Andrea Ziller from Lenggries has a long history of suffering behind her.
Now she has set up a self-help group for people with pancreatic disorders to encourage other people and to be able to exchange ideas.
Lenggries – 20 years ago, the suffering began for Andrea Ziller from Lenggries.
Again and again she suffered from inflammation of the pancreas and was in terrible pain.
From 2015 it got worse and worse.
The doctors were puzzled and could not find a cause.
Her pancreas was removed in February 2020 and things have been looking up ever since.
Ziller decided to set up a self-help group for pancreas patients in Lenggries, which has been meeting regularly since the end of April.
Everyone thought she was an alcoholic: 'It bothered me terribly'
The way there was long.
“In the beginning, a lot of people asked me how much I was drinking,” the 45-year-old recalls.
"If you get sick with the pancreas, you're quickly labeled as an alcoholic.
That bothered me terribly because I've never drunk a lot.” Ziller sought advice from doctors, but nobody could explain to her why she kept getting sick.
She doesn't want to blame anyone: "I really can't say that I was badly looked after."
The mother of three lived in constant fear that the pain would "shoot up from zero to 100," and she always had to fear that she would have to call an ambulance: "It radiates like a belt around the upper abdomen," says the head of the youth center -Red Cross.
“You have severe pain, you can hardly breathe, every movement is too much.
And then there's the nausea.
I was happy when the emergency doctor came and injected me with painkillers."
Difficult situation for the family
For her family, the situation is anything but easy, "if mom can't do what she wants".
Her children would have developed a certain composure, "because they grew up with it".
The children help her when they notice that the blood sugar level is dropping.
With a smile, the doctor's assistant recalls an experience in 2017. Back then, she was "really bad" in the morning and had to call the emergency doctor.
The then five-year-old twins opened the door to the emergency doctor: "And they asked him if he would like some muesli, too." They found it extremely interesting that their mother was allowed to fly away in a helicopter.
In recent years, she has spent more time in the hospital as a patient than as a doctor's assistant: "During the Corona period, no one was allowed to visit me for three months, and I only spoke to the family via Skype.
But we also managed that quite well.”
surgeries helped
In 2020 she finally had the first operation, a year later the organ was completely removed, and half of the stomach is gone.
Since then the pain has disappeared.
Ziller is diabetic because the pancreas regulates the blood sugar level.
Since then, Ziller has fallen unconscious twice because the blood sugar level has dropped too much in a very short time.
Her husband - a trained paramedic - had to give her the necessary nasal spray.
Since the operation, she has lost 30 kilograms of body weight and is currently unable to work.
Nevertheless, the operation was the best decision.
In January of this year, she was fitted with an insulin pump, and she has been doing much better since then: "A great system that automatically switches off the insulin and tells me how many carbohydrates I need to eat." The situation is not that easy, however.
Ziller suffers from the "dumping syndrome", i.e. a pathologically accelerated gastric emptying.
If she falls into hypoglycaemia, she is threatened with unconsciousness.
If the blood sugar is too high, she gets headaches, gets tired and talks "weird things".
Nevertheless, she "almost prefers" a high blood sugar level.
The goal: to finally go on vacation again
Ziller has big plans.
So she now wants to go on vacation again for the first time in many years – to be on the safe side within Germany.
She also plans to publish a book soon in which she describes her "funny and not-so-funny experiences".
And she is working on setting up a self-help group as part of the “Working Group for Pancreatectomy Patients”.
Ziller had already planned to do this in 2019, but then the operation and then Corona intervened.
Five people from the districts of Miesbach, Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Traunstein have now joined the self-help group.
Ziller also offers telephone help: “We are excellently positioned in the district.
The Heilbrunn specialist clinic is very familiar with pancreatic diabetes.
She benefits "uncanny" from the work in the self-help group, has already given tips and received important tips.
She originally planned for the group to meet every two months.
But since there is so much need for discussion, the meetings now take place once a month in the adjoining building of the Lenggrieser rectory.
Ziller hopes that she can start working again next year.
She resolutely says: “Giving up is not an option.
I'll keep fighting my way through it."
You can contact the self-help group and Andrea Ziller
by calling 0 80 42/9 78 47 17 or by email andreaziller.adp@t-online.de.
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