A Tale of Two Organs

Nobody wants an angry pancreas.

Everyone has a pancreas and a gallbladder - at birth, anyway. Most people's pancreas and gallbladder live in peace with one another. In some, it's a love-hate relationship.

The two organs share a duct. When the gallbladder gets ticked off, it spits little stones into this duct. If that duct gets blocked, digestive pancreatic enzymes are blocked from exiting the pancreas. Those enzymes then stay in the pancreas, where they (get ready - here's where it starts sounding like a bad sci-fi movie) begin digesting the pancreas itself. The pancreas doesn't like that, so it gets inflamed, sometimes gets infected, and on a really bad day starts shutting down other organs.

When my husband started writhing in pain almost 3 weeks ago, we both assumed it was a gallstone. He was scheduled to have surgery the following week to have his gallbladder removed. But this attack was different. My husband was drenched in sweat. He looked like he jumped in a swimming pool. The whites of his eyes turned the color of Coke cans. So we went to the ER, where nurses were unable to do an EKG because he was too sweaty, and they struggled to put an IV in him because he couldn't lie still. They ran some blood work and it wasn't long before a doctor was telling me he was being admitted because his pancreas was severely inflamed.

I had no idea what that meant. The pancreas didn't sound like a major organ - certainly not a heart or a lung. I didn't realize that he was extremely ill. I nodded my head and waited for them to wheel him up to his room.

The next morning, the picture became a little clearer, when I walked in and found that my husband's eyes were now orange. He had been on Morphine, but it wasn't helping the pain, so they switched him to Dilaudid, which they administered every two hours. (Note: when Morphine doesn't help, something is wrong) His urinal held a liquid that looked like really dark iced tea. He didn't want to eat, talk, listen to music, or watch TV. He laid there, doped up, his orange eyes staring off into space...when they were open.

For the first few days, everything that could possibly go wrong...did. By the third day, and for the next week, his eyes were a deep yellow. His white blood cell count and enzyme numbers (known as amylase and lipase) were constantly on the rise. The reality of the situation hit me when he was moved to the ICU. He developed MRSA, a staph infection, and was placed in isolation. He developed an all-over body skin rash. He was running fevers. A pocket of fluid had built up around his pancreas. It never stopped.

Many doctors walked in and out of that room - gastroenterologists, infection specialists, surgeons, you name it. They all said they were "very worried", "quite concerned", or "scared" but nobody said exactly what worried, concerned, or scared them. My questions were met with answers like, "Well, we just have to make sure his numbers start going down." I asked one doctor how I would know it had gotten worse and he said, "When you see him on a ventilator." That was the only straight-forward answer I got. Nobody wanted to freak out the young wife who sat by her husband's side day in and day out. ''

When it appeared that his numbers were finally leveling off, they removed his gallbladder. Then, we held our breaths and hoped nothing would get worse. But they did. His numbers started creeping up again. More antibiotics, more fluids, more waiting.

Infection specialists entered the picture. They decided to remove the fluid around his pancreas with a needle. After two days of waiting, the results came back negative for infection, and his numbers started going down. He had turned a corner. Once his test results came back negative, he was finally sent home on a slew of medications. The two-week ordeal was finally over.

Looking back, there were signs that something was wrong before he went to the ER. His blood sugar was on the rise, his urine was getting dark, and he had a chronic, deep pain aside from the gallbladder attacks themselves. We had no reason to be "up" on pancreatitis, though, so we assumed it was all related to the gallstones.

When we went to the ER, we didn't have a clue that his pancreas was inflamed, or that an inflamed pancreas was anything to be scared of. Live and learn.

Had my husband decided to try and eat something, pop a pill, and suffer through the pain instead of going to the hospital, he might be dead now. That's just serious it was. He was in danger of going into shock, suffering massive organ failure, and of dying.

It was the scariest two weeks of my life. And I don't think I've ever loved my husband more than I do right now.

My husband has lost close to 50 pounds. That's 50 pounds in two weeks. I don't recommend the Pancreatitis Diet to anyone, but it works. If you want to skip the gym and shed pounds fast, just make your pancreas angry. You'll be shopping for a new wardrobe in no time.

I just hope you like Jello. Pin It