Patsy's Third Bout with Ovarian Cancer.

This is for you, DocG. It comes from a book my sister and I wrote about her cancer. These are her words, written about the time three weeks or so after her first cancer surgery, after she nearly died from a blood clot to her lung. She was in the hospital for six weeks the first time. Read it, then don't you ever talk to me about respecting a cancer victim again, because I know far too much about cancer and what it does to its victims.

"It has taken several minutes, but I am finally on my feet with only a little assistance. The funny chair looks so inviting, but my mind has locked onto one magical word, "home." I want to go home. It is to become my overriding desire.

"Two steps, then three, grasping the IV pole to steady my balance, a nurse on either side of me. Already the pain mounts steadily in sickening waves. Four steps, five, my feet scrape across the floor toward the door, out into the hallway, instinctively to the left and forward, each slow step bringing me closer to the tears of pain lurking within me.

I am dizzy. The nurses lower me into a chair at the nursing station. I bite my tongue against the pain. Blood pressure cuff, then a hypo. They will allow me to go on, ever watchful of my progress.

Forever...it takes forever to transverse that corridor. Into the lounge, finally, and a pillow-stuffed chair.

Someone is crying . . . long, tortured sobs . . . but there is nobody here but me. The tears are mine, witness to the utter desolation of my mind.

A spasm of painful coughing now . . . my vision clears . . . two nurses intently watch me. One leaves for a wheelchair, the other takes my swollen hand in her own cool, slender one. No words, none necessary.

I return to my room via chair-express and fall asleep, my body still convulsed with now-tearless sobs."

And, later...

"My lucid periods become more frequent. During one of these periods, I wake to find a nurse cleansing my sore body. As the hospital gown is lifted, my eyes are drawn to what is, in my tormented mind, the height of horror. Where my legs used to be lie massive, swollen tree trunks. The abdominal incisions and entire pubic and groin areas are literally a mass of metal staples, angry red, monstrously swollen.

The worst shock is in seeing the blood-red stoma protruding within the colostomy bag. I don't know what lies between these legs, nor do I wish to know. This hideously-carved being is not me.

Though the incessant chattering from the nurse never falters, her expression is one of carefully-masked disbelief.

I do not react when she has to go to ask about management of the wound area, unsure because of the massiveness of the surgical area involved and the horrible swelling.

As the days pass, more information is revealed to me by docvtors and family members. They are speaking of another person. Though I am most certainly here, I am infinitely far away and will remain so for months. A part of me will remain there forever. . ."

You opened up some painful wounds, Doc. I fight when I'm hurt. I wish you hadn't been so insensitive to those of us who have seen too much already.

 

I'm just sitting here in silence WY.

 

Me too, Freebird. I couldn't even bear to read more than the first few sentences. uhg. WY you are an angel for sticking by your sister through such an unbelievably ugly situation.

 

Wy

That is so horrifying and moving. She was lucky to have you.

 

There has never been anything written anywhere about Cancer, as devastating as your own sister's words, WY. Never!

 

I tried to pick out the least powerful of her words, because some people can't handle that kind of raw passion. My sister was a better writer than I, a talented artist with a new business about to open when she was diagnosed with this awful cancer. We never set out to write a book. She just needed to write about what was going on in her head, and she churned out page after page of the truth of what many cancer patients go through. I just needed to tell the story from my point of view. It was her cancer surgeon - the head of the GYN department at Roswell - who encouraged us to turn those pages into a book manuscript. In fact, he wrote the Foreword for the book. He told me that in all of his long career as a cancer surgeon, he had only ever encountered one other patient as courageous as my sister, and that other patient was a child.

My sister once described cancer as "the process of slow demoralization which robs the life force, bleeding it dry with abuse." That wasn't a description of the physical manifestation of cancer so much as it was about what this horrid disease does to the person inside that body. Some people are cured of their cancer, and thank God and modern medicine for that. But, as my sister always said - an invisible leash keeps cancer survivors connected to the clinics and hospitals. She described an overwhelming, smothering fear of the cancer that invaded her and each of her co-patients in the hospital - unspoken, but palpable.

She described her monthly trips to Roswell and the painful examinations she endured by a battery of physicians who search for signs that could signal infection or a deadly recurrence of the cancer as "war games. Defying cancer, plotting the next move. She described the doctors as those who fight for life so relentlessly on an hourly basis, and Roswell as a fortress from which battles of indescribable proportion are fought - for some, the first battle, for others, the last, and every stage in between.

I didn't mean to get into this so much. I have relived those three years over and over the past two days. It is people like my sister and every person on these forums who has lost someone to cancer or who are now going through treatments and everything else that goes along with cancer who deserve respect, and a lot of it. I do not respect Patsy Ramsey as a person. I do not want her to die from cancer.

