Testimonial Category: What is your daily life like living with Gastroparesis?

What is my daily life like living with gastroparesis?

For me it is as if I lost all control of my life. I can’t even call it living, it is more like war. Constant pain, nausea, and vomiting. NPO and TPN dependent for 7 years come October. I didn’t only lose the ability to eat, but my life has been robbed of so much more. My husband suffers, my daughters, parents and brothers. They watch me struggle and fight day in and day out. All the while I feel more like a burden as days pass. We need the ill informed to become educated. Not only is our illness rare and difficult it is also forgotten. We need more funding, we need research, we need compassion and understanding. If it weren’t for our support systems at home or our social media support systems, as patients we truly would be lost. We need a cure. ??

What is my daily life like living with gastroparesis?

Living in debilitating pain along with feeling nauseated all day. As well as the littlest things you do wears you down to nothing!

What is my daily life like living with gastroparesis?

Acceptance is my biggest problem, because I think sometimes I am in denial, but my body continues to remind me that I cant tolerate a lot of food intake, my system doesn’t want to accept fluids so I stay dizzy and dehydrated too much. How could buffets, subs, fast food, any food be the norm, and because of a Gall Bladder gone wrong, my life is so different. Some days I don’t want to go in public or drive and this is coming from a bubbly lil social butterfly?

What is my daily life like living with gastroparesis?

I spend a majority of my days in bed, eating what I can because I have to, not because I am hungry or desire to. Never making plans without a contingency plan. Pain and nausea dictates my schedule, and an outing has to be scheduled before any nutritional intake with recovery time afterwards.

Managing life not knowing what each day will bring until I wake up each day has taught me to be spontaneous and not take for granted my better days.

What is my daily life like living with gastroparesis?

It’s like playing cards. You have an ace in the hand. You feel like you may win today only to find out that ace is a club to knock you down.

Nauseating moments, pain sucking the energy out of you, and being hungry and full at the same time is all part of the game.

I have moderate gastroparesis and a higher tolerance for illness due to other issues. I know mine is not the worst. I know my issue is not the best. My thought living with disease is this….

Never take for granted what is before you. Something as simple, but important, as eating and not being sick is not a given, it is a blessing. So, I deal with it and hope every day, I can do something to play MY ace.