A Cautionary Tale

A couple of weeks ago, a good friend of ours had his gall bladder removed.  It’s a laparascopic procedure these days; it’s still significant, but doesn’t have the multi-week recovery that the old-fashioned operation had.  Andrew was a little nervous about it, but he took a weekend to rest, and was back to normal in just a few days.  He’s only 34, so he bounced back quickly.

For about a week.  Then, out of the blue, he was stricken with debilitating abdominal pain.  His wife took him to the emergency room last last Wednesday night, and he was admitted to the hospital, where he stayed until Saturday afternoon.

Diagnosis:  acute pancreatitis.

Treatment:  an extremely low-to-no-fat diet.

Now, luckily for Andrew, this is probably a temporary situation–the doctors are not sure what irritated his pancreas, but they’re hoping that a few days of “rest” (in pancreas-world, “rest” means not having to deal with fat digestion) will calm things down.  He’s pretty unhappy about it, though–here we are, smack in the middle of the holiday season, and suddenly all he can see is the long, long list of foods he can’t eat.  The pain must have been pretty intense, because he seems willing to do whatever it takes to keep it from coming back, but he’s definitely in a funk about the whole thing.

I feel for him–and for his wife.  It took us months, maybe even years, to fully adjust to our heart-healthy lifestyle.  I’m still very careful in my word choices–it’s a lifestyle, not a diet.  It’s heart-healthy, not non-fat.  I think in terms of choices, rather than limitations:  what we want for dinner, rather than what we can’t have.  I suspect Lee would be the first person to tell you (or Andrew) that while it’s worth it, it’s definitely not easy.

But here’s the thing–we all need to embrace a healthier lifestyle.  If you google “pancreatitis” and read the fine print, one of the things you find out is that it can be triggered by high triglycerides.  There are other causes, too, and like I said, it’s unclear what caused Andrew’s attack (prime suspect:  after-effects of the gall-bladder removal 10 days earlier), but this whole episode has gotten me thinking.  Heart disease seems like a vague, one-day-in-the-distant-future hazard to most of us.  It’s easy to not worry too much about a problem that may or may not develop many years from now.

But Andrew’s pain?  The pain that had him doubled over, writhing in agony, gasping for air?  That was very real.  Pancreatitis sounds like a pretty dreadful condition, so if a high-fat diet can cause that now, I think I’ll pass.