Under the weather

I've been feeling pretty rotten for three days now. I have a fever, I'm fatigued, have night sweats, a headache and an acute pain in the upper part of my abdomen. I went to see my family doctor yesterday and after two hours in her office and some consultations with Don (my colorectal surgeon - were on a first name basis now) she set up a meeting later in the afternoon for me to meet up with him at the hospital. After some poking and prodding and some blood work he deduced that the likely culprit was my pancreas and that it was probably inflamed (he also said that colon cancer doesn't metastasize to the pancreas so that's out as a potential cause). He said usually heavy drinkers get this condition due to the high amounts of sugars they ingest. But since I don't drink more than a beer or two per month, it could also be caused by a recent high food sugar intake. At first I didn't think I had increased my sugar intake at all recently but upon further reflection I realized that the past week of cookies and cakes in Victoria paired with my recent compulsion with drinking cranberry juice could be the culprit. The cure? Don't eat. If the pain goes away or gets better then it was the correct diagnosis if not then its back to the drawing board. So here I sit at 5pm not having eaten or drank anything other than water for the past 20 or so hours. The good news is that it seems to be working. My abdominal pain is better and I'm feeling overall like I might soon be back to normal. The true test will be if I'm still getting better tomorrow or if things are regressing. Damn I'm hungry!