I started drinking in Junior High. I don't really remember a time when I
wasn't drinking, with the exception of being pregnant and my son's first year
after he was born. Through my journey over this last year I realized I
probably was responsible for 90% of my relationships ending and it was due to
alcohol. I realized I've spent my whole life making drinking buddies and hardly
any real bonded friendships. I've concentrated on partying and nurturing
relationships that were doomed to fall apart as soon as the alcohol went away.
One year ago today I checked into Boone Hospital ICU for my second bout with
pancreatitis. The first round happened just a year and a half before at the end
of July 2018. After that first attack, I was later told my pancreatic blood
levels were off the charts, literally, and I'm pretty sure I was dipping one leg
into the ground. Of course this was just six months after my first battle with
breast cancer, my double mastectomy and full hysterectomy. I really didn't think
a year could get any worse than 2018. 2020 gladly said "Hold my bourbon"....
ironically LOL
With a pancreatitis diagnosis, the most common cause is alcohol.
In 2018 I was in total denial that was my cause. I blamed it on EVERYTHING but
the alcohol. Hell I'd been drinking almost my whole life, since my first
experimentation in Junior High with my girlfriends when we would take some hits
from our parents liquor stash just to feel grown up and cool. How could alcohol
just now decide it was going to wreck my pancreas and wreck havoc on my life.
Seemed so unfair to me. I'd already been through so much. Why me? EVERYONE
around me was drinking, and usually A LOT more than I was drinking. Why are they
not collapsing in pain and agony as well? UNFAIR! Don't get me wrong and I do
not wish illness upon ANYONE ever! I just have many moments on my path of
recovery of "why me" that in time, I hope I will find the answer to within myself
and my healing. After that first round, which I'm pretty sure could have killed
me had I not went to the hospital that night in July 2018, I was put on a very
strict diet and was told I would never be able to drink alcohol again. With a
pancreatic diet your fat intake has to be limited to under 30-40 grams per day.
I walked out of the hospital that day in July and thought no big deal. Well I'll
tell you folks, go to your pantry and refrigerator right now and add up the fat
grams you eat even per meal. You will be shocked. I know I was. Also no more
alcohol. No biggie right. I had cut way down anyways due to my breast cancer and
all the challenges that had came with that first round of surgeries and healing.
But cutting down and cutting it all the way out are two very different
things.... and for an alcoholic, yes, alcoholic, it is damn near
impossible to fathom the thought of never ever having another drink again. My
fiancé and I, at the time, basically lived in the bars or at friends houses
throwing down booze just about every single night prior to my first attack. Having to
go along with the same routine post pancreas attack was not working for me. So I
withdrew. Started staying home more because just being around it was pure
torture. I fell into a massive depression and, looking back now, was not fun to
be around at all.
About 6 months after my first attack I saw a specialist in St.
Louis and he told me it was okay to have a light beer every now and again or a
glass of wine every once and a while. I was so excited. I could finally kind of
join the groups again and maybe try to get back into the groove with my fiancé.
Try to get him to love me again. Show him I hadn't changed and I was still me,
fun (drunk) Kristy, the one he repeatedly said he missed and wished would come
back. So we got into somewhat of a groove and I was content and happy. I would go
out for a while and then be finished like a normal almost 50 year old, about
10:00 get tired and ready to head home. I felt like for the first time in my
life I had my alcoholism and life in general going in the right way. My fiancé
didn't slow down the partying however, and would go out without me or take me
home after a nice night out and head back out to keep on partying and that hurt
me greatly thinking he did not care about my feelings at all. Unfortunately he
did finally find someone who could keep up the partying and drinking, because I
was no longer any fun and I had made the decision to save my life the only way I
thought I knew how. By staying home and cutting myself off from the temptations.
By saving my life I pretty much lost my whole life. But as I am on my sobriety
path I see now that was not a life. That was sitting in a bar night after night spending tons of money and killing ourselves voluntarily. It was just several more years that were added to my
collection of 35 years of addiction and alcoholic friendships. After my fiancé
left me, I once again fell into a deep depression and yes, fell all the way off
that big red wagon. Like head first, swan dive right into the bourbon barrel. He
left in March and by June 2019 I was back to all night bingers. Back to random
sexual encounters where you wake up and don't even remember who they are or how
you got home. Ashamed as hell, because I had done so good for the prior year and
had almost quit drinking. And was healing both physically and mentally from my
breast cancer surgeries. I was finally getting back to a place where I was
planning an actual future with my fiancé and didn't quite think about death
every day any more thanks to the lovely BC. And now here I was back acting like
the totally idiotic addict that I know now I was. But I didn't care. My heart was
shattered, my world had been blown apart, I really didn't care if I lived or
died, and I was drinking and nothing was happening to my pancreas so I thought
well maybe the doctor was wrong...
Until ..... October 25, 2019. Back to ICU.
I had been hurting all week at work and knew what was coming, but thought if I
waited until Friday after work I wouldn't miss any work. Just be in the hospital
over the weekend and back to normal. That was a great plan in theory, but in
reality I was in the ICU at the hospital for 6 days. Was discharged with the
alcohol and diet lecture and on my way I went. This time alone. You know what I
still find crazy. I was STILL in denial that it was the alcohol. True definition
of an addict. But this time I was determined to not drink and to get sober on my
terms and was going to do it right. Was going to kick my life off and start
living. Hell I was almost two years out of my cancer diagnosis and feeling
pretty good. I guess God figured I still wasn't going to be able to do this on
my own, because 2 weeks after my pancreas issue and my stay in the hospital I
found a lump under my arm and of course you know the rest from my other
postings. Yes it was cancer, and I was about to begin the second breast cancer
battle, this time with a surgery, chemo, and radiation. Oh yeah and
pancreatitis, sobriety and a pandemic to boot. Yep there was the "why me".
Again.
One of my very best friends that I worked with at Shelter gave me a daily
devotional that was beach themed before I left work in November for my fight. He
was also leaving work, to retire. I've never missed someone so much and I hope
that he knows how much that book, and what he wrote in it means to me. I read
that every single day and it kept me going and in some ways brought me back to a
faith I thought was gone forever. I do definitely still question it every day.
Because I hurt every day. I want to drink every day. And I don't know why he
would pick one person to take on so much. I am a broken person in need of peace
and healing and yet it seems like the hits just keep on coming. A month ago I
had another attack. I had done nothing at all to spark this attack. My doctors
just basically said once the pancreas is damaged, even if you do everything
right you will still have attacks and the pancreas will continue to decompose. At
this time there is no cure or treatments at all for my chronic pancreatitis
condition. Just eat right and stay away from alcohol and pray.
I will be having a
few fun procedures in the next two weeks.... But for today I am going to
celebrate me and my accomplishment. I sometimes say "I don't have a choice" to
not drink. But that's not true, I do have the choice. I could drink.... and die.
And thus far I have made the choice to stay sober and try to live a little
longer in this crazy world!
