raye

Glad to hear your father is doing well. I’m a transplant veteran and wish him all the best. I understand the pancake thing too… all I wanted were pancakes, bacon, and scrambled eggs and toast, and not in any particular order!!

Here’s to a good recovery. E-mail me anytime with recovery questions if you’d like. It’s a bit of a road to travel yet, but worth every effort to a better life ahead.

Tess, I leaked bile through the skin and around any open areas. I had several pics installed at variuos times, but never had disoloration of the window. You could smell the bile that leaked through my skin and around my pics and stent line. Since I was a “plugger” and had many stents inserted and removed with cholangiograms ( probably 14, but I eventually lost count ) bile had to escape somewhere. I lost half my body weight, was always jaundiced badly, and smelled a bit. Ha! Par for the course with CC.

Ashlea,

On Marion’s suggestion I’ve sent you an e-mail. Please have a look at your e-mail or if you’re here first give me a call at my home number, 519-351-4406.

We have much to discuss about your father and the mysteries of how the Ministry of Health works in Ontario. You need help now!

Marion gave you a name of a specialist in Toronto and I know a specialist at University Hospital in London Ontario that can set you straight, as well as an oncologist that’s now a believer that CC can be treated a lot more effectively than previously thought.

What you and your dad are going through is typical of our medical system. ( are any of my American friends listening to this?? )

Give me a call as soon as you can.

Raye Field 1-519-351-4406 or raye.field@yahoo.com

Thanks for the referral Marion.

Tess. How are you and your Dad? Sorry everyone for not attending to the forums more often but I’ve been busy here in Canada supporting lots of people from the U.S. and Canada during their CC diagnosis.

In answer to the Mayo being tougher with their standards for liver transplant, I believe it’s really based on the Liver Foundation of America’s acceptance of patients and their criteria for organ donation. Our family didn’t wait for a cadaver organ and we went the live donor method with my oldest daughter being the donor. I would have been waiting much longer for the MELD score to improve and we decided we couldn’t wait. By this time I was really a desperate liver patient and had been having red blood cell problems and receiving blood transfusions regularly, which was not recommended at the frequency I was having them.

Once again if anyone in Canada or elsewhere needs someone to talk to and/or get informed about CC in Canada and funding in any of the provinces, please give me a call at 1-519-351-4406 or e-mail me at raye.field@yahoo.com.

I have an information form ready for Canadian citizens, particularly Ontario, that may be quite helpful in dealing with out of country government funding. It will guide you to obtaining the proper Ministry of Health forms and procedures for your doctor or specialist to follow for funding purposes.

Remember, no question is not important.

On a bright note, my one year anniversary for my transplant at the Mayo is coming up March 20 and I’m looking forward to going back to the Mayo for my checkup!!

Thanks all,

Raye

I was a candidate for a liver transplant at the Mayo Clinic, and received my new liver section from my daughter who was the live donor.

Anyone wishing more info. by phone or e-mail can contact me anytime at raye.field@yahoo.com or by phone at 1-519-351-4406.

I have a good story to tell, so call me anytime. I’m on E.S.T. in Canada.

Raye

Stacie.

Would it be possible to have some of these brochures sent to me here in Canada?? I have a new cancer foundation here in my hometown, as well as The Cancer Society of Canada office here that I have been in contact with throughout the year.

They know my story and I would like to get some of the brochures to them, and develop something similar for Canadian CC patients so I can direct them to cancer centers here in Canada as well as those centers in the U.S.

By the way, I’m a survivor of CC and was successfully transplanted at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Mn. by Dr. Julie Heimbach. More people need to know about this procedure and I hope to help with that too.

Thanks,

Raye Field
Chatham Ontario Canada

Thank you everyone for the kind words for both my daughter and myself. I am blessed to have had the opportunity for this operation, but as we know, once a cancer patient, always a cancer patient. Hopefully I will make it to that 5 year remission mark and beyond. For your information the 5 year remission rate to this date stands at 86%, which is much better than resection. Five years is my goal, not only for me, but for my family.

I wish for any who read my story you may have as I had the good luck to receive this treatment if there is no option left for you. Perhaps in the future the work done at the Mayo will accelerate to the point where CC patients will have this procedure, or some form of it, as the means for successful CC cancer treatment. We just never know what God has in store for us, and what He has in store for the future in research for cancer.

I’ve already had one person ask me about the surgery and who to contact. If anyone else would like some information, or knows someone who should be informed, please send me an e-mail at raye.field@yahoo.com. I will answer you in the best way I know how and direct you to the right people at the Mayo.

IT NEVER IS TOO LATE TO ASK. Never…

In answer to your questions Jeff, yes the radiation treatments were the first stage of the process that was designed to kill the tumor. The second stage for the transplant occurs only, and only, after staging surgery, cancer marker CA19.9 was stable, and MRI/CT have proven the tumor(s) were killed.

My daughter donated 60% of her liver and my liver, gall bladder, and bile ducts were completely removed. A new ‘bile duct’ was fashioned from a section of bowel and works great. My recovery at the Mayo was 29 days and I went back home to Canada then. My recovery is past six months now and I’m feeling great and I’m stable with my immuno-suppressant called Prograf, which is good. I’m looking forward to getting back to work as soon as possible.

No more jaundice, fatigue, haemaglobin crashes, food and malnutrition issues including weight loss ( I lost a total of 130 lbs. in the first 5 months) , bypass stents, etc., the routine we all know.

Once again please e-mail me for info. or just to talk in confidence if you’d like at raye.field@yahoo.com.

Raye