Acclaimed food writer and award-winning journalist Bridgette Lacy is one of the Tar Heel State’s literary treasures.
For more than three decades, starting in 1992 when she became the first African American features writer with the News & Observer, Lacy’s graceful, drylongso writing style has informed, entertained and inspired thousands of readers.
“Description is her thing,” says Adrienne Johnson, Lacy’s longtime friend and former N&O colleague.
Lacy left the N&O in 2008 and briefly worked as media relations specialist with the NC Arts Council. But she never stopped writing. Her more recent work as a freelance writer includes contributions to Newsweek, the Washington Post, Southern Living, and The Carolina Table: North Carolina Writers on Food.
The skilled, prolific wordsmith is also the author of Sunday Dinner: A Savor the South Cookbook, a finalist for the Pat Conroy Cookbook Prize.
In late April, Johnson and two more of Lacy’s close friends and former N&O co-workers, Sheon Ladson Wilson and Joyce Hicks, organized a GoFundMe page, “Bridgette Lacy is Down, But Not Out,” after the award-winning journalist and writer suffered a series of mini-strokes.
The sassy, witty, wonderfully irreverent writer needs our help.
By Tuesday of this week, 124 people had contributed $12,786. That’s a little over a third of the fundraiser’s goal of $30,000.
Lacy, after a month in the hospital and rehab, returned home last week.
“We’re happy (most of the time) that we’ve got Bridgette back,” Johnson, who now works for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, wrote on Lacy’s GoFundMe page. “But she’s got bills.”
In addition to household bills, Lacy—who relied on health insurance coverage that she retained while working with the state—is also expecting significant bills from the hospital and rehabilitation center.
“Her biggest support has come from her N&O family,” Johnson told the INDY last week about the fundraising effort. “The N&O staffers started giving right away.
Former N&O staffer and sports journalist Jemele Hill gave $1,000, Johnson said, and mentioned it on her social media platforms.
“Jemele didn’t even hesitate, and Jemele hasn’t seen Bridgette in 15 years,” Johnson continued. “There were others who wrote, ‘Make sure Bridgette knows we love her.’ We raised almost $10,000 in three days. An anonymous person who worked for the N&O gave $1,000 twice. It was their intent to get us to $10,000.”
Lacy this week told the INDY she did not even realize she had endured a series of mini-strokes. She says it was before the end of March when she noticed a “floater” in her eye.
“It looks like a smoke ring, or something, above the eye,” Lacy explains. “You’re like, ‘what the hell is that?’”
Lacy says while looking at TV, the floater would appear above the screen, like it was part of the television set’s design.
“That’s weird,” she thought to herself. “Maybe I’m just tired.”
But the next day, while making a stop at the Chick-Fil-A, she realized her eyes were sensitive to sunlight. She told Joyce Hee what was happening. Her decades-long friend and former co-worker persuaded her to talk with her doctor and undergo testing.
“Joyce is my guardian angel,” Lacy says. “Joyce is a momma. She knows how to come in here and get things moving.”
Sheon Ladson Wilson took Lacy to the hospital on a Friday afternoon for an MRI test.
“On Saturday morning, my oncologist called,” says Lacy, who worried that the problem may have been the resurgence of brain tumors she was diagnosed with in 1999 and 2009.
“The tumors were benign, but with a brain tumor, it can still kill you,” Lacy says. “My oncologist told me, ‘”The good news is the brain tumors have not grown. The bad news is you have had a series of strokes.’”
Lacy was treated at Duke Raleigh Hospital for several days before doctors moved her to the Rex Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, where she would perform a series of physical exercises each day as part of her recovery; walking up and down steps, kicking her legs out, arm stretches, along with standing up and sitting back down.
“I had to show that my core muscles were working,” explains Lacy, adding that listening to “Uptown Funk” by Bruno Mars helped with her recovery.
Lacy says the test included mental exercises, and doctors determined she could “count money really well,” and solve word problems.
Now that she’s back home, Lacy says the goal is “to get back to my level of prior function before the incident.”
The biggest challenge medically is what her doctors describe as “left neglect.” For example, when they asked her to draw a calendar, she put all of the numbers on the right side.
In addition to the financial challenges, Lacy is worried about resuming her writing career posed by current health limitations she must overcome.
“You know, it’s tough. I’m not sure what my writing is going to be like,” she says. “Right now, I’m not sure if I can drive again, and I have problems seeing things on the computer. I get numbers confused. I’m doing a lot of reading out loud, but I want to cut the letters off the left side of the page. I read ‘all’ instead of ‘call.’ Some of it is re-training. I see it, but my brain wants to ignore it.”
Lacy’s 79-year-old mother has traveled to the Triangle to help out.
“Seeing her made me feel better,” Lacy says. “Mom came from DC while I was at the hospital. I just wanted to get in bed with my mommy and take a nap like I did when I was a child … Just seeing her face, her smile, is healing.”
Want to help? Check out the GoFundMe here.
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