My Story

I have been sober since September 25, 2004. Many of my friends know that I can’t drink, know that I am sick, but really have no idea why. I want to tell my story. It was that fateful September night that my roommates, Paul, Joel, Dusty and I had a few friends over for some adult beverages. Dusty, my boyfriend of a year and a half at that time, and I had bought a case of Milwaukee's Best Light because it was on sale for $9.87 per 30 pack case. We began with card games; a lot of shouting and beer chasers mixed with shots of Captain Morgan ensued.

I was an average 22 year old college student majoring in finance and slated for graduation that December. It was my last semester in college and I wanted to live it up before I had to go into the “real world”. I was considered a binge drinker according to the doctors, but I ignored it because to me, everyone was doing it. My friends and I were always up for partying, we always had a blast together. We usually went out 4-5 nights per week, if not more.

Two weeks prior I had made an emergency visit to a local doctor. I hadn't been feeling good for over a month. My stomach hurt terribly and I couldn't eat much. My eyes were giving me problems; I could barely see the words on my laptop screen. I had constant severe headaches and felt nauseous all the time. I remember saying to myself that night “I’m going to cut back, I'll quit drinking so much beginning October.”
I woke up Sunday morning projectile vomiting bloody water for two hours. Every fifteen minutes I’d sneak into the bathroom, hoping I wouldn’t wake up my sleeping friends on the living room couch. However, I didn't think a single thing was wrong at that time. I was used to puking every morning after a long night of drinking. I had been getting increasingly hung over in the past months. I figured it was because I was getting older and not as tolerant to alcohol. Bloody water was normal, right?

I didn't have any classes on Mondays so I sat around all day nursing day number two of the hangover that was raging through my body. Tuesday rolled around. I was able to drag myself to school and bring a poem to my English poetry workshop. Wednesday came quickly with a meeting to revise my resume and begin my future job search. On Wednesday night, sleep came fast; I was asleep by 11 p.m. I couldn't figure out why I was so exhausted and hadn't been drinking in a whole 3 days, which seemed a lifetime to me. I was used to drinking every night of the week, with extra long nights on the weekends.

Thursday morning I woke up due to extreme pains in my stomach. I couldn't stand up straight. I ran straight to the bathroom to puke, but all I could do was retch. By this point I knew something was wrong. I collapsed back in bed with a 104 temperature. I had taken 6 Tylenol and the pain was still so incredible all I could do was writhe on the bed with a pillow over my stomach. My roommates didn’t notice, but I could see the concern in Dusty’s face.

Horrid thoughts were going through my mind. Was I having a miscarriage? Had I killed a child by drinking all the time? Was I having an appendix attack? Was it perhaps food poisoning?

Dusty was beginning to get worried. I remember him saying, “If you don’t feel better by time I get home from class, I’m taking you to the hospital.” 4 o'clock p.m. rolled past swiftly. I hadn't gone to the bathroom in 2 days because it hurt so badly. I figured that since I couldn’t eat or drink anything, there was no reason to be worried about not being able to urinate. I called my parents sobbing, scared to go to the hospital for fear of the huge bills and needles.

I was from a very poor family and my state funded health insurance had run out when I turned 19. There was no way I could afford insurance premiums and my parents didn’t have insurance plans either. I had always been a healthy person so I didn’t worry about it. Now when I look back, I really wish I would have worried more about such things.

Dusty got home from class at 5:30 p.m. He had to help me put on pants because I was screaming from the pain the waist band put on my stomach. I couldn’t walk by myself, nor could I stand up. By that time the pain was so intense I was beginning to hallucinate and was completely delirious. The car ride to the hospital from our apartment seemed to be an eternity. I walked into the E.R doubled over in pain. The next thing I remember was waking up on a stretcher, Dusty's white, tear streaked face staring at me, his warm hand holding my clammy one.

There were nurses and doctors everywhere. I was petrified. At first they tried to get a urine sample, but since I couldn’t pee, that didn’t work. Then they tried to get blood samples. That’s when I began to panic. They rolled me away for my C.T. scan. I watched Dusty’s figure get smaller and smaller down the hallway.

By this point my entire stomach was in renal failure (which means everything shut down, I was dying). My veins were barely pumping blood. They tried to start an IV but my veins weren't working correctly because of dehydration. More lights, more panicked voices echoed through my head, nothing really registered. I remember being wheeled into a room, completely surrounded by nurses getting me ready for admittance to the hospital. Dusty was talking to the doctor. The doctor turned to me and took my hand in his.

"Julianne, you don't have much time left. We need to admit you immediately. Surgery is slated for early tomorrow morning. Would you like to say any last words to the chaplain....."

The next thing I remember was waking up more delirious than ever, lying in a narrow hospital bed. Immediately I vomited completely across my bed and several feet all over the floor. I was beginning to puke up the contents of my stomach. It was so disgusting the first nurse who found me covered in my own vomit had to leave to vomit himself. The chaplain stopped by again, but I yelled at him to “leave me the hell alone, I’m not dying!”

