LupyLisa

Hi to all of you Grand Prix lovers! I have been MIA for quite a while due to some major health issues. Since I last posted, I went into stage 5 kidney failure caused by my Lupus. I had to start dialysis immediately. I now go to dialysis 3 days a week, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for 4 hours at a time. It's a bit if a drag. But it goes by pretty fast while spending time going down the many black holes that are on the internet. I'm grateful for dialysis because it's keeping me alive and I amfeeling much better than I had been feeling! I am not in a position to complain, so l just acceptit and keep on going! I have yet to have the big meeting with the transplant team at The University of Colorado Hospital. The meeting is necessary to get on the list for a new kidney! I have a couple of friends and a niece who are the right blood type, who have volunteered to get tested to see if they are a match. I'm told the first meeting is very long and involved with many medical, psy hologram and financial tests and evaluations to see if I qualify. They said it could be an 8 hour or longer day. I'm waiting to get a bit stronger before I make that appointment! While getting ready for dialysis, they had to do surgery to put an arterial/venous fistula in my arm. An A/V fistula is when they connect a vein and an artery together to be able to insert the needles to an input and an output access point needed for filtering my blood dialysis. One goes into the vein and comes out of the artery (or vice-versa) From day one the fistula site was causing a lot of problems, mostly pain. I was told it had to mature before it could be used for dialysis. The surgeon said to wait another month, but I was not in a position to wait. My kidneys took a dive into stage 5, End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) so they could not wait to start dialysis on me. I went in on the Friday of the second week to get dialized and the fistula was killing me!! It was way too painful to use. They attempted to put the needles in but I just couldn't tolerate it. The needles are a much larger gauge than your typical blood draw, IV or needles used for an injection. They attempted to insert the needles but made them stop! I left the dialysis center and went straight the surgeon's office in Boulder (a half hour drive) to have it looked at. As I was walking into the surgeon's office, he was waking out because he had been called into an Emergency surgery. I saw the physician assistant instead. They didn't really know what to make of it. They gave me some pain medication and an Rx strength numbing cream. Plus I am on a fentanyl patch for pain caused by a botched abdominal surgery in 2018. None of it worked to control the pain. On the evening of July 4th, it was causing me so much pain, I decided to go to the ER. They didn't know what the problem was, but thought it could be infected. So they decided to admit me that night. Thank God they did!!!🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 The next morning, I was talking to my husband on the phone when I felt something in my arm pop, followed by an odd and unbelievably intense pain!!! It turned out that my fistula had ruptured and caused a major bleed. And, it was an ARTERIAL bleed! That is a real emergency situation!!! With an Arterial bleed, time is of the essence! It only takes a couple of minutes for a person to bleed out and die!!! I hit the call button for the nurse, but they weren't answering it! In a panic, I got out of bed and ran down the hall dragging my IV pole screaming "HELP!!! I need some help, right freaking now!!!" The nurses all came running toward me! When they saw what was happening, they sent out a full on alert to the rapid response team which is nearly the same as calling a Code Blue! The pain was like nothing I've ever experienced in my life! It was so bad I was writhing and screaming in pain!!! 🥵 They had to get the bleeding under control before anything else could happen. In order to do that, they had to apply an insane amount of pressure to my arm, by any means available. They grabbed whatever they could and wrapped it very, very tightly! Then they applied two blood pressure cuffs. One cuff above and one cuff below the fistula/bleed site. Then they pumped the cuffs up as far as they would go!!! Everything they did only added to the intensity of the pain! It was so bad, I was crying and nearly passed out!🥺😰😭😵 Once they got the bleeding semi- under control. I had to have emergency surgery to tie off the blood vessels. The next day I had to have another surgery to put in a central line catheter by my collar bone in order to have an access site so I could still get dialysis. That catheter goes directly into my heart. I was in the ICU for 5 days! Had I not gone to the hospital, I would have probably bled out and died! ☠☠ I figure that by the time I could figure out what was happening. Then calling 911 for an ambulance, 🚑 and the time it would take for an ambulance to get to my house. It would have definitely taken way too much time and I would have most likely exsanguinated!!! 😳🩸🩸🩸☠ This is one of many "bumps in the road" in my nearly 40 years of battling lupus and many other secondary or accompanying health issues caused by lupus. The kidney doctor said that in his 45 years of being a practicing nephrologist, he has never had any patient experience a ruptured fistula! The surgeon had never seen it happen either!!! For some reason, I'm always that one-in-a- million patient who has to have something extreme, weird, uncommon and/or catastrophic happen to. I guess u. Doing my part for medical research and advancement!!!🥴 Thankfully, I am doing okay now and the central line in my chest, makes dialysis so much easier! Unfortunately, I cannot keep the central line for an extended period if time because the risk of infection is too great. The catheter for it goes in by my collar bone and directly into my heart. If something foreign got into it, it would be devastating! if an infection were to occur, it could be deadly! Which means I will have to get another fistula put in my arm! Ugh! I'm I no hurry to do that again!☹ Sorry for rambling on, I just wanted you to know I didn't forget about you all! My friends all say I should write a book and call it "The Medical Miracles and Misadventures of Lisa." I also wanted to give you all an updated email address if you want to contact me for more information about the Gwynn Prix. My new email is: [email protected]. The other email (yahoo) was just to full of spam and junk to even try weed through to get to the real messages! If you tried to contact me on the yahoo email address, please try again using the new email address. I hope you are all doing well and are having a great Fall season! I really miss the Fall colors in Michigan! Here in Colorado it's a beautiful sea of gold aspen trees, but not many other colors like in we had Michigan!

