Day: August 15, 2020

I started to think it was nothing

Posted on by Gastroparesis: Fighting For Change
Sheikinah Batchelor

I have always been a person who considered my health above average. I rarely got sick even though I had type 2 diabetes. This year right after ending tax season, I started to feel really sick. I wasn’t too worried except for the fact that I couldn’t eat. I started to think it was nothing and ignored it eating when I could. Finally, I wet to the hospital after almost two weeks of puking anything that touched my tongue. I was misdiagnosed and sent on my way with a 2k hospital bill. I started to take the medicine I was advised to take and things were getting worst. Soon, I wasn’t able to handle water. I was losing so much weight my friends were terrified for me. I was going to the ER once a week and then every two to three days. Finally, right before my birthday I was hospitalized when my blood tests came back strange. They ran test after test and came to the conclusion that motility was the problem. At 32, I was diagnosed with gastroparesis. I spent my birthday in the hospital before finally being released. I would later have a 50k hospital bill from that alone. I would go days with feeling better before the cycle of going to the ER would return and then I’d end up being kept again and almost placed in CCU due to the throwing up and my blood tests coming back abnormal. There needs to be a cure. This disease has made my life so much harder. I can’t work a full time job. I can’t ever be normal again and eat the things I love like salad and broccoli. It would be nice to one day enjoy those things again.

Loading spinner

I never heard of it until diagnosed

Posted on by Gastroparesis: Fighting For Change
Martha Koch

I was first diagnosed in 2018. I never even heard of it until they said that was what it was. I started vomiting really bad in February of 2019 and I went back and forth to the hospital for 3 months until I lost 50 pounds and had to be put on a feeding tube. I was put on an nj tube that had a bridle and that broke after 2 months of having it so we had to get it stitched into my nose so it would stay in place. I had my nose stitched 3 times before I told them after 3 months of having it I wanted a gj tube. So we switched me to one in August 2019. Before April 2020 I had went through 21 gj tube exchanges and procedures. I for the last 2 months of having the gj tube I had a lot of pain. So I found a doctor to send me to a surgeon to have a separate j tube and g tube placed. I got those tubes on April 1st and I have had since then except an exchange of my g tube and that was for pain. But these tubes had lasted me 4 months and some days. About 2 months after getting the j tube placement I ended up back in the hospital with severe nausea, pain, and vomiting. So we took me off my j tube feedings to see if giving my stomach a break would help but almost a week there I was still nauseous and vomiting. So we put a port in and started me on TPN . TPN has given me so much strength and mobility, I feel like a new person. I am on IV zofran which is the only nausea medication that works and IV Protonix. But I some how got an infection of MRSA staphylococcus infection in it and had to have it removed and I am waiting to get a new one so we can start TPN again. I am hoping I can find something to help me eat a little more without being 2 nauseous and getting sick. This disease sucks but I have joined support groups and have found a lot of friends who actually understand what I am going through.

Loading spinner