her condition had worsened so much that she was admitted to the hospital. Lisa says that by then, she could not walk. The lesions kept coming, and her body was under attack.

Eventually, Lisa was diagnosed with urticarial vasculitis. She says there is no cure for her condition. She also says one of her doctors, Dr. Ian Ward, told her there were no FDA-approved drugs for it because there are not enough people with the condition for studies.

That means much of her treatment has been experimental.

Lisa says she has been treated with medications including Dapsone, prednisone, Humira, and Cellcept. She describes Cellcept as a drug used for kidney transplant patients to help stop the body from rejecting a kidney. In her case, the goal is to suppress her immune system so it stops attacking her body.

From Nurse to Patient

But the treatments have also created problems. Lisa says steroids make her anxious and easily agitated, yet she needs them to suppress her immune system. She says her doctor believes she may need to remain on a small dose of prednisone for the rest of her life because she has been on steroids for so long.

Lisa says she has also had allergic reactions and bad reactions to some medications.

Her health complications have been severe. She says she has experienced congestive heart failure, respiratory failure, blood clots in her lung, aspiration pneumonia, repeated skin infections, upper respiratory infections, oxygen use, and loss of teeth related to the effects of treatment.

She has required strong antibiotics, including vancomycin and Zosyn, during hospital visits. She worries that repeated antibiotic use could eventually lead to resistance.

The pain has changed her daily life. Lisa describes it as constant burning nerve pain. Some days, she says, even taking a shower is difficult because the burning is so intense. She uses triamcinolone cream, antibiotic ointment, and pain medication, but says the pain still affects her sleep, movement, and ability to live normally.

Because her immune system is suppressed, Lisa says she has to be extremely careful around people. She says she is not infectious, but other people can infect her. Restaurants, churches, hospitals, and crowded places all carry risk. She says she sometimes has to wear a mask, but even that is not always enough. Recently, while visiting the hospital because her father was sick, Lisa says she became ill after being exposed to a coughing nurse and developed an upper respiratory infection that lasted two weeks.

The focus now, according to Lisa, is protecting her internal organs. She fears that if the disease reaches certain organs, she could face even more serious complications, possibly including kidney problems.

Lisa says she eventually went to Emery Hospital, where a doctor told her she was allergic to the COVID vaccine and documented it as an allergic reaction. Before that, she says she had already reported her suspicions through vaccine injury reporting channels, and her chart was sent to the CDC. At the time of the interview, she was still waiting to hear back.

She also says she filed a compensation claim, but it was denied because of timing. According to Lisa, the program allowed only one year from the time of diagnosis. She believes that if she had received a biopsy immediately when the sores first appeared in December 2021, the diagnosis may have come within the allowed timeframe. Instead, by the time she was diagnosed, the deadline had passed.

Lisa has reached out to multiple people and organizations. She says she has been in touch with React19 and has received help from an RN named Lisa Anstead. She says she has emailed Dr. Peter McCullough and received a response about possible video or in-person visits, though the cost was very high. She also says she has tried to contact public figures and wants to get her story to Washington.

Lisa has also connected with other people who say they were injured after vaccination. Some have different symptoms. Some have lesions. Some are on oxygen. Some are dealing with conditions Lisa believes may be connected but are not always recognized. She says people often do not know they may have something like urticarial vasculitis unless they receive a biopsy.

In August 2024, Lisa says she shared her story with WTLC News. Still, she says she feels forgotten. She says she spent 20 years serving at East Georgia Regional Medical Center and remains connected to that world, yet when she became the patient, she did not receive the support she expected.

That experience has changed the way she sees the medical system.

Lisa says becoming a patient has been “very enlightening.” After 36 years of nursing, she says she learned that people do not always receive the care, recognition, or compassion they gave to others.

Despite everything, Lisa continues to speak with faith and determination. She says she is trusting God, thinking of her mother’s words — “Keep on pushing, Lisa” — and trying to keep fighting.

She wants her story heard not only for herself, but for others.

Lisa says she is looking for more people like her. She wants to take other stories with her. She wants people who feel ignored, dismissed, or mocked to know they are not alone.

She says people may laugh or mock, but they cannot stop those who are living through it.

Lisa’s message is simple: she is a real person, with real wounds, real pain, and a real story. She says this is not in her head. It is on her body and in her body.

Nurse Lisa Network exists because of that message.

After 36 years of caring for others, Lisa says the medical system abandoned her when she needed help most. This site was created to share her story, connect others, and build a community that does not give up on people.