I'm stunned

[Guest guest]

Chrissy, I just found this email on my laptop in my office, which I

left last night to answer the phone, and just now returned to. I

thought I'd already posted this email, but I guess I hadn't....blame

in on my short term memory loss or something! Anyway, this

was what I'd written yesterday upon first hearing your news.

Chrissy honey,

I am overwhelmingly stunned by your news. I've been so worried

about you all week, and had I known you were in the hospital I

would have driven up there to see you and hold your hand

through this mess. 's message to me was sort of elusive

and I just had no idea that anything like this was going on. I

thought you just needed some time alone.

I just don't know what to say, except that I've come to regard you

as a true friend during this short period of time that we've been

communicating back and forth, and I want to be able to do

something to take away your pain and misery.

In many ways, I do understand your shock and disbelief. It's

what I went through almost a year ago when I woke up in the

hospital finding myself with a burned out pancreas and a brittle

insulin dependent diabetic. I'd only had CP for 1 1/2 years at that

point, Chrissy, and hadn't even had that hard a time with it until a

couple months right before the diabetic ketoacidosis. We had

no idea of the extent of my pancreas damage, because a

CT-scan in December looked good and my pseudocysts had

gotten to be tiny. It all happened in a matter of two months!!!

I remember sitting in that hospital bed saying " How, could this

have happened? " and crying myself to sleep at night when no

one could see me. I imagine you've gone through a lot of this,

and there will be more to come, but let it go, you need to go

through this process of grieving.

I don't know how you feel about the TP-ICT, but I'll tell you that

that was what Bob and I had planned for me, we just didn't move

fast enough. I felt it was my best chance to get back some form

of a normal life again, and I wanted to do it before I had any

surgeries that messed up the pancreas any more, and before

there was a chance of diabetes setting in. HA! We weren't quick

enough. But I truly feel that this may be better for you, Chrissy,

than facing the rest of your life with repeated attacks, repeated

damage, and surgery that lifts your hopes up, and then drops

you back down when the surgery fails. I only know one person

that's had any of the other pancreatic surgeries and come out of

it better off. This guy Rob had a whipple two years ago, and so

far, he's doing fine. Everyone else that I've heard of that has had

the whipple's, peustow's, etc has turned around a couple years

later and found themselves right back at the beginning again.

You can't say the same about the TP-ICT, most of those I know

that had it are so much better off, and have stayed that way. Did

Dr. mention Dr. Sutherland? Is there any chance that you

could get him to do it instead of the doctor in Cinncinnati? Do

they think that's the best place to go?

Well, I'm sure you're exhausted and have so much to think about

that I don't need to press you now with too much. I just wanted to

tell you that I care, and I'm here to listen to, or cry to, or holler at

anytime you need it. I'm here to support you any way that I can,

and if you need someone to talk to, you can call me anytime.

. Don't be afraid to call if you want to talk.

love,

Heidi