Nathan's Story

Nathan struggled with chronic pancreatitis from the age of fourteen.  After years and years of misdiagnoses he finally found a doctor who had answers.  Dr Freeman, at the University of Minnesota, discovered Nathan had an annular pancreas and the only thing to help him was a complex surgery called tp/ait.  In 2014, he underwent an eighteen hour surgery.  He knew the surgery had its trade offs, but never imagined that one of them would be addiction to pain meds.  When Covid hit, Nathan was discharged from his pain management program, still on a high level of narcotics. With no one to provide pain meds, he started buying them on the street.  This quickly elevated to heroin.  In February of 2022, Nathan overdosed on heroin laced with fentanyl. 

Despite all his years of pain and illness, Nathan kept smiling and was always willing to help others.  No one knew how much he was struggling.