Finally, a Diagnosis... or two.

The message below was sent to family and loved ones yesterday. I have been very frustrated with my medical issues. If you are not up to date and interested, catch up on this first please...


Everyone knows I have been feeling horrible since March 13th when I got the food poisoning in Korea – which I am aware may be just a coincidence. I have now lost down to 160; but started gaining back in my abdominal area. The way I am feeling, I am thinking there is a better way to lose weight. Last week I had an upper and lower GI done and they were "all clear" – diverticulosis and "absolutely nothing else", but no infection thankfully. My GI is fine.

However, I am very bloated, nauseous and wake from left side pain between 2-5am every morning. I have been throwing up all morning today – I usually do that every few days. It hurts to ride in a car – especially Steve’s lumberjack truck. It hurts to walk and it hurts when I sit down.

Today I scheduled an appointment with a regular GP to see if he can weed anything out. I hope he has a brainstorm that figures out my dilemma. The pain seems to be right under the bottom of my left front rib cage and now is so generalized (radiating) that I honestly have no idea where it is. I have been sick for so long that I cannot even think straight. It is like a deep sore that keeps oozing – not a sharp pain, just a constant nag with bloating and nausea. It is not back related – it is inside my body. I don’t seem to have pain in my back kidney area. I have no fever. My blood work comes out generally fine with just the extremely high c-reactive I always have. My abdominal CAT scan is normal.

I get a day where I am feeling just ok, then 3 sick as a dog. I do not feel great at any point and I miss feeling great. Depression has started to dive in of course. I fight it all the time, but this has me spiraling.

If this is psychological, then someone needs to steer me in the right direction to reprogram my brain.


Then yesterday afternoon, I sent this message:

The prayers must be helping. I scheduled an appointment with the new Dr today and just before I left to go, the Dr that did the upper/lower GI series called and said the biopsy results came in and lo and behold I have gastritis. How amazing! How does it go from “nothing - absolutely nothing” to gastritis?

Who knows?

Anyway, all things considered, I went ahead and kept my appointment with the new Dr who looked over all my records and said she was certain that it was indeed gastritis and that all my symptoms indicated it was a good call. She did say however, that she found it odd that a test was not done for my pancreas in all of this. True the CAT scan did not show an enlarged pancreas and my symptoms are not typical of pancreatitis, but she said she would feel more comfortable ruling it out – so we did that blood work. We shall know soon. I am on a medicine for the gastritis and she said I should feel a difference in 3-5 days. Wow. Imagine that... I might feel good for one or two days while I am here.

Thanks for the prayers and good thoughts – I know that is what is helping me out. Why do I wait on them for so long?

And finally, today's news.

The second Dr called me today and said the blood work came back and it is positive for pancreatitis. So, I not only have gastritis, I also have pancreatitis! IT IS NOT IN MY HEAD!! I never thought it was to begin with - but now I KNOW it is not. It is absolutely no wonder I have been so ill. YIKES! Thank God I am here to tell you about it.

The Dr said it is difficult to treat, and was a bit concerned about me going back to Singapore so soon, but when she found out I had a good Dr over there, she was ok with it. We will work through the medicines with the various Drs and thank God they found it. I knew I have been pretty darned sick and was getting frustrated hitting walls. Of course my symptoms were not typical of pancreatitis, but it is what it is. Thank goodness and detective Drs for answers.

However, it appears after reading about chronic (that is what the Dr said it was) pancreatitis, it appears there is no cure? I hope I am reading this wrong. Do you know anything about it? Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers - I am so done with this.