 

Wy

I am so, so sorry for the way your dear sister had to suffer. Thank God she is at sweet, sweet rest now.

This is a remarkable journal, and a remarkable journey you shared with her.

I was angry and resentful that cancer took my sister from me so quickly a year ago. But I suppose I should be glad that she did not suffer for a long time, and that she was hospitalized only at the very end, for just three days.

There are many here who have had loved ones stolen away by cancer.

I wonder if DocG is one of them (us).

 

Bob, I was blessed to have her as my sister. We were more than biological sisters - we were soul sisters all of our lives. I loved her. She had such grace through it all, and she taught me so much about courage. I fought for her when she had no strength left to protect herself, but it was I who was the lucky one to have been able to be there with her. Her spirit was immense. She is still with me today in spirit.

 

Thats her! I have a book of hers thats really ,really good.Who knew she was a nutter?

 

Ten Years, Dog G

The heartbeat of this forum began as JonBenet's faded away. Most of us already knew about the most painful time of WY's life. We all were there when BobC's father also was taken away. As with Lurker's sister. And please don't forget that Misty is the Prayer List as she combats the cancer lingering in her body.

And that's just cancer........as the heartbeat here continues years longer than JonnieB did........this wonderful group has been there - together - when death has called while you've settled on hit and run stings when your perfect picture of health isn't who the conversation leans heavily to. It may be time for you to think about joining a certain Private Forum I've heard mention of.

RR

 

Your sister's words were extremely moving. I don't know what to say other than that.

"Now that I am barely breathing
I know all the answers
Is it all part of a Great Design?
Is this life we're living all part of a Great Design?

 

WY, I am sitting here speechless also. I'm so sorry. (((Hugs)))

I agree that Patsy doesn't look like someone suffering from Stage IV cancer. I would also hate to believe that she is using that in order to keep their name in news, but at this point, I don't think I would put anything past her. I know that is a terrible thing to say, but it just seems like she has a reoccurence (sp) everytime something isn't going their way with a suit, or when John needed money for his campaign.

 

WY, your sister must have been something else. I am with Tez, just speechless. I am so sorry she had to go through that horrifying disease.

 

Wy.....

My heart goes out to you after reading the account of your sister's suffering and death from cancer....Only people who have had friends and loved ones dying from cancer can fully understand the truly incidious nature of this disease and how horribly it effects the vicitm and their loved ones both physically and psychologically.....

Your words and those of you sister suffering from this disease describe the cancer in all of it's horrifing aspects in a way that is so sad and gutwrenching that they bring tears to the eyes and fear to the hearts of all who read them...

I have such memories myself, of my mother who died over ten years ago of the bone cancer, multiple myloma.....Those months of her illness, treatment and passing were surely the most devastating of our lives, and I can never think of that time without a grave sadness coming over me....Her suffering was great, but like your sister her spirit was far greater....

My mother fought her illness to the very last, concentrating on the things that she could do rather than those that she could not....She could walk until the last week of her life, though not without pain, and refused a wheel chair unil the last two week period before her death when she was forced to enter the hospital for more intensive care.....

Her positivity and courage in the face of this monsterous disease was amazing and I can only hope that if faced with a similar fate, her example will carry me through my passing....

It is true that each cancer patient is different and that there are many different forms of this disease and now many different forms of treatment....Each patient presents differently and reacts with different degrees of illness and recovery.....

My mom experienced weakness and nauseau during her chemo, but did not lose her hair....Her Dr. felt for the psychological impact that it was important to try to prevent hair loss....When she would go in for her treatments with the chemo drip at his clinic, the patients would all be seated in chairs that looked kind of like those in a beauty salon, and while the technicians were hooking up the needles and drips, and nursing assistant brought in an "ice cap" which looked like a large double lined shower cap which was filled with ice....This was then put on the patients head to "chill" the roots of the hair prior to treatment....

As I understood it, the roots of the hair at a cooled temperature did not absorb the chemo as did the rest of the body and therefore the hair follicales were not killed as they otherwise would have been....

My mother had her hair cut short at the start of treatment, not really believing that this would work, but it did, and at least she was able to look normal in that respect....she never lost her hair or had to wear a wig and that alone was of tremendous comfort to her and to all of us....Most people I have talked to have never heard of this, but it was an important plus in her treatment during that awful time, even though after an encouraging start, the treatment eventually failed over a years time and she lost her battle with cancer....

And WY, I understand that you can remember all the details of that painful time with your much loved sister....I sometimes think that I can remember every look and every word from mom and those close to her during those fearful and sad days....Yet there were special moments of closeness and realization that brought us all together in a very important way...