The cookbook is still in manuscript form and buried somewhere in my basement!

http://m.lynchandsonsclawson.com/obituaries/events?obituaryId=605138 In case anyone is interested. Here is my step dad, Bob Gwynn's obituary. Some of the dates are incorrect. His kids who wrote it were already grown up and gone when I came into the picture in 1972. They missed a lot of firsthand information that I have. It's unfortunate that his family completely edited my mother, Janet Gwynn, out of his obituary. Which I think is a pretty crappy thing to do! She was a good and dutiful wife. Who supported all of his endeavors. And she deserves to be acknowledged in his obituary! Without my mom, many of these projects would never have gotten off the ground! She was married to Bob for over 25 years! She was the one who had to put up with him building the car in our house. She made all the workers lunches and dinners. All while there was another crew working on putting a red clay tennis court in our backyard! She also worked in the men's store. She did the books. Which was a full time job she did for years without pay! They did mention their mother Irene who was his first wife and mother to his kids. She passed away at a young age.. I am sure she sacrificed as much or more than my mom in service to Bob and his creative and sometimes cockamamy ideas. Some corrections to the obituary: The solid mahogany suit of armor mentioned was not created until the early 90's. He was legally blind by the time the actual carving was done. He did carve it, but once it was carved, he hired a guy to finish the wood burning designs on the outside of it, under his direct supervision. The cookbook he supposedly Co-authored was written and researched in full by my mother. I have the original manuscript in my possesion. She tested all the recipes on us for a full year! It was a peanut butter cookbook. After that year of testing, I never wanted to see, eat or smell peanut butter ever again!🤢 now with the internet, writing a cookbook isn't not a very lucrative idea. If I want a peanut butter recipe,, I'll ask Google for one. The gentleman's school of design in New York is now known as Parsons school of design. The woman who was referenced in the obituary named Elsa Kosken was actually Elsa Koskenin. Sorry, I didn't mean to sound bitter. I just think credit should be given where credit is due . She deserves credit for her contribution and support of all of his projects.

