Bobby's Transplant Surgery

What a long crazy, horrible journey the last two years have been. In May 2016 I began experiencing severe abdominal pains and after a long process of testing and hospitalizations in October of 16 I was finally diagnosed with acute recurrent necrotizing pancreatitis.  I had tried everything the doctors suggested to no success. So we decided to try surgery to remove my gallbladder hoping that would help even tho nothing was wrong with it.  Unfortunatly it didnt help one bit, after that surgery I was still experiencing extreme abdominal pain and a yet another large cyst was found on my pancreas.  I had another surgery a laparoscopic necrosectomy and cyst gastrostomy, where they planned to remove the cyst along with part of my pancreas and spleen  but instead the surgeon was able to make a connection from the cyst to my stomach in order to drain the cyst and he also removed the parts of my pancreas that were necrotized.  Unfortunately this still did not help my excruciating daily pain so as a last chance to find the cause of me getting this disease genetic testing was done to try and find a cause for the pancreatitis.  The genetic testing revealed that I have a gene mutations in my DNA which cause pancreatitis.  It revealed I am a cystic fibrosis carrier.  My CFTR gene which showed that I was heterozygote for the f508del mutation and carried a variant mutation (p.R510G).
     I have 1 of the 2 genes needed to have CF. And the one that I have happens to have a mutation on it which has caused this. This is not curable and after 18 hospital stays since May 2016, I have lost over 60lbs and my pancreatitis progressing to being burnt out and no longer producing digestive enzymes its progressed to what they consider chronic pancreatitis. Which means I have extensive damage thats non repairable. Being the cause of this Chronic Necrotizing Pancreatits is due to my DNA this will never get better and only worse. I have been referred to University of Minnesota to have the TPIAT surgery. I went for a consultation in April, 3 days of testing and meeting with teams of doctors. They have determined that I am a candidate  and they approved me for the Total Pancreactomy Islet Auto Transplant surgery. Its very rare and has only been perfomed to just over 700 people in the world. UoM is the leading transplant hospital for this surgery as they have done over 2x as many of these as every other hospital in the world combined. Not to mention there is only about 16 hospitals in the world that even perform this and none in North Carolina. I have been scheduled for the surgery on July 20, 2018.  In this surgery they will remove not only my pancreas but also my spleen, part of my small intestine and the duodemun. Then they will have to reroute my entire bowel and digestive track.  Once they have removed my pancreas they will isolate the cells from my pancreas which produce insulin and then transplant them into my liver in hopes that they will continue to produce insulin after the surgery.  As a result, I will become diabetic and my entire digestive system will be disassembled and then have to be put back together. 

     This surgery will last approxmitly 16 hours and I will have to stay in Minnesota for hopefully only 90 days after the surgery to be monitored by the doctors at University of Minnesota.  The first week I will be in the ICU unit, then I will spend about a week in the step down unit, then aslong as everything takes and they are happy with how my body is progressing I will be able to move into an apartment nearby that I will have to rent for 3 months. I will have to be feed through a feeding maching through a tube until my body adjusts to the internal changes and I will have to take insulin to manage my blood sugar levels, possibly for the rest of my life. 

     I have daily pain that somedays are horrendous and I have to go to the ER. I can't eat or drink anything without major pain. I cant workout, jog or do anything active without having horrible pain. I have not been able to work one day since my first hospitalization. I have had an attack every 6 weeks that has led to me being admitted to the hospital for a week or more at at time. I have been hospitalized 18x since May 2016.  There has not been a time that I went to the E.R. and not got admitted.  All money raised will be used to help pay not only for medical expenses but also for lodging during my stay in Minnesota as well as travel expenses.  Although this surgery is very big and scary,  This is something that I need to do in order to live life again and to get my life back.  Thank you very much for any amount of donation that you can give because every dollar counts and helps me and my family greatly.