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In Memory of
Connie C. Campos
In Memory of
Connie C. Campos
September 22, 1940 - August 11, 2001
September 22, 1940 - August 11, 2001
My mother was born in San Francisco, California on September 22, 1940 to Jessie and Walter Collinge. She had three sisters, two step-sisters and one brother.
In 1959, she, a sister and her sister's boyfriend (who also happened to be my dad's cousin) cut school so she could meet my father, Robert B. Campos. It was love at first sight.
My parents were married on July 31, 1960. They made their first home in a rented apartment in San Mateo, California.
Born in 1963, I was their first child. In 1964, we moved to South Lake Tahoe, California when Mom and Dad bought their first house there. Dad worked at Harrah's as a keno writer and Mom stayed at home as a housewife, mother and daycare provider.
In 1965 my sister was born, followed in 1967 by my brother.
In 1970, they sold the house in Lake Tahoe and we moved to Cambria, California and lived with Mom's oldest sister, her husband and their kids. In 1971, we moved to San Luis Obispo, California where Dad ran his own gas station and Mom began another daycare business.
Dad said the benefits were good in the clubs; so by 1972, we were renting a home in Reno, Nevada. Soon after, we moved to Lemmon Valley, Nevada where Mom and Dad purchased their second home on one acre of property for about $20,000.
In 1978, Mom and Dad moved us back to California. This time in Gilroy, a little town where Dad used to spend the summers. This was where we were to spend the rest of our childhood. We made lots of new friends and Mom again became a daycare provider. She never complained about all of the moving, because she always said she'd go anywhere Dad was.
In 1980, we threw a surprise 40th birthday party for Mom. And she was very surprised! We invited all of her new friends and old ones, including a close one from Lemmon Valley.
Somewhere between 1980 and 1990, Mom started to have medical problems. First with her stomache and then other things, including acid reflux disease. The doctors also found out she had a condition brought on from the changing of dirty diapers called giardia lamblia. She also got pneumonia at one point and had sinus problems. Soon, her skin began to bother her and it turned out to be fibromyalgia. It's a nerve condition where it hurts for someone to touch the skin. It didn't always hurt, but it was quite troublesome. She also thought she had heart problems, which only turned out to be be complications of the reflux disease.
When we arrived the morning of July 17th, she was on a ventilator - unable to speak and not awake. They told us she had asked to be put on the ventilator at about 2 o'clock in the morning. She had been so tired and just couldn't breath without help any longer. We didn't know it then, but we would never see her awake again.
After giving her a lung biopsy, checking her for lupus and a bunch of other tests, they still couldn't figure out what was wrong with her and the x-rays of her lungs showed the smokiness in them getting worse. Her lungs looked like a smoke-filled room and it was getting thicker and thicker. Before long, she began to have problem after problem, including blood problems. She was getting worse instead of better. Her toes started to turn black because of poor circulation and then she started to get drop-foot from laying so long in the bed. They gave her plasma pherisis to fix the blood problems, but nothing seemed to work.
My good friend Pam, in Oklahoma, was kind enough to donate blood to try to help my mother. When my friend came to visit my husband and I in August 2002, I took her to visit my Mom's grave. She told me she was honored that I would take her there. I was proud to take her there...I know my Mom would have liked her very much.
On July 29th, my sister-in-law Sheri, gave birth to Daniel, my second nephew and my parents' second grandchild. His birth was something Mom had been looking forward to for a long time.
After being in the hospitals for over 5 weeks and none of her problems getting any better, the doctor told us there was nothing more to be done. On August 11, 2001, they turned off the machines and my mother died at 5:19pm.
Later, the autopsy indicated that she weighed 200 lbs, 20 lbs more than she did in January. Some medications will make you retain water and cause weight gain.
I loved my mother, I still do...and I miss her every single day. She loved her family very much. I hope she misses us as much as we miss her.
We believe our mother's death was directly linked to the use of Remicade and possibly the use of Methotrexate.
If you, or your loved one is using this or any of the other medications similar to Remicade, such as Celebrex or Enbrel, PLEASE make sure you read the warning labels!!! Some of these medications may cause life threatening lung problems that are irreversible. Have your doctor check your lungs every six weeks, by X-ray, not just by stethoscope. And if there are other tests that should be taken, take them!
ALERT! ALERT! ALERT!
Visitors who've stopped by since November 18, 2001.
September 1993
December 1964
Please click the above links to go to information I have discovered. It's very important for you to pass this info on to ANYBODY you know that takes Remicade or ANY of the listed medications.
It may save their life.
If any of the links do not work or are broken, please contact me here.
This page was last updated on: April 14, 2008
Visitors who've stopped by since November 18, 2001.
ALERT! ALERT! ALERT!
Around the early 1990s she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. She started taking Methotrexate in 1995, along with other medications. During the early summer of 1999, she began taking a new drug called Remicade. She thought it was the end of her problems. Remicade was administered via IV, similar to administering chemotherapy. Soon, she began to experience shortness of breath, which she attributed to weight gain from the other medications (one was Prednisone). By January 2001, she had gained more weight and was close to 180 lbs., about 40 lbs. over her "normal, I-feel-good weight."
The pain she suffered wasn't so apparent on the outside. She hid it well. We later read a wellness journal she kept. There was a pain and mood scale on the bottom of each page with zero equaling "Good" up to five which equaled "Bad". Each time she entered a date, she circled the number that best fit how her mood and pain was. Most of the mood scales showed 1s and 2s. The pain scales showed mostly 4s and 5s.
She never complained.
Not to anyone.
On May 30, 2001 she wrote, "I want the pain to stop! I want my hands to work. Please let me be able to hold my new grandson."
One day in July 2001, she was on the phone telling Dad she was making him a doctor's appointment for a check-up. He told her to make one for herself instead because her shortness of breath had gotten so bad she could not walk ten feet without gasping for air. Though she never complained about her pain, you could tell she was always in it.
On July 9th she went to her doctor's appointment and was immediately checked in to the hospital. X-rays showed her lungs had some sort of smoky look to them. They immediately put her on oxygen via the nose. She was checked for several different things, including tuberculosis, which meant they had to quarantine her.
Jacob, her only grandson at the time, was not allowed in to see her. He never saw her alive again.
At the end of the week, the doctors still had no answers; so they decided she needed to be transferred to another hospital to see a lung specialist. On July 16th she was transported via ambulance to a hospital in San Jose, California. By this time she was on oxygen with full face mask. The doctor there asked her many questions, after which he told her she would probably need to be put on a ventilator if her breathing got worse.
We stayed with her as long as we could and left at about 11pm that night, planning to return the next day.
If you are taking any of these medications and are short of breath, tell your doctor immediately.
Take control of YOUR life...for yourself AND your loved ones.
Background and flowers designed by Christine Luce.
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