My parents got to the hospital a few hours later since they lived about 150 miles away from where I was going to college. They arrived right before I left for surgery. I remember my mother being strong, telling me she loved me. My dad was crying silently on the other side of my bed. I was whisked away, Dusty again a small figure at the end of the hallway.

I had no idea what I was having surgery for, I didn't even know what was wrong with me. I was so doped up on morphine I was seeing hot dogs everywhere, dreaming of meat packaging plants and sausage casings. I remember the anesthesia feeling like it was the best thing in the world because it was the first time I hadn't felt excruciating pain in a long time. Then I was gone.

I was gradually woken up eight hours later. I had IV's and tubes everywhere. I couldn't move and had a tube shoved down my throat and a catheter between my legs. I was wheeled back to a recovery room.

The surgery had gone well--I had my gall bladder and appendix removed along with my entire stomach put under several microscopes. I was told that all of my organs had third degree burns on them due to severe pancreatitis. My stomach tried to digest itself. It had almost succeeded by time I got to the hospital Thursday night.

Yet things weren't going smoothly. That night I was once again delirious with pain. I was rolled off to the I.C.U. and given two days to live at that point. My entire body was shutting down and my kidneys were no longer functioning at all. I was placed on the pancreas transplant list.

Though a patient is supposed to not remember it, I was awake when they put my dialysis in. They place this large tube in through your collar bone into one of the big veins that runs directly to your heart. I still have the scar on my collarbone. That was so I could undergo dialysis (to cleanse the hopefully reactivate the kidneys) and have 7 different IV's running at the same time.

I was a mess. I couldn't walk, talk, or even move my hands. Only 2 visitors were allowed in my I.C.U. room at a time. The few relatives that came had tears glistening in their eyes. They just sat next to me and held my hand. Dusty spent the night in a chair next to me. I remember having nightmares about the meat packaging plant over and over and was scared when I woke up, but his snores next to me calmed me down.
For some miraculous reason I lived.

The doctors to this day don't know why or how I pulled through. I spent two days in I.C.U. before my kidneys started functioning slowly again. I was then released into the surgical recovery wing. I had to relearn how to do everything again. I had to learn to walk, to move my arms, to sit down, even to go to the bathroom. The first time I was able to pee by myself, I was given a round of applause by my staff of nurses.

The first time I saw my stomach I was mortified. Because of the surgery and severe pancreatitis, it was swelled out several inches. I had staples everywhere holding me shut. I had a tube from my stomach connected to a bottle into which my stomach was oozing disgusting things. What I hated the worst was the tube down my nose and throat which pumped stomach bile out every 10 seconds.

I wasn't allowed to eat a single thing for 12 days. I was only allowed to crunch on ice cubes in small amounts. My lips were so blistered and chapped from the ice cubes I couldn't smile. I looked awful. I still remember that first sugar-free root beer popsicle. It was the most wonderful thing in the world. I made it last for 15 minutes, savoring every lick and taste I could. Every bite I swallowed was immediately pumped back out of my stomach into a bucket next to my bed. I thought it was funny to gross people out and request a red popsicle so there would be red chunks floating through my nose tube.

I was on morphine shots every 2 hours for the first 8 days. They shot them directly into my thighs. I also would get a shot in my stomach every 3 hours. Blood sugar test every hour, and so on. I usually wasn’t able to sleep more than an hour. On the 9th day, the shots were reduced to every 4 hours. I was messed up. The high was incredible, but it didn't take away much of the pain. The nightmares and hallucinations were the worst. I had nightmares about the damn hot dogs and hot dogs slices all the time. They would ooze out of the windows and walls. It was really freaky. I still can't look at hotdogs the same.

I remember my first meal of chicken broth. Oh, how delicious that chicken broth was. I didn't cry at all for the first week. It hurt too badly to breathe, let alone the pain of crying. I remember the first time I broke down the nurses had to come into my room and calm down. The lady next to me was being sent home and I was told that I'd be in the hospital for another week at the least. It hurt so bad to cry but I was so mad and confused.

When they finally decreased the amounts of morphine I was told what happened and why. It still baffles me to this day. It all started with a genetically inherited blood disorder called hyperlipidemia, which are high amounts of fats in the blood. My body was unable to digest fats and I had begun to gain weight early that summer. At admission my triglycerides where at 2,200 when the average adult’s level is 150-200. My pancreas began to produce too much insulin, which caused the onset of severe pancreatitis. I was put on the pancreas transplant list once I was sent to ICU, but was taken off after my release from the hospital. The doctors figured my age and recovery meant that my pancreas was healing correctly (they were wrong).

Sometimes I wonder if I hadn't drank all that alcohol on that fateful saturday night how things would be different. Would this still have happened? Would it have been worse? I often question myself and I get upset each time.

