About Gillian and Pediatric Pancreatitis

Thank you for your desire to help support Gillian and her family!

Gillian and her family are friends and neighbors of ours, and it has been heartbreaking watching her trials this year.

Gillian was diagnosed with chronic pediatric pancreatitis in January of 2024. She has a genetic mutation where her pancreatic enzymes release too early and don’t know when to turn off. Described simply, her pancreas is basically eating itself. This causes severe abdominal and back pain & nausea. 

She has had multiple hospitalizations, ER visits, and surgeries this year to try to help relieve and manage all of the pain she is constantly battling. She had a stent placed in August that her body rejected, and another attempt in September with a similar result- a week in the hospital before that stent had to be removed as well. 

She was then referred to Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio (she lives in Utah), do see if she is a candidate for a specialty surgery that might allow her to be pain free and to wean off of pain medications. 

After a couple weeks of screening in Ohio in October, she is slated to go back for surgery soon. It is a 1 6hr surgery. For 6-7 of those hours, the doctor who isolates and harvests the islets cells is working in the lab, preparing the islet cells to be injected into the liver, while her surgeon continues to remove and reroute her anatomy. She will leave the OR with an insulin pump, central line, glucose monitor, multiple IV lines and pain pump lines that go to the spine for a block to minimize pain during recovery. Injecting the islet cells to the liver is a very delicate process. She will have to be on blood thinners for a while to reduce the risk of clotting.