Thank you all for your messages. If the MRI (assuming my insurance company ever gets around to pre-authorizing it so i can even have it!) shows anything, the GI doc is going to send me to another doctor who only does pancreas-es. It didn't occur to me to ask what kind of MRI I'd be having (didn't realize there woudl be options) but he's sending me to a specific hospital to have it so I think its likely its the better kind.
Its just so hard to get my head around: I've been told for years that I just had really bad reflux, and just switched to this guy after my gynecologist of all people told me that whoever I was seeing was an idiot if he couldn't control it better. Then I see this guy, and one week he's telling me I have "textbook reflux" that is "horrific" and thus he wants me to have surgery after we do some ruleout tests, and then the next week he tells me that he thinks instead its chronic pancreatitis.
Good luck to all of you. I've been reading the posts on here: you all sound like really strong people who have been dealt a rough hand.