Today marks the first anniversary of my surgery to have a lime sized malignant tumor removed from my pancreas. It's been a long journey/battle mostly uphill so how did i get here? Let start at the begining shall we...
It all started out inoscently enough, i'd been suffering and diagnosed with 'digestive problems' and reflux since 1997. I'd been to 3 doctors and they all prescribed meds that didn't help. But the difficult digestion wasn't constant, it would come and go, i'd have discomfort for a while then be 'fine' for months and eventualy i got used to it. But i'd go to the doctor during those times of discomfort.
My symptoms were nausea, vomitting, difficulty digesting (pain, discomfort), anything from diarrhea to constipation and right after i ate i'd break out in cold sweats and feel just horrible for about an hour or so.
The thing is, none of those doctors ever sent me to do any tests, just examined me at their officesprescribed some meds (the same ones) and sent me on my merry way. One even told me that I have a small stomach and that’s why I was having such a hard time
I should mention that I went from a size 8 in 1997 to a size 16 by 2005 and absolutely nothing helped to loose this weight, exercise, diet, nothing! Nothing could explain this weight gain, I ate right exercised and still blew up! My upper abdomen also swelled up. It wasn’t painful or anything but hard to the touch at times.
It finally came to a head in October of 2004. I was becoming increasingly ill after I ate and it would last all day. I’d wake up feeling lousy and not want to eat because that would just make matters worse. I went back to my family physician and told him that I’d been suffering with this far too long, I gave him all my symptoms once more, he sent me to have some blood work done (finally!!!) that showed abnormally high levels of amylasemy enzymes on the biliopancreatic test and a fecal test that showed an E-coli infection. He treated the e-coli infection with anti-biotics and ignored the blood work.
By December 2004 I was hardly eating, just enough to survive; I took absolutely no pleasure from eating, it was more of a chore than anything else.
December 23rd I’d force-fed myself some melon and that’s all I’d eaten all day. I’d been in so much pain from eating that that I could not sleep that night I just tossed and turned, by 1 am I was in the bathroom throwing up and having diarrhea simultaneously. The alarming this is that although I’d eaten the melon earlier in the day, I wasn’t even close to being digested; I threw up whole chunks of it.
I’d had it!
By this time I’m weak and can’t take myself to the doctor, my head is spinning and I refuse to eat, I went back to the doctor the following day and was given more anti-biotics and a script for more blood work if I didn’t feel any better in 7 days.
My great grand mother passed on December 22nd so although I didn’t feel any better I was grieving and preoccupied with funeral arrangements. So I only looked into my health again by January 20th 2005. I took all the meds I’ve been prescribed over the years, the lab results of the blood work done in October 2004 and went to a new doctor for a now 4th opinion. By now I’d really had it! I was in tears during the whole examination, this was my first visit to this doctor he must have thought I was nuts. I put the big bag of medications on his desk the blood work told him my symptoms and what the other 3 doctors diagnosed. I told him I feel like I running around in circles, there is something terribly wrong with me and I need to know what it is. He took one look at the blood work and knew but didn’t want to upset me any further. He said he does see something on the blood work (that my previous physician dismissed!), something to do with the pancreas, it could be nothing but it could be….. he never said it but I knew. He sent me to do an ultra sound and a scanner of my abdomen.
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