Even though I only posted once to the board, and that was just a month ago, I wanted to let you know that my sister Gina passed away on 1/4/05, one day after turning 40.

Gina had been fighting her cancer since January of last year when she was diagnosed with stage 4 SCC on her tongue. She had surgery that removed half of her tongue, and the right side of her neck was disected and the lymph nodes removed. She followed the surgery with both chemo and radiation. She had a reoccurance in late August, and they removed a tumor in September that was growing against her larnyx and carotid artery. She followed that surgery with agressive chemo. Halfway through the chemo treatments, the cancer returned again with no other means of fighting it. Gina entered Hospice care at home in Novemeber. Hospice asked if we would move her to their inpatient care center for about a week of respite care on December 30. This turned out to be a blessing for our family. It allowed us to be a brothers, sisters, and mother again rather than caregivers. Gina passed very peacefully without any of the "final" complications she feared and I'm very thankful for that.

I want to thank the OCF, and the many posters on the OCF board. While I may have been a lurker, I read a lot here and the information available here is invaluable.

Thank you all.

Mike