Talk to people close to Pittsburgh Mayor Bob O'Connor, and the same metaphors keep coming up: They're on a roller-coaster ride, or a voyage on stormy seas. They feel devastated, punched, or even shot.

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As the mayor endured his 50th day of hospitalization yesterday, battling brain cancer, seizures and an infection, friends and administration members took solace in the public's support and in signs of hope they saw as recently as last week -- nods and smiles, a question or sentence here or there.

Family and some administration members who are particularly close to the mayor gathered at UPMC Shadyside yesterday.

"The family is holding up very well," said Dee-Dee Pelled, the mayor's sister-in-law.

For Squirrel Hill developer Ira Morgan, Mr. O'Connor's friend since the 1980s and supporter since the 1990s, the illness has been "unexpected and totally devastating."

"There's just so much out there to be done, and he was getting it done, and I think everybody was really excited," said Mr. Morgan, a partner with Millcraft Industries in a planned Downtown redevelopment. "The circumstance that we're confronted with now is a tremendous blow."

He said he last spoke with Mr. O'Connor, in person, early last week for around a minute.

"His words to me were, 'Just keep on doing what you're doing,' " he said.

He visited again Saturday, but the mayor was asleep.

Through it all, the administration has tried to advance the mayor's vision, especially his drive to clean up the city and craft an honest, balanced budget, said Yarone Zober, who has served as deputy mayor since the Aug. 6 decision that Mr. O'Connor is temporarily disabled.

"The waves are going up and down, and you're trying to row in the right direction, and you're getting seasick," he said.

On the other hand, he said, the mayor's office and the city bureaucracy have been "sort of galvanized" by the mayor's illness and public affection.

"People want to fulfill his vision," he said.

Mayoral spokesman Dick Skrinjar said he visited Mr. O'Connor in the hospital Friday, and told him what the administration was doing to prepare for Monday's Labor Day parade and the Steelers' Sept. 7 regular season opener at Heinz Field.

"He was really pleased. He was smiling. He was happy. If he could've been chuckling, he would have," Mr. Skrinjar said.

Even then, he wasn't talking much.

"A lot of [his communication] is like a thumbs up, or moving his fingers or hands, or the horizontal karate chop," he said.

Even so, the visit left Mr. Skrinjar feeling "pretty sky high."

Then came Monday, when the mayor had to undergo emergency surgery to replace a shunt that removes fluid from his brain, in an effort to stem an infection.

"It's like the way your stomach goes into your throat at the bottom of the Thunderbolt," he said, referring to Kennywood's famous roller coaster. "You taste metal in the back of your mouth."

Mr. O'Connor's immediate family could not be reached for comment yesterday.

It's not easy to watch a loved one suffer, and it's particularly hard when it plays out on a public stage, said Jeanne Caliguiri.

Her husband, the late Mayor Richard Caliguiri, died of amyloidosis in 1988, his last nine months in office undercut by slow medical decline.

Seeing her husband's medical details in the newspapers and on TV was painful, she said.

"I hated it. I hated when I would go to the hospital and I'd be followed by the media," she said. "You can't even grieve in private."

On the other hand, the public outpouring of support for her husband -- mirrored now in Mr. O'Connor's case -- buoyed her.

"People are just wonderful, and all those prayers -- that's what gets you through," she said. "Who's to say that support didn't help Dick to last longer?"

In Mr. O'Connor's case, public support has been exemplified by the sale of 10,000 bracelets with the message, "Everybody's Mayor ... Bob O'Connor," which has coincidentally fallen to Ms. Caliguiri as longtime development director of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's local chapter. Another 10,000 bracelets are expected to go on sale Friday at eight locations citywide.

"We may be a small, little city, but we have a heart twice the size," she said.

Particularly heartening to Mr. Zober are the vials of holy water and holy oil, Celtic crosses, and tips on everything from home remedies to homeopathy that come to the mayor's office. They show that people really want to do something -- anything -- to help.

City Public Works Director Guy Costa suffers from a much less serious brain tumor, and said seeing his boss struggle over the last few days "just hit me. But I'm still optimistic."

He's continuing to pursue the goals the mayor set forth during his first six months, like paving more streets, tearing down derelict buildings near schools, and "redding up" neighborhoods. But he doesn't deny that the mayor's health weighs heavy on him.

"Yeah, it bothers me. It really does," he said. "Working for him the last [eight] months, he has really become a father figure to me. ... I'm going to church a lot more to say prayers for him and his family."