Hey, Lovelies!
So, I want to discuss how I've been feeling lately.
You all know I'm always about being as transparent as possible.
Well, turns out my health is kind of in the toilet as of late.
It is really not helping with my depression.
I found out recently that I still seem to have a failure to thrive and am still at risk for malnutrition.
Finding this out after thinking I was doing better was a striking blow to me.
Because of my gastroparesis, and dysphagia, I have newfound hate for food.
I used to love to eat, it brought me great joy to eat good food! The smells, the flavors used to make me so happy!! Now it brings me a sense of suffering!
I can't enjoy it anymore, I can't go out to eat with friends without pouring over the menu countless times trying to find something suitable.
There usually isn't anything safe, no matter what I eat, I suffer from it later.
It is really hard to eat and not end up in pain or vomiting. It is also really hard not to mourn my loss of ability to eat properly. Just another normalcy that's been taken away from me.
Eating is a basic human function, right? The hunger, the want to eat is only natural, but it can be a source of great stress for me and others like me. Trying to figure out a proper diet, for when I can eat by mouth is truly such a challenge.
I am still trying to get adjusted to my feeding tube even though it's been one whole year since it was first placed (July 13th). The kinking, the diet changes, and the formula, the reactions to all of it are complicated and still hard to get used to. I won't lie, I often cry when I feel hungry because I try to eat and end up paying for it in pain or g.i upset!
I have to constantly be conscious of what I try to eat, not just because of the pain, vomit, or diarrhea, but because depending on what I eat will make my stoma (the hole in my stomach, where my tube is) smell horrid. when I do get enough of an appetite to try and eat anything solid, I usually have to drain my stomach out afterward because my stomach doesn't digest it, and it will sit there and make me sick.
Honestly, there is nothing easy about the changes my body is constantly going through, and I won't really expect you to fully understand, but think about things your body does without you having to think about it.
The things you subconsciously take for granted, now think about people like me whose bodies can't do those things. So woe I say! Woe is food. I hope one day my body will regain the proper ability and function to enjoy food again, but until then, it is part of my journey to accepting who I am, and what I go through. It is a process.
_Stay Lovely_