I ended up spending 15 days in the hospital. Several friends stopped by to visit, but they stared at me with a scared confusion. I looked forward to “mail time” when I would get cards from my family and friends. My parents stayed in the hospitality houses the majority of the time I was in the hospital. I had to withdraw from college for the rest of the semester and spent the next 6 weeks on pain killers just so I could function half normally. If it weren’t for the constant support of my loving parents and Dusty, I don’t think I would have fared quite as well.

Due to the diagnosis of pancreatitis and the constant fear of it recurring, I will never again be able to have a single alcoholic drink. One drink can and will kill me. I am only 24 years old and have the stomach of a 65 year old alcoholic’s stomach. I also am on medications for the rest of my life to control my hyperlipidemia along with a strict diet and exercise. Everything about my life has been turned upside down.

As if struggling with a life changing diagnosis weren’t bad enough, I was then in the middle of a struggle for help paying my doctor and hospital bills. I had over $100,000 in bills that needed to be paid, along with future doctor bills. I wasn’t in school and was too sick to get a job. I applied to state aid. I was denied. I appealed. Denied again. I appealed a third time. Once again, denied with the words “is not disabled enough.”

Not disabled enough? Here I was, 22 years old, on daily medications and a strict diet just to stay alive, weekly doctor visits, and too sick to work or finish my last semester of school. Yet I was told my some doctor in Detroit, MI that I wasn’t “sick enough”. No one would help me.

It frustrates me to no end that I couldn’t get any type of aid. I contacted my state representatives and many programs that are supposed to help people in need with no luck. I tried desperately to bring myself and my family out of the vicious circles of poverty, yet I felt like I kept getting faced with roadblocks. I couldn’t fathom why I couldn’t get help when I lived off of less than $5,000 per year to attend school. I know there are other people out there like me, sick and in need of financial help, but where were we supposed to turn?

Despite advice from doctors, I returned to school in January 05. I went full time and threw myself into my studies. I was desperate to finish my degree. I began applying for full time jobs in the Marquette area. Somehow, I landed a financial consultant position with a local financing firm. They had me studying for my Series 7 exam (Stockbroker’s Exam) while I was trying to finish my last semester of college. I also was house hunting and had a brand new house set up for purchase a month after college graduation.

However, my health wasn’t in good shape. I was seeing my doctor bi-weekly and losing weight at a rapid pace. My doctor bills piled higher and higher but had no way to pay them. Everything began to spiral out of control.

In May 05 I lost everything. I was able to graduate college, but the week later I failed the Series 7 by four questions. I lost my job, lost my house, lost my dignity. I walked into a bankruptcy lawyer’s firm the next week, my face red with shame and mortification. I had to do what I never wanted, file bankruptcy.

Fast forward to April 06. It's been 1 year, 6 and months, and 15 days since I have had any type of alcoholic drink. My innocence was lost, but in return I gained something more important--STRENGTH. It takes a strong person to make it through something like this. It takes an even stronger person to face up to my past and build upon it to make a better future. Here I am a living miracle, a girl who isn't even supposed to be alive.

My bankruptcy was discharged so I no longer have the outstanding medicals bills, but I still see a doctor regularly. I am on five medications right now—one to lower my triglycerides, one to lower my cholesterol, one to help with horrendous heartburn, one to help control my hormones, and one that I should take with each meal to help digest the food.

So what’s wrong with me? I have what is called chronic pancreatitis. My pancreas never fully healed after my first attack. I usually get a stomach ache every time I eat and need to avoid many different foods, especially ones high in sugars and fats. My genetic blood disorder is being somewhat controlled at the moment through diet, exercise (which I need to do more of!), and medications. I did find out a couple weeks ago that some blood counts have skyrocketed again. Each time I eat, my belly swells and it is uncomfortable. Usually when I work an 8 hour day I try to refrain from eating very much since it is hard to work with such a bad belly ache.

I will struggle with this the rest of my life. At the same time, I strive to live a normal lifestyle. I like to be treated normally and respected as a normal person. Friends, family, and Dusty have been my lifeline throughout this entire ordeal. Sadly enough, many friends decided my friendship was no longer worth anything when they realized that I couldn’t do certain things with them anymore. Even more strangely, some friends treated me horribly and others ignored my completely. I was even told once that a friend would “kill herself if she couldn’t drink”.

But there has also been an outpouring of support from many people very dear in my life. My family is the best I could ever ask for; they just keep loving me with no end. Dusty has been my backbone, my support beam, my constant friend and love. Without him, I wouldn’t be where I am today. It is hard to describe in words how much he means to me and at times, I know that I am still alive due to his constant loving. I have friends who love me for who I am and respect me enough to buy me a diet soda at a bar and not laugh at me because I’m not getting drunk with them. I have also met many people online who constantly support me.

After all my rambling, (as this has been the longest blog post in the history of the bibbidyboop blog) please feel free to ask me any questions you may have. What I have won’t go away, so I wanted to tell my story and hopefully many who didn’t understand the circumstances before will understand better now. Thank you and good day.