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PATTI H


I was a caregiver for 11 months to my mother, Gert Milton, who passed away on August 15,1998. My mother was a healthy,loving, and compassionate person and the news of her diagnosis sent her into a tailspin from which she did not recover. When diagnosed, she was stage IV, liver mets, no hope. My brother and I left no stone unturned in thesearch for treatment. She was on gemzar for two months until we took her to New York to try radiosurgery. When we returned, she started on back on Gemzar and remained on it until the last month of her life. We felt she was being patronized by her oncologist (prescribing massive doses of different drugs,without ever doing any tests), so we took her to the Cancer Treatment Center of America. There she received wonderful mental and physical help, but unfortunately we were too late. Her doctor prescribed a feeding tube, but when he went to operate,he found that the radiosurgery had created a huge hole in her stomach, which had caused her to basically stop eating for the previous 3 months. I believe if she had been able to keep her strength up, coupled with a more aggressive attitude,and more thorough doctors, she may have survived longer. I learned that no doctor ever gave me a complete picture of her situation, and that I had to fight for every small victory. The world has truly lost a great human being, and I am tortured by the thought of what she had to go through every waking moment of those 11 months. Pancreatic cancer is truly a horror and we need to make strides towards early detection and a cure.

Posted 10/28/1998 03:58 pm by Patti H
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