Mom's priest brought the holy sacrament to her hospital room, performed a short service and gave us all communion together on the day before she died....She could not even ingest the host, but it was touched to her lips and her face shown with realization and relief....Though only my one sister and parents were still attending Mass at that time, it was still the most wonderful comfort to be united in those prayerful moments, to share communion and to know that it was OK to hope that mom's passing would come quickly and peacefully....OK to want release for her from the earthly body that had turned on her and caused her such suffering...

As I said earlier, each case is different, and then there is the realization that in ten years there are many new treatments that target the cancer directly....It can only be hoped that Patsy Ramsey has found such treatments and that she can survive her cancer long term....

It does seem unimaginable that anyone would fake cancer or it's seriousness for any reason on earth....But you know what? My hope is that Patsy Ramsey has faked her cancer and will some day admit at least to herself that she has done so....To wish anything else for her would be unthinkable......With confession and contrition she can surely find healing for her soul....With the type of cancer she is claiming, the healing of the body permanently seems unlikely....May God send her healing, whatever kind it is that she needs....

Voyager

 

Beautiful post, Voyager. Bone cancer is a horribly painful cancer. While my sister's cancer was on her pelvic bone, it wasn't bone cancer.

Tricia, my sister was diagnosed in 1985, and she died in 1988, one month after her 38th birthday. Her type of cancer does not respond to chemotherapy, so she was spared that; however, she was subjected to radiation in high doses. Radiation is culmative - each treatment builds on the previous treatment. The more treatments she had, the sicker she became. She had bad radiation burns on her body from it, and she would stand in her kitchen in disbelief as sweat would pour off one side of her body while the other side was not affected. One side of her hair would be drenched, the other side bone dry. They were doing some experimenting with interferon then. She was in that program. The problem was, her cancer was so rare, they had little experience in treating it. It was called the "disease of old women," and hardly ever heard of. My sister was 35 when she was diagnosed. I understand that it is becoming more prevalent. I know an older lady who died from it last year.

My sister and her family lived directly next door to a chrome-plating factory. At night the factory would spew its deadly emissions all over the neighborhood. Every tree and plant in her yard, along with the windows in her home, were covered with shiny metal substance. The windows were pitted with it. Water would seep up in her basement during hard rains, and she would be the one down there cleaning it up. She also liked her underwear hung outside on the clothesline. Everyone else in her home liked theirs dried in the clothes dryer. While she was still alive, a lawsuit involving her and all of her neighbors was commenced. Hers involved personal injury. After she died, I testified at the trial. The factory never even contested it. They had packed up and left town, went into bankruptcy as soon as they found out about the lawsuit. The lawsuit was won by default, but nobody ever collected anything. I wasn't part of the lawsuit - I was there in defense of my sister's two minor daughters.

The last I had heard, this company had opened a similar operation in Texas or Arizona and was doing business under another name, leaving behind one of the worst hazardous sites in New York history. The EPA came in - it took them two years to clean it up. There were deep holes dug into the ground - 100 feet down, where the company had dumped their hazardous materials - chromium, arsenic, lead, etc., all proven to cause cancer. The hazardous materials had leached into the ground water, and into my sister's basement and yard. She was sitting on dynamite and didn't even know it. To this day I believe that contamination caused her cancer.

There was a point where her doctor decided to attempt some reconstructive surgery to allow her a pillow of comfort to allow her to sit more easily. It worked, but then she developed a hematoma the size of a baseball that the doctors had to keep draining. Testing showed no cancer in the hematoma. However, the surgeon finally opted to remove it, and he found cancer underneath. The nurses told me he threw a scalpel across the operating room when he found that new cancer. This man did everything conceivable to save her, even assisting the plastic surgeon in the operating room during her reconstructive surgery. Her doctor, BTW, was the same oncologist who treated Gilna Radner. He is world-famous, considered one of the best in the world. We still keep in touch.

At that point all he could do was scrape the bone and insert radiation rods directly at the cancer site. But, the cancer was ravenous - it grew into an ugly purple mass that threatened to split her skin open. Three months before she died, the chest x-ray showed no cancer in her lungs. The last x-ray report shows tumors near her heart and in her lungs. The doctor told me he believes she died from cancer tissue overtaking good tissue in her lungs. As far as I know, it didn't go to her liver.

 

{{{{{{{WY}}}}}}}}

Thank you for sharing your courageous sister's story.

Her words and yours have open floodgates of memories to me. I am overwhelmed with how devastating it is to recall our loved ones' pain.

God comfort and bless us all.

