org.

Volunteer also are needed to man registration table, sharing session facilities, hospitality hosts, workshop monitors and other miscellaneous duties. To donate or volunteer, contact Gudron Tendall at goody73501@aol.com or Gary Clark at gary.clark@cox.net.

The Compassionate Friends are sponsoring a golf tournament, May 19 at Trosper Golf Club, 2301 SE 29th St., Oklahoma City. The tournament begins at 12 p.m. with an 11 a.m. check-in. It will be a four-person scramble, with teams of the players choosing. Fees are $65 per player or $260 per team. A putting contest is $5. Mulligans are $5 each or five for $20 with a limit of five per team. It is $100 to sponsor a hole. Deadline to register is May 10.

The 2007 Norman chapter leader is Jodie McWilliams. She came to The Compassionate Friends after the loss of her daughter, Kellie Lynn.

“If it wasn’t for this group, I might have committed suicide,” McWilliams said. “This is every parents’ worst nightmare. The loss of a child, leaves a hole in your heart that you can never replace.”

Kellie died June 28, 2003, when her liver failed after an accidental overdose of Tylenol. One minute she was a happy 17 year old, involved in many activities at Westmoore, cross country and track, the Hands Club and many volunteer programs. She loved sea turtles and dreamed of working at a Sea World. She wanted to be a history teacher, maybe teaching deaf students.

She had lived most of her life in Georgia and Rhode Island moving to Moore her sophomore year. She was a friendly, compassionate, independent person, according to her many friends. She liked to hang out with her friends, was very protective of them and always willing to help. Kellie-do was her nickname because everyone was always asking Kellie-do this or Kellie-do that.

June 23, 2003, Kellie had a migraine. She chose not to take her migraine medication because she didn’t like the “out of control” feeling it gave her. She took some 500 milligram Tylenol. When the pain didn’t stop, she took some more. She started vomiting and thinking she was vomiting the Tylenol out of her system, she took some more. Twenty Tylenols later, she was very ill and her mother took her to Southwest Medical Center. Kellie lost a whole day there before she was transferred to the Integris Baptist Health Center intensive care unit. She spent a day and a half as the number one person on the liver transplant list but died before she could receive a new liver.

“People don’t realize it’s not an easy way to go,” said Jodie McWilliams. “My daughter was not a cryer, not even when she got shots as a baby.”

McWilliams said by the time you can get your stomach pumped, the drug is already in your bloodstream. There are no symptoms when livers start to fail, she said, and once it happens there is nothing you can do.

McWilliams now spends her time writing letters and making phone calls to the FDA, political leaders and those in the medical field to have clearer regulations on labels and provide awareness of the dangers to the public.

“If I can save one girl’s life with Kellie’s story, that’s all I want to do,” said McWilliams. “Tylenol has an antidote. Heroin doesn’t. Just how safe is Tylenol?”

There has been an overwhelming rise in acetaminophen (Tylenol) overdoses, mostly in teenagers. The recommended dosage is two pills every 4 to 6 hours not to exceed eight in 24 hours. Overdoses can cause jaundice and vomiting. An antidote and recovery is possible if it is delivered within 18 hours.

According to the Oklahoma Poison Control Center, the top five causes of Oklahoma poisonings in 2000 were cosmetics, household cleaning supplies, analgesics, pesticides and snake bites and bee stings. Analgesics rank third in pediatric poisoning but has moved to number one in adult exposures.

Acetaminophen is in hundreds of different types of medicines and people may take extra doses without realizing it. A teenage girl might take Midol for cramps which contains acetaminophen and then take Tylenol for a headache, not realizing she has doubled the acetaminophen dosage.