You should have seen me in ICU! I do have pics but they are pretty disturbing. I don't even look alive. But I had so many tubes in me and also a breathing tube too.

Priscilla, you look amazing in the photo considering what you went through/were going through. I can't tell you enough how happy I am that you are home and growing stronger each day. You really gave us a scare!

LOL, the mouse at the second hospital. Ewwww. :D

You look great in the pic you posted though. If I went through 10% of what you did I'd probably look like I had just been stepped on by a football team with cleats. :p

In that room, actually all of them on the 8th floor, have their own full bathroom, so I was able to take a shower and wash my hair. This pic was probably after I got a shower and bf helped me to dry and brush my hair. That helped me look more presentable. In ICU I didn't have that luxury.

You are too cute - even when not feeling the best!! :)

My goodness kid you've been through some ordeal. I've been off YT for a while but am so pleased to hear that you are home now. That was some crazy scary stuff that you went through. Thank god that you are OK now and are on the road to recovery. I was surprised to find out that your medical emergency was brought on by alcohol and that you had liver & kidney failure also. Yay for a great team of medical staff who literally brought you back from the grips of death. I realize that you still have a long way to go which I am sure will include a change in eating and drinking habits. I hope you get the help that you need to get you back to your old self . . but than again maybe a change and a new self could be good too, just don't loose your sense of humor. LOL :D

You really scared the hell out of us! Especially when I read about the fluid in the lungs, that's when things all of a sudden started really sounding life threatening. I have thankfully never dealt with pancreatitis, but I have had fluid in the lungs due to camping at too high of an altitude for a few nights without properly acclimatizing first. And that feeling when your heart is racing 1000 beats a minute and you can't draw a proper breath, that's so scary. But of course not even close to the same situation since I knew I could save my life by getting down to lower altitude, and I did, inching my way down the mountain 10 steps at a time, then sit and rest for two minutes, then ten more steps, and so on. But I just recall another symptom I had that I didn't even think of until writing this post just now: my hands had swollen up to those of a fat man while I was dayhiking up a mountain near 13000 feet right by my campsite, which caused me to turn around and head back to the camp. As soon as I lost about three thousand feet from 11500 to 8500 hiking to the road and hitchiking to the main campsite in the area, and taking a bus down to 4000 feet it was all gone immediately though.

At the point when I had the fluid in my lungs was when I was totally out of it. Good thing I don't remember the worst of it. I am surprised myself at all that can happen with pancreatitis. Well I had a very sever case of it though. Most people have it for a few days, a week at most.

I didn't know that going to a high altitude quickly would cause fluid in the lungs and swelling in your hands. That's scary. I'm usually afraid of heights so I doubt I would be going somewhere too high up anytime soon. I really want to go to Machu Picchu someday but I hear it's a pretty high elevation too.

Altitude won't cause it in most people, unless you're talking about going really high, like 18000 feet and up. It's not well understood at all why it happens, and it really caught me off guard since I have done multiday trips at the kind of altitudes before where it happened (11500 sleep, 13000 hiking). When it happens it almost always does the second or third night you're at altitude (it was third for me). It's called high altitude pulmonary edema, and it's extremely rare for anything under about 8500 feet. If you do Macchu Picchu you'll probably spend a night or two in Cuzco first to acclimatize, but that's really high (about 11000 feet). You guys would probably be ok since it's pretty rare, but it's not something I can do without spending a couple of nights around 8000 feet or so first. It has nothing to do with fitness level either, back when I had it happen I was walking 5 miles up a steep incline on my treadmill every single day with 60 pounds on my back and I weighed about 170 lbs, so I was in really strong hiking shape.

If you can't breathe lying down on your back at altitude, that means it's time to get down to lower elevation that day, not the next. The same thing happens in cardiac failure, though with hape it goes away as soon as you lose elevation. So it's something to remember if you do a trip where you're spending extended time at elevation. It's not something that'll happen if you go spend the night at 6000-8000 feet and go hiking at 14000 in the day and then drive back to the hotel at 6000-8000 feet. You can get altitude sickness still doing dayhikes (it's called acute mountain sickness, or ams), but it's not dangerous like hape or hace (cerebral edema).

Yuck, I have breathing problems down here at 2400! I do much better at sea level actually- count me out for high altitude hiking! Lol. Really, so glad you are well and recovering (and jealous of your Meyer lemon- I want one too!) and home! I know after needing a blood transfusion alone that you are just plain exhausted for a month- or I was anyway- so add everything else you have been through and you surely do not have the strength to do much of anything! Accept any help that is offered you and take the best care of your body that you can. I am glad your boyfriend is quitting drinking with you too, that is a very difficult thing to do, he is dedicated and will surely need help- especially since he didn't get quite as strong an encouragement as you did :eek: glad you are back home with your baby.

Thanks Alyssa. It has been about a month and a half since I had a drink. Bf is just doing wine and beer. He has not had liquor in about two weeks. He is doing really well I think. The stairs are getting easier and easier to do. The first week my legs and butt were so sore!

I have a follow up appt with a primary care dr on Tues. I will talk to him about this strange numb patch on my leg which came about during my hospital stay. The doctors at the hospital wouldn't be bothered about it since I had other health issues that were more important at the time. Also when I lay on my right side at night it still hurts. They said the liver is on the right side mostly, so it's possible it's still slightly enlarged.

Glad you are regaining your strength and endurance. I hope the numbness is just a pinched nerve or something that will heal soon. My pinky finger is sometimes numb when I sleep on my arm wrong, so I know how irritating numbness can be.