Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 22:54:45 -0700

From: "Sigrun Sigurðardottir" <selkot@centrum.is>

I would like to say how important it is for woman all over the world to be in a group like Ileans group, I think that we do not see how important it is until something happen, our group were verry glad when we were told about Ilenas’s group and all those information and jokes that is needed too, and meeting all the woman around the world sharing our problem, infromation, telling about the good things and the bad things, it is like with everything in life we are always learning more and more about thing we are interesting in.

Our group in Iceland have recived letter from all over the world exept from Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finnland but we are working on it, this is what we call the Northen Countries , but when we are talking about Ilenas’s group and all those letters that we get and how important they are to us and reciving letter from South Afrika, Australia, USA, Canada, Germany, Austria, Swistherland, UK. this is not what we dreamd of when we started our group in Iceland last spring, but everything is going verry well for us, we have a verry good docktors in Iceland that are open for all infromation and we can disskuss with them about implant, we have a verry understanding healthminister she is glad that Iceland is in the globalteam, the countrydocktor is a wonderful men and he is verry glad if he can help us, the drugadminstration is the same thing there open for everything about siliconeimplant,we also have a good expert in medecine, it does´nt matter were you live in the world,we have to be awake what is happening if our group got some news, before the healthcare then we inform them,and we get thanks, and if they get something they will inform us, but as we said before we are just newborn, but anyway we sure hope that our work with the healthcare will be as it is now, this week our newspaper is going to interviev me Sigrun I got breastcancer and lost both of my breast so I got siliconeimplant but it was first 87 then 90 and it was no infromation to the woman, and they will have interview with woman that got implants for cosmetic, they are going to interview our countrydocktor and one plasticsurgeon, and I think that woman will be informed when the newspaper bring those information to the people, anyway we hope so we got a lot of work to do, and we know it is a lot of people out there that do not understand this talk about silicone and maybe they never will,but that is up to them that is their disisuen but we are here to help and inform as well as we can and we do not want to heart anyone ,we will not work at that way.

So we can inform we need to be in contakt with the world we are so lucky with our healthcare but as with everything else we always can do better and that is what we are going to do we are not in fight but we would like to get the truth about silicone and saline.

We know we are a small Island but we are a verry good nation with a good people even though we can say no and we got to in some cases but that is life. If I tell you about myself for those past days, I have been sick and I am sick but that is the hardes time for me because I got a lot of things on my mind these days, it started last year and I asked docktors after I got sick is it possible that my implants are leaking and the answer was no even though my implant were nine years "no birthdayparty for my implant just had to" I lost my energy and the docktor would not give up I went to a reabilitering for 2 months and I got a little tiny energy but I have tried my best to get it back and I got some energy back,I think it was because I would not give up and I found how importand it was for my doctors too and what a pation my doctors have it is unbleliveble, but almost 2 weeks ago I got sick agin and lost that little energy that I had build up and I have been back and forth from the hospital but now the doctors said it is nothing to wait for have your implants removed as soon as possible we do not know if they are the problem but they are old and does not look good,so they want be able to see how my implants are before they are out of my body, but I tell you the truth I am scerd to death to do this but I also think I do not have my brain in my breast, so maybe I will get my health back and I think it is worth it to have them out, but but !!!! this is going to be a hard time when this will be done. But I also have to think I have raised my 4 children by myself since they were verry young I made it,I also got through a breastcancer and then I can do this, this is not the worst thing that can happend but this is hard,I think maybe I am loosing something that woman have I do not know how to explain this. But I started our group in Iceland and I am going to keep it going and I have the experiance so I hope that I can share my experiance with other woman too. I am also a lucky persone I have a father who has been standing beside me as stone through everything he is a old men today but he is the best noone have could give me more hope then he has done he is always there for me and I hope one day I can give him something back I own it to him I also have my brave children they are almost growen up today and I have 1 grandchild who can ask for more.

So I will meet a doctor on Friday morning and he is going to see if I have fibromyoligia I do not know how they do that but if he can help it does not matter how it is done I give everything to get my health back. I hope that our group will have meeting next week, we try to meet as often as we can or we call each other, we could sign up for Dow Corning but we could not vote, and we got a great lawyer in Germany her name is Melissa and she is taking care of our case. I do not think that we got heard at the first time in the news paper about the Dow Corning but we heard that they came up with new deadline so hopefully we will get to more woman at our seckond round in the newspaper we know it is a lot of woman in Iceland that still do not know about the Dow Corning so we will try agin.Noone know how many woman have got implants in Iceland but they are many and in Iceland the docktors are loud to use siliconeimplant in woman but they also use saline, but now they are coming up with infromation for woman that are getting implants and that is a verry importand thing for everyone that they are informed before they get any kind of implants

So our group is satisfied what is happening in our country but we also like to get a lot of infromation from outside of Iceland what is happening in other countries so please give us all the infromation that we can use we need them. We are not able to be in study that FDA is doing on woman but hopefully one day they will do some study on woman from other countries as we say they have not come up with anything that say that implant does not cause any symptom and when they can show us some test that say that implants are save then we would like to get those infromation.I think that I will give all of you a rest from my writing telling about our wonderful country and how proud we are about our healthcare because they are listening to us we have been heard

Best wishes from our group "Von" and from me I am responseble for this writing and if you are not satified with my letter just tell me and I will try to do better next time, but it has taking me a long time to write this letter.I know this is a long letter.

Sincerely

Sigrun