Living with Gastroparesis

We are chameleons, and our partialities and prejudices change place with an easy and blessed facility, and we are soon wonted to the change and happy in it. ~ Mark Twain: Mark Twain at Your Fingertips

My first experience with the Evergreen ER followed by the Hospital was not a good one. I wrote of this experience as a chunk of hospital experiences as I went from one hospital to the next in the course of a month or two. My review of this hospital was not a favorable one. I wanted to take the time to change that review to one of praises. I often look back and wonder why my experiences before were so horrible. I can only blame the time in which I entered the hospital, Christmas Day. The holidays, I guess, is a bad time to be anywhere but home – a place I couldn’t get to this year.

I spent a little over a week in the Blue cardiac ward of Evergreen Hospital. I have nothing but good things to say of my stay there, from janitors, to nurses, to doctors and to administration. They all went above and beyond anything I could have asked for to make me comfortable. I was admitted on the 15th of March due to horribly low potassium levels, scary abnormal EKGs, excruciating abdominal pain and migraines. My resting heart rate at admission was 130. I was released on the 21st with a resting rate of 100 with the hope that it would continue to stabilize with now normal potassium levels and controlled pain levels. I am still working on the pain thing as usual but again, everyone there was amazing and I recommend this hospital just as I would any other hospital I have been to. I feel lucky to live 5 minutes away to such an awesome healthcare network.

A special thanks to Nurse Habiba and Dr. Kubesh. You both were wonderful! Words cannot fully express my gratitude.

Thanks again Evergreen. If I find myself needing emergency care – you’ll see me again. With GP…it is something that will happen more likely than not. Sad but true fact. At least I know there will be wonderfully awesome people waiting to care for me!

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It has been a difficult past few weeks and I am trying hard not to “leave the stage in the middle of a song.”

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A great friend of mine found this article on the But You Don’t Look Sick website, and I think it is worth sharing. Enjoy!

“I’m fine.” We say those words multiple times a day. How often does anybody ever really mean them? For those of us living with invisible chronic illnesses, do we ever mean it? If we don’t mean it, then why on earth do we say it?

We say I’m fine because it’s what’s expected of us, because how often does the other person really want to know (and even if they say they do, they certainly don’t mean they want an in depth analysis every single time they ask). We say I’m fine because we really don’t want to go into the myriad of appointments this month or the inconclusive tests, or the trial and error of medications. We say I’m fine because we don’t want to hear, yet again, the saga of how Great Aunt Muriel cured her Lyme’s Disease by drinking beaver urine and maybe, just maybe, it would help you too.

It’s easier to say I’m fine than say I’m tired, nauseous, every joint in my body hurts, I miss solid food, and I’m sick of being sent from specialist to specialist and feeling like a pincushion only to have people look back and say you’re always sick or what are you doing to yourself to keep having all this happen to you. Maybe if you did this… Or to be faced with looks of pity because you’re sick and they feel helpless because you being sick is hard for them.

I say I’m fine because maybe if I say it often enough, I might start to feel a little bit fine. I say I’m fine because I wish I was, because I want to be, I want to believe that someday I can be. I say I’m fine because it’s easier than the alternative, because I don’t want to lose anybody else because they’ve decided they don’t want to have the sick girl as a friend.

That’s the beauty of an invisible illness. You can say you’re fine because no one can see that you’re not. If I was covered with green and blue dots, it would be harder to hide, but I’m able to masquerade as a healthy person. So when you ask, I’ll probably keep saying I’m fine regardless of how I feel. Of course, Minnesota Nice may come into play in some of this, since chances are, even if you see me cradling my severed left arm in my right, I’m probably still going to smile and say I’m fine if you ask me how I am.

Article written by Staff Writer, Agnes Reis

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