As I have been told over a long
period of time, there is no cure for pancreatitis. And in my case, there is no
reason for it to recur. Why I suffered from pancreatitis in the first place is
explainable. The most important drug in the initial days of chemotherapy did
not work out well for me and eventually led me to the infamous place between
life and death. May be it sounds a bit too dramatic but then when it comes to
me isn’t everything supposed to be dramatic? I am bad at memorizing dates but I
think it has been 3 years since my chemotherapy sessions bid me goodbye but
pancreatitis remains an uninvited familiar guest. And in last 6 years it has
visited my body 10 times or may be more. I don’t really keep the score.
No matter how bad the pancreatic
ache is, it did a few good things to me.
It made me resist the urge to
gulp tablets for mild pain, no matter if it’s in the head or the whole body. If
I can deal with the pain during pancreatitis without any medicine then I do not
have to affect my liver by eating pain killers unnecessarily. And I have this
feeling that bearing the pain on my own makes me stronger every time. But this
doesn’t mean ignoring something which is serious.
It’s in the nature of Homo
sapiens to crave for things specifically prohibited to them. The cure to
pancreatitis lies in fasting. No food no water. If a drop of water finds its
way to my stomach then the intensity of pain is exponentially increased.
Fasting isn’t a big deal because I am not hungry till the pancreas starts
healing. But that doesn’t mean my tongue needs no taste. So I practically drool
over the sight of food I hate. These few days do increase my self control to an
extent I never thought I could do on my own. No chocolates? C’mon! You get it!
One thing you stop doing after a
couple of times is that stop explaining to people why you have to stop eating
during this time. The people who lack the inability to think something beyond
the stereotypes they were taught as kids are never going to understand how an
ache in stomach can’t be treated by eating. Believe me, they won’t believe you!
They want you to eat and heal when eating actually takes your life. So I
stopped explaining anything to anyone. And honestly, nobody cares apart from a few.
Stop eating, lie still at one
place, probably shrink into yourself and try not to shout that it hurts. That’s
it. Moving or stretching in anyway and speaking loudly or laughing makes it
hurt. So I just pretend that I am dead and joke about it inside my head.
Depending on how good my jokes are, pain decreases! Basically not everything in
life is meant to be taken seriously. A bit of fun won’t do any harm, as long as
it’s inside my head! So why groan when I can have a nice time.
When you’re living alone with
people who haven’t known your case history of pancreatitis, who haven’t seen
what it is like to suffer from it makes you not want them to be worried. They
won’t understand and I do not have the patience to make them understand when my
body is getting weaker and weaker every minute. When I eventually start eating,
it has to be liquid first, then semi solids and finally solids. And it’s not
like I can eat anything, so I finally learned to cook for myself. A task I
avoided doing for years but of course my life is precious!
Well I guess that’s it. I am
done. Few good things happen in the worst situations. ‘Even a stopped clock
shows the right time twice a day.’ No matter how much I try, it is always about
the sunshine and not the darker side of the moon. If you’re wondering what
pancreatitis actually is then please google it. I do not know about the search
results but I was told that the pancreas swallows itself up due to the excessive
secretion of amylase and lipase. That’s it. It heals on its own when not
disturbed by any glucose molecule or even water! Nothing big it is but again
little things can be life threatening. So don’t forget to take care. ;-)
And by the way the best thing it did to me was take out the frustration of not being able to write a simple blog post!
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