I was fortunate to have the best possible team at the Children's, and even though there were a few small glitches (losing sensation in my left leg from the epidural, having my first severe panic attack, losing a vital fat pad between my internal organs - all stories for another day), I recovered well and quickly.
Two days after being released, I was at home in Lethbridge, and I began to have that familiar feeling - that intense, high mid-stomach nausea. I couldn't tell you offhand which medication it was this time, maybe 6MP, or maybe simply from the trauma of the surgery, but I could tell.
There were three problems that didn't help my situation. The first is that I had lost so much weight that I was virtually skin and bones. The second (which goes hand in hand with the first) is that the doctors, prior to surgery, had had issued inserting the PICC line into my veins, so my arm had track marks. The third problem is that every single time I got hospitalized for pancreatitis, I would always feel the nausea, vomit once, and feel more of a burning sensation where there should have been pain. Then, whenever they would check my lipase, it would only be around 245-250 (the range being from 0-300). So I would go into Emergency, be told that I was nuts and that it couldn't be pancreatitis because I had virtually no pain and my lipase was in the normal range. They would send me home with gravol. Usually a couple hours after being sent home is when my lipase would spike drastically and I would end up with life-threatening pancreatitis.
So, this time was no different. My parents took me into emergency after calling the Children's and asking what we should do, and after being questioned about whether or not I was a heroin addict (and not being believed), they checked my lipase. Of course it was only at 256. Their hands were tied - they couldn't really do anything.
Now because I had just been released from a major abdominal surgery, we asked them to call the GI on call at the Children's since we knew it was one of my doctors. The ER doc came back, said he had spoken to my doctor, and sent me home.
We go home.. And I get worse. We call my doctor at the Children's again (it's about midnight). Turns out, he never received the phone call from the ER doc, but he wants me to go back in.
I was so upset about 1. The nurse blatantly telling me that she didn't believe the track marks were from a PICC line, and 2. The ER doctor outright lying about consulting my doctor in Calgary... That I would not go back to the ER. I told my dad that if I had to go back in, the only place I would go is to the Calgary Children's, where I knew that MY doctor was working and knew my entire history.
So, we pack up and drive to Calgary.
You have to understand, pancreatitis is both EXTREMELY uncomfortable, and incredibly dangerous. I was so nauseous and so weak, that all I did was lie in the back seat, trying to distract myself by counting the bumps in the road. I remember getting up to 752 before passing out for a short time. By this time I still had not vomited yet. Imagine that almost-about-to-puke feeling - that sweaty, paralyzing, nausea where you are salivating and unable to speak or move your mouth, your eyes are blurry and you can't even function and all you want to do is get it over with - that feeling for HOURS upon HOURS on end.
Well, we finally get to the emergency room at the Children's and the nurse gives me a generous shot of morphine before anything else. She pushes it in so quickly that I immediately puke. I was so relieved and so happy that I grabbed her hand, smiled, and said "Thank you."
She told us that she had never quite gotten that response before.
When they checked my lipase this time, it had spiked to 1332. And a damn good thing we went in. I was hospitalized for a few more days, taken off of that medication, and sent home.
This would have been when I was 17 years old - so about 11 years ago.
But that grueling car ride; what felt like the longest two hours I had ever experienced, is still pretty vivid.
And I will never forget the look on the nurse's face when I thanked her for making me puke. :)
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