A Pain in the Neck

At the end of 2015, a lot of people said, “Good riddance.” I am still unsure about 2015. I am both glad to see it go and apprehensive about what 2016 will hold.

I had a really great year, for the most part, until late September/early October. Within a week, one of my beloved cats died, my mom told me she needed hip replacement surgery and I got an acute pancreatitis attack. October was tough. November was better.

On December 2, I had another acute pancreatitis attack and I have been a wreck ever since. The first week afterward, I did nothing but beat myself up about it and agonize whether I’d caused the pancreatitis to come back somehow. Over Thanksgiving weekend, I’d had some fatty foods and a few drinks, but nothing too crazy. Still, I worried—and worry still—that the pancreatitis is my fault, that I triggered it somehow. The thought that I could have avoided this consumed me for at least a week.

The lymphoma wasn’t my fault, but this pancreatitis was different—even the slight chance that I could have avoided the pancreatitis somehow made me feel terrible. I felt like I finally got my hard-won health back and then, though my own fault, I lost it again. I had so much hope that the October attack was an isolated incident. I had felt a little weird the week leading up to the attack, but the doctor said I couldn’t have prevented it. I had an MRI a few weeks later, which showed the lesion—the mysterious spot that has shown up on all the PET scans. After the MRI, I waited a few weeks for an appointment with another gastroenterologist, who recommended an endoscopy, scheduled for next Friday. The time in between appointments has seemed like an eternity.

I haven’t been this depressed in years—even through the cancer. I’ve started to write posts, but I’ve been busy lately, so instead of a thoughtful post, this is just getting my thoughts out in hopes that it will help. It’s not all bad, of course. In fact, everything else is great. The twinges of pain in my pancreas aren’t even that bad—it’s my mind that is the worst part. I worry all the time. I worry that the doctors won’t be able to figure out what’s wrong. I worry that I will develop chronic pancreatitis and will always be in pain. I worry that all the hopes and plans I had while recovering from my stem cell transplant won’t happen after all. As the year ended, I worried that maybe most of the good in my life is done and things will only get worse.

I worry that I’m sinking into self-pity that I don’t deserve. It’s hard not to go to that place. After the chemo and the stem cell transplant, I wanted to be healthy again. Even though I still have some lasting effects—like the numbness in my hands when it’s cold or my tiny radiation tattoos—I wanted to go back to “normal.” I don’t want to go back to the world of doctors and biopsies and tests.

The other thing is through the cancer treatment, there was always an end point to look towards—even as that point kept getting farther away after the first six months of chemo didn’t take and after the three-month trial didn’t get me into remission. Yet there was always an end point, a light at the end of the tunnel. I feel like I’ve fallen back into a dark hole of unknown health issues and there’s no end point.

It’s not like I have only unknowns. I have had two pancreatitis attacks. I have a lesion on my pancreas. I have weird twinges of pain to my left side, lately to my right side and sometimes below my belly button. My lipase levels were high last Tuesday and they’re even higher (about double) as of yesterday’s blood test. I feel helpless and somehow responsible for this at the same time. I have been staying hydrated and have been trying to avoid fatty foods. I was told yesterday that I’ve lost two pounds in the past month, but I would trade that for all the holiday treats I had to pass up.

I want to go back to the time before my cat died and before I got sick again, and I want to stay there. Or I want to fast-forward to when things are OK again, if they can be. I don’t want to be anywhere near now. It feels like my life is on hold again, suspended. I have been trying to cheer myself up—working out, wearing some old clothes I found when I cleaned out the closet. I have things to look forward to, and I know looking back won’t do much good, unless it’s to learn something. Right now, I wait for my endoscopy and, hopefully, for answers, and to feel better. So far, with every appointment, there have just been more questions than answers.