I had a Gastro appointment this past Monday, to follow up from the hospital stay, it was suggested to schedule an Endoscopy, but my Gastro wants to wait and see if the medication I'm on keeps me on track. I mentioned in my last post, that I was put on two different medications, my Gastro want's me to stop using the liquid, and see how the pill works without it, apparently they can counter-act each other, rendering them useless when taken together.

So far, the daily pill has been working, I haven't had any stomach issue since the hospital, and I'm starting to eat a lot more foods. But I can no longer eat large meals, the tried and true three square meals a day, no longer applies to me. I am forced to eat small frequent meals through out the day. So I've literally been eating just about every hour. I am constantly eating, and my wife is joking about how all she see's me do now..is eat. But when you've gone through starvation, and dehydration to a point where it's unbearable, you tend to not want to go through that feeling again.

In April of last year, was my hospitalization for pancreatitis, when I went in, I weighed about 125 (I've always been on the skinny side). But when I began drinking, I reached a max weight of 139 pounds. Once I was diagnosed, my weight began to drop, because of my forced liquid diet, since then, I haven't been able to gain any of that weight back, then once I began to have stomach issues alongside my pancreatitis, I dropped even more weight. My last weigh-in at the hospital was 104, and was steadily dropping. Since my release, and put on these meds, and with the frequent meals, I've finally began to gain some weight back, and I'm up to 108 pounds, still very low, but it's definitely progress.

Happy New Year everyone. A new year, a not so new me. Whether I'm officially back or not is hard to say. So I don't know what this is. As of right now, it's just a blog. 2025 was pretty rough on me, struggling with alcohol, and binge drinking on the weekends, only to end up in the hospital for a week diagnosed with pancreatitis. It wasn't hard to quit, since I was never really addicted to it, I just enjoyed drinking on the weekends. But I had to live off of a clear liquid diet for 3 months, and eventually change to a low to non-fat diet, then slowly reintroduce fats and spices. I was doing good, felt better, felt like me again.

Then my brother, who lives about three hours from me, had to go into the hospital for a quadrupal bypass surgery. So I drove up to be with him the night before, and the entire time at the hospital. I failed to eat anything while he was in surgery, then drove back home that night after I knew he was ok. Needless to say, it was a little over 24 hours that I hadn't eaten, and my pancreas flared up from lack of food mid-drive home. The worst abdomen and back pain ever. The next three days were me trying to recover from the pain and going back to a liquid diet, all while being layed up in bed, trying to take care of two kids.

After all that, I got better but had four more flare ups within a couple of months. The last three months I had yet another flare up, which I then caught a awful cold on top of it. After my cold went away two weeks later, I began to have severe abdominal pain, but this was different, it wasn't pancreatitis. But I dealt with the pain for weeks. About a month ago I took my son on a surprise trip to the airport at night, because he loves to watch the planes come and go, when we got back home, I grabbed myself a handful of sun chips, and within about a minute I was on my hands and knees with a burning pain in my entire stomach, that was so intense that it brought tears to my eyes, my wife drove me to the hospital. Where they diagnosed it as pancreatitis.

This wasn't pancreatitis, this was something different, and I began to think it might have been Gastritis. They sent me home with pain meds, I felt better the next couple of days after, but the stomach pain persisted. I took those pain meds for three weeks, only to find out that what they perscribed me, was an NSAID, and I cannot have NSAIDs, as they produce to much acid in my stomach. So I was hospitalized again. This time they wanted to admit me for, yet again - pancreatitis. I told them no, and signed myself out, against medical advice.

I spent the next week or two, just barely living, not eating, losing weight daily, until I finally broke down. The months I spent in pain, barely surviving off handfuls of cheerios, and water, it broke me. I went to my wife sobbing, which then made her cry, because she's never seen me break before. She drove me back to the hospital on New Years Eve, and they tried to bring up the pancreatitis again, and I told them this isn't that, I'm barely living here. So they admitted me, I spent three days, on antibiotics, and fluids, no food, no drink, getting X-rays of my throat, chest and stomach. My X-rays came back clean, my insides are perfect, the doctor said.

I was released from the hospital on the 3rd, and they put me on an acid blocker, and a liquid that coats my stomach, that I need to take four times a day, for the rest of my life. I also need to follow up with a GI doctor and schedule an endoscopy to make sure everything is alright. The acid meds they put me on, seem to be slowly helping, but I am far from 100% better.

Atleast I'm still here for my family, and I hope I can begin to get back to a better life.