Re: Gwynn Prix I can't figure out how to reply to all the posts about my step dad's custom car, The Gwynn Prix! I keep remembering tid bits of information here and there. This is what I remember thus far. The Gwynn Prix was entered into AUTORAMA car show/competition in Detroit. It won first place in its category. But I cannot remember the year or the category. Re: Bob's patent for clothing design. The patent was for Template Tailoring. It was a new way to make custom clothing like men's suits, sport coats, pants etc. He would take a man's measurements then cut out a template for each piece in cardboard. Then he took the template to trace on the fabric to cut and make a suit out of each piece of fabric. He would also make custom clothing for women as well. Everyone in our family had at least one custom piece! There are pictures of the car build in progress. I'm just not sure if I have them or he got them back after he and my mom divorced. What I can tell you is that our garage, where the car was being built, had all sorts of crazy sounds, smells, lots of dust, paint and clay! The design for the custom bumpers were first modeled in clay. After that, there were molds made out of fiberglass. There were many different incarnations before they found the right one!! Bob did all the woodwork on the car by hand. There were all sorts of workers coming in and out of our house all the time! Each of them had their own expertise in different parts and stages of the car. There is no doubt that Bob Gwynn was a talented guy! In addition to his high end men's store and custom tailoring, he also owned a fabric store. There was a barbershop in the upper level of the men's store bulding! He was a really good woodworker. There were many different types of furniture that he made for our home. One particular table he made for my mother contained slate from the mines in Keswick, England located in the Lakeland, Cumberland region. That area is known for their high quality slate. My grandfather (Bob's father in law) was born in Keswick in 1907. He was brought to the States when he was a little boy in 1912. Bob also made custom lamps at one point and other items or home accessories .There is no doubt that From men's clothing, home furnishing, a restaurant, a fabric store and a women's clothing store which was actually my mother's store. He was always working on or tinkering with something. He had a great workshop at our home. The car design was something he always wanted to do. He tapped into some of his contacts in the auto industry for advice and took on the huge project of redesigning a car! You should have seen the car he drove before the Gwynn Prix! It was also a Pontiac Grand Prix. I'm not sure what year it was, but it by looking at pictures it was a 1969 or 1970 white grand prix. All he seats in that car were all covered in needlepoint. The guys at the local car wash always knew his pimped out car was coming down the line! I dont think they'd ever seen anything like it before! It wasn't just the inner part of the seat, like in the Gwynn Prix. It was the entire back bench seat and both of the front seats!!! So I guess that was his initial foray into the customization of a car prior to the Gwynn Prix. After the second Gwynn prix was made, there was a problem with the front grill vents. At one point, they were not allowing enough air into the engine. So, after trying to work out the problem, he made me drive it all around town while he followed in my '78 Buick Regal. I was so embarrassed to be seen driving that car! I was a teenager and everyone in my school referred to the car as a Bat Mobile! He then had me take it out on the expressway and told me to really punch it, gun it and to drive it really hard. ( they didn't call me LEAD FOOT LISA for nothing!!!😉😛😁) The whole purpose was to see if I could overheat the engine and to see if the problem had been fixed or not. Thank God it didn't overheat or breakdown on me!!! I guess they had found a solution to the problem. I never wanted to be seen driving that car ever again! It was hard enough to live my first drive in it down!! So many people made fun of me! It was mortifying. I went to pick up my friend, Lia Iacocca, up for a concert at Pine Knob. My step dad, wanted me to take the Gwynn Prix 2.0 to pick her up so her dad, Lee Iacocca, would see it. I had to draw the line right then and there! I told him that Mr. Iacocca was out of town. Then I refused to ever drive it again! Honestly, it was way too much car for me! I could barely see over the steering wheel! I was a tiny little thing back then. Heck I am still tiny as an adult! 56 years old who is 5' 3'' in tall and all of 91 lbs! The second Gwynn Prix was a burgundy/red color with black trim. I am not sure what happened to that one. Anyone who would like more information can reach me at my email: [email protected]

Thank you for editing my phone number out of my post! If anyone wants to contact me, they can do so through my email: [email protected]

Hi Allan Happy to hear from you! The subject of the Gwynn Prix was brought up on an online Facebook group called "You Know You're from Birmingham, Michigan..." I had started a discussion about a restaurant that my step-dad, Bob Gwynn, owned called The Beef & Bun. The restaurant was before my time and I was curious if anyone remembered it. I Googled the car and was surprised to find this forum. I had done a few searches in the past, but did not come up with much information. The only thing I knew was that the car was somewhere in England. I no longer live in the Detroit area. I currently live in Longmont, Colorado. I would be happy to talk with you about the car. My memory is pretty good, but I don't remember all the minute details. I helped hand rub the paint finish. That, plus the many, many errands I ran for supplies was the extent of my contribution to building the car. The timeline on the build out was not done in 1973. The car itself was a 1973 pontiac grand prix model. There were many designs and molds created before they arrived at the final design for the front end and bumpers. The actual building of the car started later in 1978 or '79. I turned 16 in 1979. Which is when I got my driver license. All the errand I ran were after I turned 16 and could drive. You can contact me on my cell number. We are on Mountain time here which is 2 hours behind Detroit. I should also mention that I don't do mornings! I have an autoimmune disease called Systemic Lupus Erythmatosis which causes a lot of aches and pains among other things. It makes mornings very difficult for me. It takes me a while to get all the kinks worked out of my body! Hence the nickname Lupylisa. The best time to reach me is in the afternoon or early evening. I look forward to hearing from you! Take care, Lisa Scallen

On the spec sheet/brochure for the car it says (attached) New brakes & exhaust system New steel belted radial tires Completely rebuilt engine and drive train. It also mentions a "model B" which was the second one that was made. It had less customization than the first. Bob Gwynn drove the model B to work every day for a while.

Hello, My name is Lisa. Robert Gwynn was my step-father. I was a witness to the making of the Gwynn Prix. It was built at our house, in the garage, in Birmingham, Michigan USA I will do my best to answer any questions you may have. My mom and my step-father Bob Gwynn Sr. Passed away a several years ago. I'm the only one left who actually witnessed the making of the car first hand. I even helped at times!!! There was another Gwynn Prix built with less customization than the original. It was a burgundy color. I guess you could say it was more of a production model. My step-dad drove the second one quite often. I am not sure what happened to that one. I knew the original was in the UK somewhere.