Nathan's story

Nathan was diagnosed with an annular pancreas in 2014.  This was after eight years of having GI issues that went undiagnosed.  He underwent surgeries, procedures and multiple hospitalizations during that time and no one could tell us what the problem was.

In the summer of 2014, we took him to the University of Minnesota where we met with Dr Martin Freeman.  We didn't know it then, but Nathan would eventually call him his hero.  

Dr Freeman was able to find a birth defect that is called an annular pancreas.  This caused numerous  bouts of pancreatitis, eventually permanently damaging his pancreas.  

As a result, Nathan had a total pancreatectomy with auto islet transplant on November 14, 2014.  This was an eighteen hour surgery followed by three weeks in the hospital.   

We knew there would be trade offs with this surgery.  These included a new diagnoses of diabetes, chronic bowel obstructions, chronic pain and a lifetime of medications.

The chronic pain was never ending.  Nathan worked wiith a local pain doctor following the tp/ait and another big surgery in January of 2020.

In March of 2020, Covid hit.  This made doctors appointments not only difficult but sometimes impossible.  At that point, Nathan knew he was not only physically, but also mentally dependent on high levels of narcotics.  In April 2020, he was discharged from the pain clinic due to Covid and the belief that he shouldn't need pain meds.

Still having chronic pain and dependent on opiates, Nathan starting buying pills on the street.  Pain meds on the street where expensive, so he sought cheaper alternatives.  

The cheapest alternative that would amount to the same amount of pain meds he was getting was heroin.  

Nathan's first time in rehab was May of 2020.  He was clean for a few months after, but eventually relapsed.  He was in and out of treatment for the next year and a half.

  Nathan died from fentanyl poisoning on February 26, 2022.  We believe he thought he was using heroin only, 

unfortunately this wasn't the case.