Update on Sandy O'Hara (Gwhiz)

[Guest guest]

Thought I would share part of Sandy's carepage post (written by her daughter)

here on Upsndowns. I owe so much to Sandy - she was an integral part of getting

Upsndowns started and helping the DS online community get started back in the

90's before there was a WWW. Please keep Sandy and her family in your prayers.

If anyone wants to join her carepages site, please let me know. I'll ask her

daughter to sign you up.

>On this page, it is so exciting to get messages from people, especially for

mom, she doesn't feel well these days and she has a lot of trouble calling

people and e-mailing and she just loves to read the messages from people on

here. She feels very alone sometimes and almost forgotten because she has

difficulties doing everyday tasks and doing all of the activities that she used

to do and doesn't get to talk to people very much, so keep those messages

coming. I know that you all are very busy, but they mean so much to her. So Mom

and Dad came back yesterday, they had a very nice time together and loved the

quiet of the cottage. Mom has not been feeling well these past few weeks, so I

am glad that they had a little bit of time together and didn't feel too bad. She

spends a lot of time in the bathroom and has severe stomach pain. It seems like

almost every time she eats she spends time with severe stomach cramping and pain

and then spends time in the bathroom. After she spends time in the bathroom then

she will take a Lomotol(anti-diarrheal/shuts down the GI tract) which makes her

extremely drowsy, so she sleeps for several hours then the process starts all

over again. It is no real way to live life. She is upset because she is always

asleep or in the bathroom and really isn't apart of everyone else's life, plus

she can't make any plans for anything because she never knows if she will be

doubled over in pain, have diarrhea, or be sleeping. It is hard because she is

thinking about stopping taking the chemo drug that is causing these side effects

and change to something else. But Dad is scared that if she stops taking the

Tarceva then she is giving up and that she will not get the same response. We do

not know if the Tarceva is having a positive effect of the tumors or not. Mom

will have another PET scan in 2 weeks, hopefully once we get those results then

we will know if the Tarceva is having a positive effect or not. I feel bad for

Dad because there is really nothing that anyone can tell him to comfort/counsel

him on whether changing medications would help or not. None of us in this family

know anymore then the other. I am thinking back to the days when I used to tell

Mom and my friends that I have not had much experience with oncology and would

like to learn more about it, but this is not the way that I wanted to do it. I

try to keep everything together and keep everyone on an even keel so I just try

to go through the motions. If I think about things too much at the time then I

will become to emotional and not have the most rational ideas or plans of

actions to help out anyone or myself. I think that is why I will be driving down

the road and then it all hits me. It is just like how I have been taught in the

medical field, you take care of the situation at hand with a level head and stay

calm, then later on go cry, throw up, whatever is needed. It is just kind of

different to need to do this is my own everyday life.........NEXT<

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cindysue@...