Re : Something I wanted to share

[Guest guest]

Hi Sandy and Laurie,

Interesting thoughts indeed!

As a little girl, especially, I always felt, but couldn't put it

into words then, that the awful pain which overwhelmed me during my

attacks was indeed at the very centre of my life and my being,

physically of course, because it was literally in my middle, but

also in some other sense, emotional or spiritual or mental. I really

don't mean to be melodramatic. I'm not at all that sort of person. I

think I mean that I always felt that I could almost bear equal pain

in some other part of the body and still get on with my life, or not

feel so utterly destroyed in the very depths of myself. I remember

as a teenager having menstrual pain which made me gasp, forcing me

to sit down and cry when it really gripped me, but thinking at the

same time that it just didn't compare in destructiveness with

my " gastric " pain (as I thought it then). Of course, one might say

that menstrual pain is " natural " in a way which pancreatic pain

obviously isn't.

Perhaps I'm still not putting it into words very well. I certainly

don't want to take away from anyone else's pain associated with

other diseases. Still, there is something different about pancreatic

pain from anything else I myself have ever experienced. The Greeks

thought the pancreas the focus of human life, I believe. The word

comes from the Greek, meaning " all flesh " or " all meat " .

Perhaps it is just the position of the pancreas which makes it so

central and deep in its effects....like a monster whose tentacles

take over the body and mind while it is active. Perhaps it is the

terrible, bitter nature of the pain. No other thought but pain is

possible whilst one is having a bad attack, even of the sort which

doesn't require hospitalisation.

Am I just feeling sorry for myself through all those hours of

horror, especially in my childhood and youth? I can remember waking

up with the pain in the morning, no warning the night before, and

wanting to scream, knowing that I was facing days of hideous pain

before I would be back to normal.

I think I've been a little melodramatic after all! Sorry! The

nature of pain and how it is perceived by different people, is a

subject which does fascinate me, especially after a lifetime as a CP

patient.

It must have been interesting to have had this talk with your son,

Sandy?

I think the docs probably meant that it is easy to get things wrong

with the pancreas. It really doesn't like being tampered with, does

it? I also appreciate Laurie's point though. It needs to be tampered

with! But in the right way. This monster remains a challenge for the

very best of docs. So where's St ?!

Good wishes to all. Sorry for sounding negative. I really don't mean

to be, especially not this evening with our good news about Jim's

prostate cancer!

Fliss (UK)

[Guest guest]

> Hi Fliss Sandy and Laurie,

Flisss its certainly very interstesing , stuff I never knew,...I dont

think you are taking away from others in terms of this pain being

worse, its what they say after all that it is.

Laurie and Sandu , your thoughtst certainly made me think

Debs