for those who get a new lung is 90 per-
cent, about 60 percent for four-year sur-
vival. By comparison, the breast cancer sur-
fibrosis patient, said, “I used to hit the floor
running every morning.” Now, “I get a
shortness of breath, and I’m tired all the
time.” Spivey lost breathing capacity
quickly, in just more than a year, he said.
Things he was able to do with ease now
are beyond him.
Taking on the establishment
Teresa Barnes takes pulmonary fibrosis
very personally. “This disease has killed my
family. It may kill me. It threatens my daugh-
ter and my brother and sister and all of my
cousins and all of their children now, and
then it will threaten their children. Unless
we find a cure now, this thing isn’t stopping.”
Barnes and her twin sister, Lisa
Richardson Waller ’ 87, graduated from
Cumberland County’s South View High
School in 1983. Lisa went to Appalachian
State and transferred to UNC after two
years, majoring in advertising and earning a
degree from the School of Journalism and
Mass Communication; Teresa studied cos-
metology at Robeson Community College
and became a hair stylist.
She married young and cut hair, eventually enrolling at Campbell University. A
professor at Pembroke State University
approached her with the offer of a scholarship and an opportunity to anchor the
school’s television news program. After one
year at Pembroke, she headed to Chapel
Hill, “where I always knew I wanted to go,”
for what had to be two of the most intense
years any undergraduate undertakes.
During the 1993-95 academic years,
Barnes scheduled her classes for Tuesdays
and Thursdays so she could continue to cut
hair. And, during her senior year, she was a
weekend reporter for a TV station and a
freelance writer for a newspaper.
In 2003, about the time Billy Richardson was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis,
Duke was conducting a genetic research
project on the disease. Doctors asked the
Richardsons to join. Family members were
screened and, when suspicious evidence
arose, they were tested further. At least two
of Barnes’ cousins were screened further.
By this time, pulmonary fibrosis was
playing a major role in Barnes’ life —
beyond that of the disease that had killed
her father in 1996. One of the physicians
who took part in her father’s transplant at
Duke, Dr. James Mault, had hired her in
1999 to conduct public relations for his new
high-tech health company in Colorado. The
job brought her into almost immediate con-
tact with pulmonologists and efforts to fight
CAROLINA ALUMNI REVIEW
