My friend Aaron has pancreatitis. Acute pancreatitis is when your pancreas malfunctions once and after a while it calms down and you live a normal life. Chronic pancreatitis is an ongoing condition. You live your life in constant pain waiting for your pancreas to try to kill you again. His condition is chronic. Over the past several years he has to deal with shunts and scar tissue and pain.
His doctor decided to try a new pain medication that is injected once a month and costs $2500 a shot. His insurance company said they would pay for it but only if the doctor kept it in stock. If he got it from a pharmacy and took it to the doctor for injection, it would not be covered. This medication is so rarely used and has such a short shelf life that no doctor on planet earth keeps it in stock. It took him about a month to work it out between his doctor and his insurance company, but thanks to his persistence they agreed to pay. He got his $2500 pain shot.
Unfortunately it didn't work. He wound up back in the hospital due mostly to pain. His doctor didn't seem to think there was much point in continuing the injections. So they came up with a new plan, to surgically bypass his pancreas for a while.
He called me from the hospital this morning. He is now officially a cyborg. They put a feeding tube through his stomach into his intestines. This is to keep him alive while tricking his pancreas into thinking that he hasn't eaten so that it will stop making digestive fluids. The hope is that his pancreas will rest and reset itself. The tube has an electric pump that periodically squirts liquid nutrients into his guts. It apparently can be carried around in a backpack.
So he isn't supposed to eat anything for 6 months. No solids at all. It won't hurt him if he does, but it will defeat the purpose of punching a hole in his stomach and snaking a tube to his intestines. He can drink water and stuff but he has to be careful not to drink too much. If he does, he has a separate tube that will drain his stomach into a catheter bag.
I'm going to visit him tomorrow and I absolutely can't wait to make fun of him. I mean dude, really, the guy has tube to drain coffee out of his stomach. How nasty sick is that? What kind of friend would I be if I didn't try to make him feel self conscious about it.
Done for now.
rob
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