Pam's Family Notice

My mother, Pamela Dawn Hoeppner passed away on August 24, 2009.  I have been trying at various times over the last 6 months to write a statement in regards to my mother’s passing.  I have found this process to be extremely difficult.

I am not the writer that my mom was and therefore I must be brief.  My mother’s passing came extremely fast and that is what has made this process so difficult, the unexpected.  We miss her so dearly.  My mother was admitted to the hospital in May 2009 and she had a very bad infection that required IV antibiotic therapy for a month.  She received this IV therapy at home.  At that same time, she had scans performed which did show a mass in her right breast that was also according to the doctors invading her chest wall.  The doctors were convinced that she had cancer throughout her body and did multiple scans of the colon, stomach, liver, etc.  None of these scans showed anything.  They were wrong in there assumption.  I know that their assumption was based on her diagnosis in 2004 for breast cancer because they did not believe that she could have done anything with alternative treatment that would have stopped the cancer. I know that they are wrong about this.  Many people make this assumption.   Most oncologists just do not want to hear anything about alternative methods dealing with the treatment/cure of cancer.  After her round of antibiotics it was noted in another diagnostic test that the chest wall had cleared up.  This is where it became difficult for us to know what was possibly cancer and what was infection. 

She came home and had stopped Protocel and tried other alternative treatments.  I will always question this in my mind as she told me in the hospital, “Protocel was keeping this at bay”.   She later was admitted to the hospital again in August as her electrolytes were off at the time.  The unfortunate thing is that she had contracted an infection in the hospital days before she passed away.  She had been in for a few days and was to come home on August 22 and they informed her that she had a very bad infection.  She was furious and said,  “ I did not have an infection when I came in.”  They replied, “You are in the worst place to be for that to occur.”  We all know that infections in hospitals are a problem and her immune system was weakened as she had not completely bounced back from that first infection on May 29.  A  full month of antibiotic therapy can take a lot out of a person.

She began antibiotic therapy once again on August 22nd.  I came in the next day and she looked terrible.  It appeared as though she had gone downhill rapidly.  I asked them if I could take her home and they agreed.  We took her home that afternoon and she was as determined as ever to overcome and recover.  She then left us during the sunrise of August 24, 2009.  We took great comfort in this moment as her middle name was Dawn and let me tell you, she waited for the exact time of the rising of the sun that morning.  The cover of her book is a sunrise and we debated sunrise over sunset over many campfires in Northern Michigan.  You may gather my mom was always for the sunrise!

God is amazing in the way he that he comforts us.  My brother had even gone outside and sat on the tailgate of Willie’s truck that morning and later told me that day that as the sun was rising he started to pray for her and that was the first time that he had prayed about mom and in that moment I called him inside to tell him that she was going.  I might add that the sunrise was absolutely beautiful that morning. 

That morning she may have left this world for Heaven’s gates, but she left us all a wealth of information, humor and raw insight into her journey through cancer.  We all can learn from this and I along with my girls will take every ounce of information and use it to the best of my ability.  That is exactly what she intended for this book and because of that we have decided to keep her book out there for all to read.  I remember the day the first copy came to her home.  She plopped it down on the coffee table (or should I say tea table), sat on the couch and said, “Well, there it is, my whole life story for all to read.”   What a selfless act for her to do.  My mother was so private in her life, but she knew that this was something that needed to be shared.  She cared so deeply for her fellow man/woman.  I thank you all for the thoughts, comments and deep appreciation for her story.  It truly has meant a lot to us, her family.

I wish you all God’s blessings in life and thank you for all the support during this difficult time.

Please see the Announcement Page for a more detailed statement about my mother’s passing that Elonna McKibben wrote.  It was posted on the Protocel Forum a few months back.

The Family of Pamela Dawn Hoeppner

Just a little side note, we did not have any biopsies or an autopsy.   A biopsy was never an option as you know from mom’s book.  We did not think of  an autopsy until after the funeral.  This is something that Willie thought of days after and we do wish that this would have been done so we would have known what was infection or cancer.