 

I don't know what happened here, Driver. I've read and reread Doc's post, and, except for the "respect" thing, I can't put my finger on what button he pushed in me to cause such an eruption. It's as if the floodgates opened, and everything started pouring out. His post was in no way personal to me, but it felt like it, maybe because I'm tired of being force fed this idea that Patsy's metatastic stage IV ovarian cancer can be managed the way hers has been. Gilda Radner had ovarian cancer. She had more money than Patsy Ramsey will ever have. She had the finest doctors and the finest care. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1986. She died in 1988. That's the thing about ovarian cancer - there are few, if any, noticeable symptoms in its early stages, and by the time it's producing symptoms, it's usually already too late. That's why they call it "the silent killer."

I know there are different cell types with cancer - some are slow growing, others are lethal in their speed of reproduction, and I know it makes a difference. But, Patsy's cancer was, according to her, stage IV cancer, which meant it had already metatasized to distant body sites. If we accept the fact that her stage IV cancer was legit, then we also have to accept the fact that her treatments helped her beat the odds for a lot of years. I could accept this, if, therefore, those treatments were being made available to other ovarian cancer patients. If the study resulted in the miraculous "cure" of Patsy Ramsey, why hasn't this study made headlines? Why are thousands of women still dying from this horrid disease?

Patsy claims divine intervention. I witnessed a miracle with my sister, so I don't discount miracles. Even the doctors had no way of explaining why blood clots in her lungs showed on the x-rays in the morning but were gone a couple of hours later. I do, however, question why Patsy was so special that God thought she should have this miracle of a cure of stage IV cancer above all others. According to her, it was like overnight. Her accounts of what happened don't sit well with me. There are a lot better Christians than Patsy Ramsey whose family and churches also prayed hard for them and had healing services for them, but only Patsy Ramsey was chosen?

The Ramseys have always seemed to project this image that they were so much better, so much more deserving of special treatment than others. They profess to be Christians; yet, I've seen them exhibit most unChristian-like behavior, language, and attitude. They thought they were too special to be treated like everyone else in a murder investigation, and their money bought them powerful lawyers and special treatment. Image is everything to the Ramseys - everything must be exaggerated, when it suits them - their importance, their wealth, their furnishings (as in a table or chest from Tiffanys?), their Christmas parties and decorations, Patsy's makeup. Patsy's cancer. By the same token, when it suits them, some things are made light of - "only a couple Sunday afternoons a month," their wealth (during JR's campaign), Patsy's cancer.

Patsy's cancer appears under both the exaggerations and the made light of categories, because, first it's stage IV, and then, years later when it recurs in her liver, it's manageable.

Well, then. It seems that I may have just hit upon one of the reasons Mt. WY finally blew. I'm just fed up to here with the Ramseys' lies. Patsy's cancer makes no sense. She talks about it in their book; yet, it's all just sooo melodramatic. If she is going to report about every time she has a relapse (strange term when you're dealing with cancer), why doesn't she just stop telling the public her spin on the cancer and tell the damn truth about what is going on with her cancer?

There are thousands of women who would dearly love to know how she has survived with this deadly disease in her body all these years. I'm a woman. I had a hysterectomy when I was young, but I still have my ovaries. My daughters and my nieces have ovaries and are potential victims of ovarian cancer. Patsy is an unusual success story and could have been a wonderful source of information and inspriation for other ovarian cancer patients, if what she claims is true. What's the problem? This kind of success needs to be shared with desperate cancer patients everywhere.

So, why is Patsy Ramsey the only person who claims a miracle cure for her? None of her doctors has spoken out about this miracle cure. I remember times when my sister's doctors couldn't see any visable signs of cancer in my sister, but it was there. Did Patsy have one of these times and decide she's had a miraculous cure, giving rise to this particular drama mama moment in her life?

My kids always tell me I over-analyze everything. If something interests me, I will research it right back to its bare beginnings, if I can, and if it doesn't meet my common sense criteria and doesn't match what the research and numbers say, you're damn right it's going to raise my eyebrows. It would be helpful if we had more information about the cell type of Patsy's original cancer, but Patsy's never been forthcoming about those kinds of facts. Her claims don't meet the smell test, as far as I'm concerned.

Just one more thing, and I'm done. For now. I understand I may have opened some wounds for others on this forum, and for that, I am truly sorry. I wouldn't hurt one hair on any of your heads, intentionally. I learned a lot about cancer not only through my sister but from one of the best oncologists in the world. Throughout all my research, he was never too busy to explain things to me in terms I could understand. I know there are people who defy the odds with cancer, and Patsy could be one of them. However, once someone has shown that she's more than capable of not telling the truth, I don't put much stock in anything else she has to say.

 

WY I have always had the utmost respect and admiration for you and after hearing some of your personal life, I am awestruck at the strenght of you in this little glimpse you've given us.