Support group founder will lecture doctors

Thursday, May 15, 2003

BY FORD TURNER
Of The Patriot-News

When Carissa Haston leaves for Florida today, it will be a case of the patient going to lecture the doctors.

Haston is battling gastroparesis, an oft-misunderstood condition that paralyzes the stomach. She is scheduled to speak Saturday to doctors at a training session in Orlando run by Medtronic, an international manufacturer of medical devices. 

She will talk about her own life-disrupting case and about the nonprofit organization she started from her Fairview Twp. home, Gastroparesis Patient Association for Cures and Treatments, or G-PACT.

Haston has not digested solid food in three years. She has a catheter that sends medication into her chest and a food tube that sends nourishment into her stomach.

The Florida trip marks a milestone for the group she created to help other gastroparesis sufferers.

"It gives us credibility," said Haston, who is 25 and graduated from Messiah College in 2000.

Joe McGrath, a spokesman for Minnesota-based Medtronic, said Haston's appearance will help alert doctors to the goals of G-PACT. The session will come on the first day of Digestive Disease Week, the biggest annual gathering of gastroenterologists nationwide.

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