Day three

WHAT A DAY!!!

We lept from bed, grabbed a cup of coffee and somehow were on time for a 7:30 talk by Annie Appleseed on, guess what? Health, diet, natural products and herbal remedies. Annie is from Del Rey Beach, almost a neighbor.

Then the sessions began in earnest. Many good speakers. A 3 person panel which gave us new insite into the effect of the internet on many aspects of modern health care in the US. Did you know that Google is our nations leading source for medical information.

We also were told that there is a movement toward keeping medical records as accessible on line electronic files. This system will provide physcians or medical facilities instant access all over the country, the patient may acess their file - correct mistakes and see what the doctor has written on them. This is on the drawing board for now and the obvious privacy rights and accessibility discussions are being considered.

The Health Care System is definately ripe for a change, in danger of overloading and the scope of care must be expanded. We are glad to note that good people are looking at the problems and are preparing for a positive change. Of course this will be an issue in the up coming Presidental eletion. We must stay informed, investigate the candidates positions on health care.

Awards ceremony followed and we were happy to see 2 special people recognized. One research Physician, responsible for CA125 and a Survivor Nurse, who has made countless contributions to awareness and legislative actions which have resulted in OVCA funding. Both recipientants made touching acceptance speeches. We were proud of them and happy for them.

We broke up into Action Groups, defined geographically, to define 2 objectives for the coming year and we were also to provide the means of accomplishing them. It was exceptionally stimulating and we could have used a half a day to explore more ideas and possibilities. Sharing with other Partner members needed a lot more time.

We re-convened and all of the groups contributed their ideas to a build a framework to collectively construct an OCNA action plan and a focus for the coming year. We were pleased with the results and the opportunity to work together.

If all this was not enough we still had one more big meeting to accomplish - our training session for Capitol Hill tomorrow. We have appointments with Nelson and Martinez, we were not scheduled to see Weldon. We were told that his office was unable to see us. (?)

Now it's 8 PM and we are hungry women looking forward to dinner.

Capitol Hill bus leaves at 7 in the morning so it will be another ambitious day tomorrow.

Wish us luck!

Connie and Rina