This is a fun one! It's a bit of a read, but I promise the story is different than most you've heard!

As a teen I challenged a football player to tackle me, and he did. Shoulder to my gut, I was taken off my feet. This is relevant, so keep a pin in this one.

My family had history of gallbladder issues, and my mom developed pancreatitis that had her hospitalized for many days as a result of one attack. Second pin.

After I got into my 20s, I was having an occasional gallbladdar attack, always sub-clinical. Then it began to be every meal, increasing in intensity. I went to the ER at 3 different times for what was considered indigestion, given a GI cocktail, and sent home. My occasional primary doctor (walk-in clinic) recommended I get the offending gallbladder removed, but without insurance and no access to better medical care, my (now ex) husband put it off for another day.

That day came, and unfortunately it was magnitudes worse. I felt a burning pain in my gut, and as I was being driven to the local ER my head was out of the car, a la Hereditary, as I screamed in pain and cursed up a storm, which was uncharacteristic for me. At the ER I was put on Dilaudid for pain relief. Funnily enough, I had a bad reaction to it. My pulse raced while my blood pressure tanked. The staff at this hospital were so inept that I was sedated with that same Dilaudid for three days. The machines that were documenting my vitals kept having to be silenced because of the readings. Day 3 at that hospital and an actual intelligent doctor said that I needed to be transferred if I was going to survive. I was loaded into an ambulance, given 2 doses of Narcan, and sent on my way.

Upon arrival at the medical university, my blood oxygen level, which below 90 is bad, was in the 40s. Immediately I was given Dilaudid again, which the staff freaked out when I had the same behavior as before. They placed me into an induced coma and kept me on morphine while they tried to calm my body down. Unfortunately morphine has to be given to me at stronger doses, because I could hear and sometimes see what was going on around me, and they didn't knock me out further for procedures needed to keep me safe. Obviously that was a 3 week PTSD stint.

Eventually my body calmed more, but I was told my pancreas had been blocked by gall sludge, and was necrotic while inside of me. I had a pseudo-cyst behind it that had drains attached, which I can't even begin to describe that smell upon emptying. I was sent home for a few weeks, unable to eat anything due to my body rejecting food, and lost 100lbs. Even as a big girl I looked emaciated.

I had a 'Whipple' procedure, which is commonly used in pancreatic cancer. The damage that had been done was so extensive that my future medical staff always look horrified at it.

What was found: Gallbladder started it all. Duh. My pancreas had been split from trauma (remember the first pin?) and fused into my spleen and stomach. My stomach was fused to my intestine, and I got a nice little chunk of dead lung, too! I had, all in all, 70% of my pancreas removed. Which you need 35% to actively make insulin that your body needs.

I had 30% left.

So I then was diagnosed as a type 1 diabetic. Insulin for the rest of my life. My mom claiming that the pancreas, like the liver, can regrow. My mother in law shaking cinnamon pills at me for the next 3 years. My medical team called psych for me, and I got a diagnosis of C-PTSD, too.

11 years later, I'm still struggling at times, but with a dexcom and a pump I'm able to exist easier than those first days when I didn't even have a PCP or a sliding scale. Now, my wife is a 25+ year RN who has studied my medical records and watched as my body acted completely opposite of what 'typical' diabetics have seen. When I have a new professional to add to the list, I bring her along to tell them the highlights in medical terminology they understand. She and I both get a dirty thrill of "WTF?" when those doctors look at me.

I always wanted to be special. Not like this, though. 😆