I’m sharing this personal story because I don’t want others to go through what I’ve gone through.
You see, well when I was a child my parents warned me not to play with my pancreas. “Lori, if you keep playing with your pancreas you’ll get pancreatitis,” they’d say. Did I listen? Of course not! It was the 70’s and parents said we would get some kind of “itis” form just about everything.
Okay, that never actually happened. But it was a good story. I’m not sure how others have gone about getting pancreatitis, and I’m still learning about it so I haven’t quite figured how I went about getting it.
As usual, when the pain was just too long and too much it was a Friday night. Meaning, the ER was the only cool place to hang out at for an emergency, and any follow-up doctors appointments would have to wait till the weekend was over.
So, chatting with my doc about it hasn’t happened yet. I am, however, very cleaned out at the moment, a liquid diet will do that to ya. I have IBS so most often I’m not hanging onto any old used up crap anyway.
I’ve also been reading tidbits about the pancreas and pancreatitis now and then, here and there. It’s rather redundant so diving into the study of that rather clandestine glandular organ isn’t something I want to dedicate large portions of my time to.
The ER doctor was considering hospitalizing me but instead released me with instructions. One, go on a clear fluid diet for several days. Two, make a follow-up appointment with my doctor. Three, well three was just a prescription for pain and four would be a doctors excuse for not going to work note that I plan to hand in when I go to work. I did leave early on Thursday due to upper stomach pain and I called early Friday to let them know I needed to stay home.
Well shoot, this isn’t a first. While writing the last sentence I got a bit fuzzy on the sequence of days. Turnes out I went to the ER on Thursday night. Soooo, I could have made a follow-up doctors appointment. Oops! Have you met me? Cause if you haven’t, well, this isn’t an uncommon occurrence. Because of that sort of woolgathering, no, more like distractedness, I have a “mom’s” calendar made especially for folks just like me, a “mom’s” style daily planner that I carry with me almost everywhere, and alarms set on my phone for various things I need to remember throughout the day.
Back to my indisposition, Pan Creat(e) itis, I’m working on remembering the spelling of this silent but organ of great caliber.
It’s a little bugger. I wonder how long it’s actually been acting up shrouded by other organs allowing them to take the blame while it peered out astern from the more mainstream organ we call the stomach.
The pancreas, which I think should include a ‘u’ in its spelling, is known for all kinds of issues when it’s not happy. Alcohol abuse is the main reason for most peoples pancreatitis. Rules me out on that one. I rarely drink and when I do it’s Dos Equis, lol, no jk, but I do like Dos Equis. But really, occasionally I’ll add a fourth of a cup or less of wine to my juice. If I’m getting really wild I might have a wine cooler. whoo hoo!! But I don’t really crave alcohol, I just talk big. There are many other causes, feel free to look it up. In other words, I haven’t had any solid food in three days and I don’t feel like going on about all the potential causes.
I guess we’ll just see what happens next, what I learn next, and if my spelling gets any better, and so on.
Thanks for reading my blog about pancreatitis, oops, auto correct caught the ‘u’ I put in it again. Darn it! I hope this helps to motivate and inspire you to care for your most paramount pancreas. (Yes, I have trouble not putting a ‘u’ in the word pancreas too.) Having a pancreas removed results in dependency on insulin shots cause your natural insulin dealer is your pancreas. Safeguard that baby, but, take my parents warning, don’t play with it.
Pancreas’ are ugly so here’s a picture of my cat.
Lorenakoran's Blog 