My back hurts.
"Wow," you're thinking. "It's Friday and this is your Deep Thought?"
Sorry, nothing deep. I'm not really sure where this post is going. I'm just . . . typing. Just over sharing. Just working through what's in my head because it's 4:00 am and I am not at my brightest.
Yesterday at work I asked a patron how his new knee is holding up as it's been almost a year since his replacement surgery. He's still doing well, but this isn't about him. I commented that I always thought my left knee would be the first to go,
(Brief aside: My left knee broke when I slammed sideways into the door of my car. A van pulled out of a parking lot into me. Except the lot's driveway was a steep slope up to the road so from my POV at least it seemed the driver launched the van Dukes of Hazzard at me as I was passing. I saw it and yanked the steering wheel hard right in the nanosecond before the collision. The van hit at an indirect angle instead of head on into my driver's side. I byoing-oinged Looney Tunes style side to side inside my seat belt. My knee cracked into the door. But I ended up with just a small shard broken off from the patella neatly held almost in place by the rapidly swelling soft tissues of my leg. A fairly minor injury all things considered. I was essentially t-boned by van and walked away. Literally because the ER doctor was openly hostile the minute the EMTs signed me over and transferred me from their gurney to the hospital's and he managed to convince the rest of the staff that I was just a faker after an insurance payout so when I needed to pee while waiting for the x-rays that would ultimately prove him wrong the nurse just sort of vaguely pointed down the hall when I asked about the nearest bathroom and I made it two whole steps before the knee collapsed under me and an orderly got me into a chair and wheeled me to and from the facilities.)
but lately it seems maybe the left hip will beat it. I thought of that unremarkable comment as I got into bed. Because my left hip (or rather where the hip attaches to my spine) has hurt quite a bit this week. It's been growing in intensity, as is the way of odd unjustified aging aches and pains. It really really hurt by last night.
And then I realized -- f^ ck, my pancreas is trying to kill me again.
It starts with increasing lower back/hip pain on the left. Maybe a few days, maybe for a couple of weeks. It could build over months, but honestly I think we're well past the slow stalking; my pancreas is definitely into the out of the blue quick strike kill now. But I guess it still has to wait for its gremlin horde or whatever it unleashes to fully amass.
Next will be the intense but traveling pain -- the gremlins sacking and burning as they go -- up and down and back to front to back again on a snaky trail through my torso. Is it any wonder I assumed for a long time that my intestines were either the intended victim or the culprit?
Eventually (six to twelve hours) that will start to diminish and I will not believe I am dying with every inhaled breath. I will probably vomit at the very end, purging myself of the now exhausted but sated gremlins.
The gallbladder surgery was supposed to stop these attacks. But that was assuming the gallbladder was riling up the pancreas not vice versa, which I never totally believed. Rather, I think my pancreas was bullied for years by the gallbladder, yes, but probably most of the other small odd organs overshadowed by the a-listers (heart, lungs). It got the brunt of all of my stress, the spillover hot grease from my bad diet decisions. Until one day it snapped . . .
And that's where it should have ended. It had lashed out in violence and gotten away with it. I didn't document that first attack. I don't remember when it was, but I remember the pain. Like I said, I assumed the answer lay somewhere in my intestines, especially after an internet search of symptoms for the various gastro possibilities aligned most closely with diverticulitis.
Like the murderer in an Agatha Christie novel, my pancreas wasn't satisfied with getting away with the perfect crime. It struck again and again. And it got away with for a long time. I don't have dates of the first couple of attacks. It was cold, maybe November maybe January, when I got through an all-night attack in time to go to work then vomited on myself in my car approximately 10 miles from the library. I cleaned up as much as I could parked at a church using all-purpose cleaner wipes, texted my boss, turned around, and drove home with the window down (smell) and no seat belt (abdominal pressure) trying to focus on anything but my puke-soaked pants and seat. I have a post in July 2021 that I'm pretty sure was the fourth attack when I felt the vomit coming just a couple of miles from home so immediately made a crazy u-turn and managed to get to the bathroom in time.
So you have to give props to my pancreas for successfully disguising its murderous rampage until February 2023. And even then gallbladder got the death sentence while pancreas walked free.
In past attacks I've massaged the sore areas, meaning my lower back and hip. I wondered if that just helped spread the gremlins/toxins. Whatever, I've been typing for two hours. My left hip still hurts, but it's back to vague dull ache similar to other areas not controlled by an evil supervillain organ (like my sad, tired feet). There's no sign this is building to something horrible.
I said I didn't know where I was going with this post. Apparently I'm going nowhere but back to sleep.
Thank you for reading. I can't blame anyone for getting bored and giving up early on a post like this, but I appreciate people who stick it out to the end. I know you were hoping for a funny wrap-up. Sorry. But thank you.
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