Lori Coble, a California mom who lost three children in a car crash and then had triplets via IVF, has been diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer, according to PEOPLE.
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On May 4, 2007, Lori and her three children — Kyle Christopher, 5, Emma Lynn, 4, and Katie Gene, 2 — sat in standstill traffic on a freeway in California. They were on their way to their Orange County home when a tractor trailer slammed into the back of their minivan. None of the children survived.
Despite being traumatized, Lori and her husband, Chris Coble, 54, made a pact to not end their own lives and support each other. As they mourned their children, the couple realized they still wanted to be parents.
The couple explored adoption and reversing Chris’ vasectomy, to no avail. So, they pursued IVF (in vitro fertilization). The process gave them back three viable embryos: two girls and a boy. Chris said, “Exactly like we lost.” In 2010, Lori told Oprah Winfrey that it seemed like a sign.
Almost exactly a year after the deaths of their older children, the couple welcomed their triplets, who each carry an older sibling’s middle name: Jake Christopher, Ashley Lynn, Ellie Gene. Chris said:
“It took me over four years to come out of the fog and pain of what happened. The first three years of raising the triplets you have this mix of joy and happiness and at the same time, you’re in pain on the inside. There’s these three babies and they’re all joy…. But at the same time, I was trying to avoid falling apart in front of them, I’d go into the other room and cry real quick and come back and put a smile on my face.”
California Mom Who Lost 3 Children In Car Crash Diagnosed With Stage 4 Brain Cancer
After welcoming their triplets, Lori dove head-first into motherhood again and began bringing awareness to highway safety, wanting to protect other children. But by June 2025, Chris began noticing a change with his 48-year-old wife, claiming she was becoming “more clumsy.”
He claimed she would run into walls, stub her toes on chairs, and drop glasses on the floor more often. In early July 2025, Chris noticed Lori with stroke-like symptoms. He recalled, “Her mouth started to droop a little bit. It became too much to ignore.”
Quickly reacting, he drove his wife to the emergency room at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo on July 11. The medical professionals there diagnosed her with a very large, very aggressive, stage 4 glioblastoma, a brain cancer. Chris recalled how the diagnosis left the family devastated. He said, “I was hoping we were done with the life-changing, life-altering disasters where life as you knew it yesterday is gone.”
Lori was left with two choices: fight the cancer or make the best of her remaining time left. Doctors said without treatment, she could live about a month or two. With treatment, professionals estimated she had 12 to 15 months to live.
Chris said, “She wanted to fight it.” Becky Leonard, 45, a family friend added, “She wants to e be a grandma. She wants to be there when her kids graduate. She wants her life that she’s built so beautifully.” Chris continued:
“Everything we do is not to save her life, it’s to keep her alive as long as possible. I started mourning the loss of my wife the day she got diagnosed. I didn’t have a lot of hope at the outset – and that weighed heavily on me. I was really upset, mad, angry. How could this be happening to us again?”
Lori Coble’s Second Tumor Continues To Grow Fast, Second Surgery Needed
On July 12, one day after driving to the ER, Lori had her first brain surgery to resect one of two conjoined masses. A few days later, Lori was discharged and sent home. But in two weeks, the second half of the tumor had grown by 25% and began impacting her vision.
With doctors wanting to quickly remove the mass, Lori was back in surgery for a second time. However, this one was more complicated and riskier since it involved part of the brain that controls cognition, movement, and vision.
On August 1, Lori and her family drove nearly 90 minutes to cancer center City of Hope, in Duarte, CA. Before surgery, doctors told the family there was a 30% chance Lori may lose motor control on her left side. But, the family remained “generally hopeful that the 70% might go well.” Sadly, the doctors warning came true.
Five days after Lori’s second surgery, when she was supposed to go home, she suffered a massive stroke. Doctors rushed her into emergency surgery to relieve the pressure in her brain. Chris recalled how scary it was, stating, “She could have easily died. The doctors told me she had a 50 percent chance to live.”
Following surgery, she was placed in a medically-induced coma, with a ventilator and feeding tube. As Lori remained hospitalized for 40 days, her husband and mother remained at her bedside every day. Chris recalled the “emotional and physical” toll it took on him, and how he again contemplating taking his own life. He said:
“I had a very binary choice on September 28th. And that’s take my own life because I don’t know if can continue, or raise my hand for help. And I did the latter. That was the day I understood why caregivers have a far higher rate of suicide than the national average. … You’re just so exhausted in so much pain and emotional struggle. You just can’t, don’t want to continue.”
Chris Coble Contemplates Life Again As Wife Battles Stage 4 Brain Cancer After Losing Three Children In Car Crash
Ultimately, Chris had his triplets to think about. They were just beginning their senior year of high school and he couldn’t leave them with “both parents missing.” Fortunately, Lori was in the hospital making slow, but steady progress. After becoming more alert and more conscious, doctors approved her to go home.
While she was too young for a nursing home, she was sent to a 15-bed hospital for patients with traumatic brain injuries. Wanting to be home with her family, Chris created a “mini-hospital” in their home in October 2025. Chris insisted:
“I want the best care for Lori. Day to day, my only decisions is: What’s the best for her? And how can I keep her going? Because her cancer is terminal, we’re just buying time every day.”
Since Lori being home, Chris said the family’s been happy and her mental health has been great. She also began chemotherapy and radiation treatments, five days a week for three weeks. However, Lori’s had to undergo additional treatments and extra care.
She’s without control of her left side, needing a special lift to pull her out of bed, and since she’s spent so long lying down, she didn’t have “core strength, leg strength, and all her muscles had been atrophied.” Her cancer treatments only made her more weak, tired, and even impacted her speech. Doctors felt she was getting worse.
By mid-November 2025, Chris took Lori to the emergency room, and doctors found a large infection in her brain, needing another surgery. Chris said they debated it, but ultimately went for it. He said:
“If it wasn’t dealt with that night, she would probably be dead in another day or. Even though Lori had told us very directly before that, ‘No more surgeries,’ I was trying to get an answer out of her. She wasn’t really responsive that evening. I’m like, ‘Honey, I know you said no more surgeries, but if we don’t do this one, you only have a couple of days left, what do we do?’
From a loved one’s perspective, you feel like she’s just being tortured. You’re so heartbroken for what she has to go through, over and over and over…. I’m not sure that the treatment for cancer in this situation is any better than the disease itself.””
California Family Set Up GoFundMe For Mom Battling Stage 4 Brain Cancer After Losing 3 Children And Having Triplets Via IVF
Post-surgery, Lori was still weak, but gradually gained strength and began speaking in full sentences. She felt well and strong enough to speak with PEOPLE in early December. The publication reports that a day before their scheduled interview, Lori was rushed to the ER with an infection in her lungs and pneumonia.
Since then, the infection is subsiding and Lori’s cognitive abilities are coming back, well enough for her to reject any more surgeries. Lori’s family is now planning to bring her home for hospice care. Chris, who’s been on an unpaid leave of absence from work since September, has launched a GoFundMe for Lori’s $30,000 a month home care. He said:
“I’m trying to make every day the best I can make it for her. I’m trying to make every day the best I can make it for her…
My wife as I knew her is gone, and I don’t know that she’s ever coming back to be the person I knew. Everything she’s gone through, she has been punched when she’s down over and over and over and over. The fact that she’s still alive is amazing. She’s been through so much. I want her to be alive for as long as possible. And I don’t know how long that is. I would give my life for hers in a heartbeat. But I can’t do that. I’m helpless.”
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