Lenggrieserin founds a self-help group for people suffering from pancreas

Created: 07/05/2022, 1:30 p.m

By: Patrick Star

Andrea Ziller founded a self-help group for people suffering from pancreas.

Hartmut Kotyrba, regional group coordinator, was present at the opening meeting.

© Patrick Star

Lenggries - Lenggrieserin Andrea Ziller recently founded a self-help group for people suffering from pancreas.

Twenty years ago, Andrea Ziller from Lenggries began her time of suffering.

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 April 2021 – and things have been looking up ever since.

Ziller decided to set up a self-help group for pancreas patients in Lenggries, which meets regularly.

The road to get 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."

Constant fear of pain

The mother of three lived in constant fear that the pain would "shoot 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 Andrea Ziller.

“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."

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.

More time patient than medical assistant

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, nobody was allowed to visit me for three months, and I only spoke to the family via Skype.

But we also managed that quite well.”

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.

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Surgery was the best decision

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 got an insulin pump, and she's been doing much better since then: "It's a great system that automatically switches off the insulin and tells me how many carbohydrates I need to eat." The situation isn't that easy, however.

Contact: self-help group

The upcoming dates for the meetings are July 14th, September 22nd, November 17th and December 8th.

You can contact the self-help group on Tel: 080 42/9 78 47 17 or via email to andreaziller.adp@t-online.de.

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.

Now time to write a book and vacation

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 to start working again next year.

She resolutely says: “Giving up is not an option.

I'll keep fighting my way through it."