Go Green for DTP Awareness Fridays

The G-PACT community has lost a number of patients recently to various complications related to Digestive Tract Paralysis (DTP), including gastroparesis, chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction, and colonic inertia. These deaths have led to an increase in interest among the patients and even the media into increasing awareness.

One of those people we lost was Gina Massey. She was young and inspired a lot of people.

Noah Vogelbacher, a friend of Gina, created an event in which he asks that people wear green every Friday to help increase awareness of GASTROPARESIS. G-PACT is a sponsor of this event. We encourage everyone to get involved. We are also expanding his idea with other very cool things to make Go Green Friday even bigger! We are very excited about where this is going!

Look for some "Go Green for DTP Awareness on Fridays" shirts to appear in the G-PACT store soon so you will have an added bonus to help increase awareness...attractive images for Go Green day to draw attention to the cause. They will also have some other event ideas for certain Fridays all year round to increase awareness even more some Fridays.

Fridays have officially become Go Green for DTP Awareness Day worldwide! All you have to do is get your green on!!! Then talk to people. If you would like more green and yellow stuff to wear, you can purchase an awareness band at www.g-pact.org/awarenessbands.html.

Gastroparesis means "stomach paralysis." Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, pain, bloating, weight loss, weight gain, malnutrition, and dehydration. There is no cure. Many are on feeding tubes or IV nutrition to sustain life.

Chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction is another paralytic condition of the digestive tract and causes "false" obstructions in the small bowel in the absence of mechanical obstruction. Symptoms mimic those of GP, only more small bowel related and also include frequent surgeries to remove the part of the small bowel which is blocked off. This can then lead to short gut syndrome.

Colonic inertia is a condition in which a patient is severely constipated and cannot defecate. Food gets trapped in the colon and will not move forward. This often results in the need for a colostomy. Some people have one condition, two, or even all three.

For more info go to www.g-pact.org and join our FB page at www.facebook.com/GPACT. You can also join www.facebook.com/greensnoteasy to get support and advice from fellow GP fighters.

Let's remember Gina and the others we have lost by wearing green on Fridays. We couldn't save Gina, but we can prevent this from happening to others!

In Noah's words on why he started this event that G-PACT decided to sponsor:
"Many of you know that, I lost a person very close to my heart. She had a very rare disease called Gastroparesis.

Gastroparesis is when the stomach muscle is Paralyzed, causing a person to not be able to eat. If a person eats, the food will rot in the stomach, causing bacteria and Bio to form. some have throw up attacks, where they just throw up and throw up.

Some that have Gastroparesis have pacemakers inserted around the stomach muscle to help the muscle contract. but this it doe not always work. if the pacemaker doesn't work they insert a J-tube through the Abdomen into the Intestine. then every night the person will have to hook that J-tube up to a special machine that pushes a formula into the intestine. that gives them their daily calories. through that Tube Potassium and other meds get pushed as well. it is a very painful process. That is how a person with Gastroparesis lives.

We need to spread awareness about this illness.

So please wear green Every Friday and spread awareness. In honor of the people who fight this disease daily.

Facebook invite to this event can be found HERE.

Planned Giving: Using e-Bay to G-PACT’s Advantage

If it sounds a bit far fetched to use the most popular Internet auction site to benefit G-PACT, you'll want to read on a bit further to understand the true potential. Consider this for starters: eBay has raised $300,000 for non-profits so far.

eBay, the online auction company, now allows its 69 million individual and corporate customers to assign all or part of their online proceeds to GPACT. It's really quite simple. If you are a regular buyer or a seller on eBay and already have an eBay user name and password, you'll want to take just a minute to register with MissionFish, eBay's charity solution provider at http://www.missionfish.org

If you've never shopped or sold items on eBay, it takes less than a minute to register and set up your account using the same MissionFish link above.

Once registered with MissionFish, you can search for items currently on auction that are scheduled to benefit G-PACT and bid on these items yourself. You can also list items to sell designating G-PACT to receive anywhere from 10% to 100% of the proceeds from each item auctioned.

If you've been contemplating a garage sale or have items of value you feel would do particularly well on eBay, please consider helping out G-PACT as you shop and sell. On eBay, you can sell or buy just about anything from a high school yearbook to real estate.

eBay may be the largest online charitable retailer, but it is not the only one. If you shop online, you can also designate G-PACT as a recipient of up to 35% of the cost of items purchased at www.goodshop.com or www.buyforcharity.com.

When you make a gift of this type or any other to G-PACT, you will promptly receive a thank you acknowledgement letter with the charitable amount of your gift to use for tax purposes and you can help spread awareness about this disease with no cure. =)

GPACT

I found two pictures, courtesy of GPACT that made me feel a bit better. I'm still vomiting, even after the ERCP. I'm still in pain from healing as well.

I met with the knee doctor yesterday and he's just waiting on the insurance to improve the trial.

More information can be found HERE.

So, I guess I'll wait. Hopefully, if I can control the knee pain, the vomiting will be cut in half since it's my pain response. I'm trying to figure out if the vomiting is actually coming from my gastroparesis or if it's caused by pain. It's a hard thing to determine.

I just feel very tired and weak. I have a cold, too. I've been sleeping a lot the past two days hoping I'll feel better.

GPACT could really use your help if you are interested in donating to help find a cure. The information can be found HERE.

They write on their Facebook page:

G-PACT Fact, Day 31- As we close out DTP Awareness Month 2012, we want to thank all of you for your support!

G-PACT is a non-profit which was founded on Aug. 23, 2001 by a group of patients. Most of us are on disability from this (and/or
a combo of other conditions) and saw the needs that so many patients had. We fight this every day along with you. We are all volunteers which can make this very difficult as our health is very unpredictable. You understand! A small handful of volunteers have run G-PACT, which has become international and reaches out to over 30 countries and all 50 states, from hospital beds, nursing homes, and home computers all over the world.

An added challenge is that we do not work from a centralized location and are scattered across the world. While this allows anyone to get involved, sometimes it can also take us a little longer to get everything done.

These are two unique challenges we face as we fight for you. We volunteer up to 80 hours a week during busy times, so we appreciate your patience and support as we work hard to bring you the best that we can given the circumstances! We are inspired to continue our work because we see progress and feel that our work has made an im-PACT.

There is still time to do things from this month. We extended the media letter writing campaign in order to accommodate some events taking place this weekend. Please send us your letters so we can begin putting final details into the project. Awareness and a cure is important as the death of another member harshly indicates.

If you would like to help us in any way to continue our work, we could use additional funding to continue our work, volunteers to lighten the load on a few of us, or other contributions to help us get things done. Increasing awareness is vital and awareness events are appreciated to help spread the word. If you would like to do anything, please contact us at contact@g-pact.org. Donations can be made through Paypal at accounting@g-pact.org or on our website at www.g-pact.org/giving.html. There are many ways you can help, even if not financially. We appreciate hearing from you and knowing you support the work that we do.

We do this for you and we fully understand what you are going through! That's why we are so passionate!

Even though today is the last day for DTP Awareness Month 2012, we do not stop. We do this year round. Look for activities coming up in 2013 and many ways to increase awareness and get involved in some of our political advocacy work. We are encouraged by the approval of Linzett yesterday, and hope to see many more in the near future until everyone has something that works well for them. We all want to eat normally again! :D