Some people may know this about me, but for others it may come as a surprise but I suffer from a chronic illness; chronic pancreatitis. In 2002 just as I hit goal I had kidney stones. I was sent for a CT Scan when the second one hit. When they called me in to go over my results, my stone had passed and I was expecting that I’d go in and they’d say, “It was here…see! Here’s what you do if you feel another one coming on.” So when the doctor said, “We see something on your pancreas that bears looking into my heart thudded to the floor. I didn’t know a lot about the pancreas beyond it was responsible for insulin and aided in digestion.
Long story short, I had a total of three surgeries in 2003. One was to enucleate the tumor, but it was too big and had fingers (very scary). The second was a Whipple Procedure where they removed a part of my pancreas, and a lot of other stuff. It’s one of the biggest most extensive surgeries they do. A pretty big deal. The third was do remove a blockage in my intestine.
Because of this about every 4-6 weeks I end up with what I refer to as “Hankreatitis.” Hank is what I named my tumor (Hank the Pancreatic Tumor was pre-cancerous, so I am SO glad I had kidney stones). Hank returns to haunt me with regularity. My symptoms are that food tastes funny, I get extremely achey from head to toe with these funky little “stabs” of pain, I become lethargic, run a high fever, and am pretty much completely incapacitated by pain. It comes on very fast at times; two times it’s happened during a race. It can last a day or three days.
So that means I have to be able to drop everything and be sick, like it or not, once a month on average. I’ve had DOZENS of tests to determine why it happens, and the best we can figure is that the rebuilt bile duct gets temporarily blocked, causing a backup into my pancreas and liver, which results in pain, fever, and lethargy. (Lethargy for me is HUGE. I am the Energizer Bunny, but when I’m sick I can barely lift my head off the pillow.)
So how do I handle this? I will admit that at times I feel very sorry for myself, but then I remember that I could have NOT had kidney stones and instead ended up with pancreatic cancer and I feel blessed. Do I stay on program? Do I still exercise?
Yes, I do stay on program. I tend to eat what feels right at the time, so if dinner is a bowl of cereal, so be it. If I don’t feel like eating, I don’t but I do stay well hydrated. I don’t overeat and I do journal everything. If I don’ t eat enough, I make up for it the next day.
For exercise I try to focus on listening to my body. If I am coming down off of it and am off the pain pills, I’ll go out for a walk to clear the cobwebs and work on the habit. At this point in my life, I don’t think I’d lose the habit, but after the surgeries recovery was VERY slow (it was a full year before I had my stamina completely back). At that point there were days all I could do was walk down to the end of the block, so that’s all I did. The habit made me feel like I had control in an out of control situation.
That’s the key to me. We all have our crosses to bear. Some crosses are MUCH heavier than mine, and we often can’t control the situation the way we would like to. But we can control our reaction, and we can work in our healthy times on being as healthy as possible so our bodies will handle the chronic illness and recover faster. I honestly consider myself to be VERY blessed. This was found early, and chronic pancreatitis is a very small price to pay to avoid pancreatic cancer. This is part of the reason I am SO driven about fitness and nutrition. That really underscored to me how precious health is, and I get a reminder once every 4-6 weeks!
My body decided to give me that reminder today. So I’m lying on the couch dozing off and on. I finally gave in and took a pain pill (I try to control the pain with sleep, hot baths, and NSAIDs, but no go today). Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be back to my crazy old self!
So think about what, in your life, you are unable to control and how you react with what you CAN control. Life is a series of decisions, and the move positive decisions we make, the less we feel victimized and the more confident we are in our own roles in our health.
Tags: control, Hank, health, motivation, pancreatitis
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