Tuesday morning after I ate cereal I started to have my regular stomach pains (meaning I just might have a pancreatitis attack coming). My usual at home routine is to take my pain medicine and get into a hot bath. I did that and the pain slightly went down. Since I was working from home til noon I figured I’d be okay to work and went ahead got on the laptop and got to work. By 10:45 the pain was back and I repeated my usual procedure pain meds followed by a hot bath. It now wasn’t working and I called my dad for a ride to the ER.

We got to the ER at about 1-1:30 and it was a mad house. Two ambulances just came in and the waiting room was slapped full. After waiting about an hour and a half they brought me back and started fluids and pain meds. It’s wild that intravenous pain meds work so much better and faster than the pill form ones. About an hour or so later my enzyme results were in and they weren’t too good. Amylase was 1280 and lipase was 840. For those of you that are familiar with enzyme levels.. The normal amylase is 150 and lipase is 50.

Once admitted and in my room I couldn’t eat or drink anything but ice chips. By this time I was in pain about every 2-2 1/2 hours. That night was pretty rough and didn’t get much sleep. The next morning at about 5:00 am they took blood to recheck my enzyme levels again. I received the scary and unexpected results at about 8:00 am. My Amylase was 2436 and my lipase was 4250. When I found this out I started to freak out just a little. The Doctor was able to calm me down and explain that it’s common for enzyme levels to go up before they go down. That day was another only ice chips day as well. For supper I did get chicken broth though which was the best meal I’ve had in the past two days. That night was another sleepless night but I was taking my pain medicine a lot less frequently.The next morning my enzyme levels were Amylase 840 and lipase 450. That was a relief to me. That afternoon the doctor met with me and agreed I could go home and continue with at home treatments. I was so relieved I could go home!

Now I’m home and feeling better. I am still sore and tired but at least I’m at home. I will be getting my enzyme levels rechecked Friday and hope they are back to normal.