Apparently Biff likes ice cream. Who would have thunk it. He also likes Count Chocula, Double Stuf Oreos and lemon drops. This is a good thing because I do too.
I think one of the biggest casualties in this whole thing has been my appetite. When I first when to the doctor about this around the end of March, I weighed a svelte 195 lbs, more than I had weighed in a long while. This was probably due to the new anti-depressants that I was taking. Once the cramps and pain started kicking into full gear, the weight started dropping. At my lowest point, right around diagnosis time at the end of May, I was 176.
Try the new pancreatitis diet plan and watch the pounds just melt away.
The lbs were slowly dropping off with each doctor’s visit and new test. First came the sonogram checking my pancreas (just the surface) and found nothing. That was followed by an endoscopy looking for ulcers or infections, nothing, the a CAT scan looking at my pancreas again, 0 for 2 on that one and then a nuclear gall bladder scan (which was really cool because I got to see my gall bladder glow) which resulted in no answers either. By this point it was going on two months and I had resorted to Web MD, and Mystery Diagnosis for any inkling of an answer.
By this point I was seriously starting to wonder if this was all in my head. All of the tests were showing nothing and there were no physical symptoms to justify what I was feeling. I began to wonder if I was really stuck with this until it "passed” or just stopped as suddenly as it started. My doctor/savior was still curious and undaunted in her quest to get answers. I was and still am very thankful for her being as stubborn as I am. She really believed it was my pancreas despite all the other tests being negative but I began to see her frustration with it as well. She said that she wanted to try one more thing before referring me to a specialist. Let me back up a second, I talk in lots of medical terms lately and have become very familiar with my abdominal area and any and all tests involving it. This time they wanted to put another tube into my throat, this time with an ultrasound monitor on it, to further look at my pancreatic area.
One more time...with feeling!
This one seemed a bit more serious and I actually was feeling a combination of hope and fear that this would find out a) what was wrong and b) that I wasn't crazy. Well, I am crazy but that's another rant for another time. Thus I digress as I usually do. Once again they wheeled me in, numbed my throat, put me to sleep and once again, I remember nothing but the nurse saying something followed immediately by waking up in the recovery room. It was really quite odd to just lose pieces of my life like that. After trying unsuccessfully to wake me up a few times, the doctor gave up and the nurse was there when I came to. She told me that they found out that it was chronic pancreatitis. Then my girlfriend walked ib and apparently, I say apparently because I don't completely recall bits and pieces when I come out from anesthesia, I raised my hands in the air and said
Me: "We have a winner!"
She: "What is it"
Me: "Chronic Pancreatitis
Nurse: That means you can't drink anymore
Me: Does that mean I can't drink anymore?
Nurse: Yes
Me: Well, it was a good run
One thing this has not taken and will not take from me is my sense of humor. When it does, it means I have given up. And anyone who knows me knows that I am nothing if not stubborn. And so the journey began from there. I don't think I truly and immediately grasped the meaning of my situation until I went back to the doctor (to whom I repeated the "we have a winner" speech) told me what this diagnosis meant going forward. Words like, no cure, rest of your life, take all these pills everyday, rest of your life, don't drink anymore, rest of your life! Those words echo in my head, every day, they consume me at times. In those moments my sense of humor is gone. I want to give up. I want to give in. I want to just lay in bed and let it win. Take medicine, do nothing, be on disability and basically become nothing more than a shell of who I used to be.
But in those moments, I hear the echoes of my mothers voice in my head when she told me "You control the disease, do not let the disease control you, this thing does not define who you are and you cannot let it, or it wins" Stubborn I am and I don't like to lose. Rest of my life?? Bring it on!
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