Everybody’s different. That’s the problem. Medicine and medical care, however, isn’t about that. They treat templates. Differences are accounted for, such as in my case, where I had a 1-in-20 chance of developing pancreatitis. But I weighed the odds, signed the consent form, and got to be that 1. So differences still matter. None of us is a template.
I’ve always had hunger pains. These were different from the feeling of hunger but they came at the same time. Certain other family members also have them. I’ve looked many places on the Web for answers to what my hunger pains actually are, with slim results. “Stomach acid” is the main suspect. But other people have that when they get hungry too, without the pain. What’s different in my case? The doctors say “That’s a good question”. Whenever somebody says that, they don’t have the answer. Would this condition have suggested that I might be sure to get pancreatitis if the inside of my pancreas was probed? I’d say yes, because that’s just instinct. I don’t know.
I tend to be prone to minor problems with what TV ads used to call “irregularity”. In both the liquid and solid directions, if you know what I mean. Was this a harbinger as well? Especially since I had spent more than a week prior to this event fighting irregularity of the liquid sort? How?
Anyway, pancreatitis in me was manifested, principally (though among other symptoms) by hunger pains in the extreme. Without the hunger. What does that tell us?
And what does it tell me now that my hunger pains (which are now associated with pancreatitis) are accompanied by actual hunger — not a lot of hunger, but some?
So, I have questions. Which means I’m feeling better. I still have a long way to go. Four bags of fluid now drip into my left wrist, and six colored wires run from a heavy portable telemetry unit to sticky tabs on my chest and back. I keep a spitoon by my side and dose my bathroom visits with choreographic precision, since wiring and tubing management — not to mention work with craphats and pisshats — makes every vist a complicated ordeal.
As of tonight I will have gone a week without a meal. And the end is not in sight. Yet.
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