Our Next Meeting Will Be Tuesday, August 11th

- No Meeting in July -

Our next meeting will be at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, August 11th, at O'Connor Hospital's Sister Rosalie Rendu Conference Room. Persons who have recently experienced surgery or are about to undergo surgery are encouraged to attend.  A major part of the meeting is to provide a forum where questions such persons may have can be addressed by experienced ostomates.

Tricia and Annette (two participants in SVOSG) will be walking the 24 hour Relay for Life on July 27th in Saratoga.  The Saratoga Churches are doing this as a community project. They will walking at St. Andrew's Church on Saratoga Ave.  If any one is interested in learning more about how they can participate, or wish to be a sponsor fort the Relay for Life, Annette can be contacted by clicking here.

What happened at our June 9th Meeting

President Peggy started the meeting at 7:03pm. We immediately introduced our guest speaker, Sally Talley, RN, WOCN (she is an Enterostomal Therapist--ET). She has been an ET nurse for over 30 years at Community Hospital of Los Gatos & Good Samaritan Hospitals. She spent almost the entire hour & a half answering questions, giving suggestions, tips, etc. to make everyone's lifes easier to deal with some issues regarding ostomies. It was a very interactive session, I think that everyone got something out of it. We really appreciate Sally's time as we know how busy ET nurses always are. When Sally finished, Peggy gave her a beautiful flowering plant for spending time with the group.

What happened at our May 12th Meeting

We met at 7 p.m. in the Sister Rosalie Rendu Conference Room.  With us at the meeting was Dr. Gary Silver, the retired heart surgeon who was instrumental in our being able to resume meeting at O'Connor Hospital, as we have for several decades.  His intervention on our behalf led to a review of the decision which had resulted in our having to find a new meeting place for our January meeting.  SVOSG expressed it thanks to him for his efforts on our behalf.  We also heard a brief presentation from Dr. Silver, regarding an opportunity for the public to take part in a campaign to upgrade the Mammography equipment at the hospital.

Thirty-two people attended our May meeting including three people who had recently had  colostomy surgery.  The bulk of the meeting was spent in responding to questions and concerns brought by the participants.  We heard a report from a recent attendee who had colostomy surgery two weeks ago, and is doing well and looks forward to coming to our June meeting.

What Happened at our April 14th Meeting

We met at 7 p.m. in the Depaul Conference Room at O' Connor Hospital.  Thirty-two people attended the meeting, including four people who were here for the first time.  One new attendee was Al who had colostomy surgery in January.

Shelley Goldblum from Hollister was at our meeting to share the latest developments from Hollister and to answer any questions we had about their ostomy products. Shelley has twenty-five years of experience working for the Hollister Company.  She led a very good question and answer session helping people who had special needs and problems. 

After Shelley's presentation had the chance to respond to a number of other questions that were brought to us by our attendees.

A Recent Rumor

April 09 UOAA UPDATE via Houston TX OA

Rumor has it that the doctor removed one of your parts.  The same rumor said that they didn’t take out your heart.  So you can still love.  Also, none of your mind was removed, so you can still dream of sunshine and flowers.  Apparently, they left your family and friends.  So you still have someone to care for and someone to care for you.  Did the surgeon remove your grandchildren’s laughter? Did he leave you your lips to smile with, your nose to smell the morning air, your ears to hear the birds singing, your eyes to see the evening sunset surely, he didn’t touch your soul. That belongs to God.  If he left you all of these things, did he remove anything really important?  Remember what Hubert Humphrey, also an ostomate, once said, “It isn’t what they take away from you that matters, it’s what you do with what you have left that counts.”

What happened at our March 10th Meeting

We met at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 10, at O'Connor Hospital's Sister Rosalie Rendu Conference Room.

Paul Masquelier, who designed and maintains our web site, made a short presentation on how you can use the web site as a resource for your own recovery and self care.  The rest of the meeting was devoted to responding to issues brought by visitors to the meeting.  We had three visitors who just recently had their surgery, and one person who is about to have surgery.

What Happened at our Jan. 13th Meeting

Peggy called the meeting to order at 7pm.  We had a total of 20 people, of which 2 of them were new to our group.  Dolores had Ileostomy surgery in March of 2008 and her Daughter, Diane visited us.  Nazeem is having Ileostomy surgery with Dr. Varma on February 2nd.  We took time to answer questions or concerns that they had.   

We let the visitors know to reminded our regular members as well, to subscribe to "The Phoenix" magazine for the great information you can get out of their magazine.  The subscription is $25 per year.  There is a link to the right of this article that you can use to subscribe.

PLEASE NOTE:  Our next meeting will be at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, February 10th. at Good Samaritan Hospital,  Conference Room 3 Trailer, 2425 Samaritan Drive, San Jose, CA 95124. We have this trailer from 7pm-8:30pm.

Congratulations to Thelma!  This year will be Thelma's 30 year anniversary with her Ileostomy (or as the group says "stomaversary").  

What Happened at November 11 Meeting

Twenty-one people attended our November 11th meeting.  As usual, we met in the "Sister Rosalie Rendu Conference Room."  With us was Alicia, who is having Colostomy surgery within the next two weeks.  She will be having the surgery at Kaiser, Santa Clara.  She had some questions to ask and the group spent half an hour helping her to prepare for her surgery, her recovery and her future life. 

We also had a report that Samantha (see Oct. 14 meeting) had her ileostomy surgery at Stanford Medical Center and is now home and on the way to recovery.

Our special guest speaker was Sally Zumwalt who is a Licensed Dietician from Kaiser, Santa Clara.  Sally had reprinted a large number of articles related to ostomy patients and diet.  One of the articles had a very good diagram indicating which vitamins are absorbed at what stage of the digestive system.

What Happened at October 14 Meeting

Twenty-one people attended our October 14th Meeting, including Samantha who will be having ileostomy surgery next month at the Stanford Medical Center. It also included a visitor who is from Mexico and who had a colostomy operation one year ago.  Our President, Peggy was back with us after missing several meetings due to the illness and death of her mother. 

Following introductions of those in attendance we spent most of our time helping Samantha to find answers to the questions she has as she prepares for her surgery.  Your writer has the impression that she left our meeting far more re-assured and prepared for her up-coming surgery. 

Highlights of Our 2008 Meetings click here

Look forarticles on the resources web page.

photo credit: Todd Chambers

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