The neighbors have an entire back yard of dandelions. A huge field of bright yellow flowers, green leaves shining over the dry grass. I love dandelions, I always have. Most people view them as weeds, I know. Of course one person’s weed is another person’s flower. (We have a debate going here, wild violas grow everywhere. I put them in the garden. My ex-boss thought they were weeds.) I will agree that most people don’t think of dandelions as garden flowers. I am not here to argue that point one way or the other. Dandelions are remarkable. I thought about that as I looked at the brown grass in the neighbor’s yard. Three days of hot weather and the grass is pretty much gone. It doesn’t tolerate the heat or the dry weather well, and even if you water it, often it doesn’t return until the first soft brush of autumn. What caught my eye were those bright yellow flowers and the deep green of the leaves amidst all that brown. They are there, growing strong, where nothing else can survive. It made me think of all the times I have seen dandelions in waste land, places where nothing else grows, but they are there, offering the surprising gift of color, of life, when all else is gone. For me there is something magical about dandelions. They start out like all flowers, small green plants bursting from the soil. Then bloom their bright yellow blooms, small suns on the land. Finally, before they go, they become balls of magical seeds that can slip free and float through the air like tiny creatures, seeking a new home—a new place to bring strength and that bright sunlit flower. Dandelions give me hope. They persevere despite every attempt to eradicate them, survive where nothing else can, bring color to a colorless landscape and become magical fairies as their flower fades. I want to be like that, strong when there seems no place to find life, a small sun burning in my heart and when I begin to fade, drifting on the wind like a magical creature.
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When I was little, I loved the story of the Little Engine Who Could. How he could conquer something seemingly insurmountable and win. The idea is so rooted in us, that we believe in trying again when we fail, we “get up when we are knocked down” and we “fight on”. I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately—fighting on, trying again and “I think I can” when I am knocked down and getting up and carrying on. The problem with that is when do you stop? When do you finally say, “I’ve had enough”? When I agreed to a feeding tube in June, I thought it would be an answer. That I would have some relief and my body could recover and maybe I could move forward with a new and improved life. I hoped. I wanted it to be so. Even after the trauma of the initial surgery, I thought this was going to be okay, I can do this. Even when I found out that I would be hooked to a pump for twelve hours a day, I thought this would be okay, I can do this. Nothing is ever simple with me. My poor doctor has said this more than once, and once again, I’ve proven this true. The feeding tube keeps moving, migrating out of my intestine and into my stomach. After three tries, the doctor finally decided it might be because my stomach was doing something odd and so he recommended a gastric bag. In other words, the port on my tube for my stomach (I have one for the feeds which go directly into my jejunum and a second “gastric” port for the stomach) is now open all the time to prevent a build-up of anything that might cause the tube to take a trip. It worked—for a week. And it had to be fixed again. They are still hoping the gastric bag is the answer and that yesterday was the last time I’d have to have it fixed. It’s okay, I can do this. Even with the constant Reminder, I can do this. So here I sit. All fixed. Only, I’m not. Because of the gastric bag, I can’t drink anything. Well, I can, but it literally goes straight through me and into the bag. The promise that I could maybe eat something sometimes is gone as well. And I think I can do this. I can, and I am, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t bumps in the road. The Reminder is hard to deal with, it’s not attractive, it’s a hassle. This adds one more thing on a life that occasionally feels overloaded. Bad news from the doctor adds another weight. In my last blog, I talked about unthinking comments. Things that people say that can be cruel and they don’t realize it. Comments people make that I can’t really answer with anything but thank you because “getting well” is not an issue right now. Then there are the people, few I will admit but they are out there, that are cruel. There are people who say things that are demeaning, dehumanizing, cruel and vicious. Case in point—my feeding pole and bag have become an issue at my day job. Not because it effects my performance at my job. In fact, it hasn’t changed anything except for the fact I have to “unplug” before I walk out the door. Customers have asked about it, and I’ve explained. One little girl, who knows about my legendary love of coffee, told me she doesn’t believe it’s a feeding bag at all. It’s her opinion I finally convinced my doctor to let me have coffee hooked up to me twenty-four hours a day. Most people have been kind and understanding or completely neutral. As long as I can do my job, they don’t care, and I can do that. There is someone who doesn’t like it. My boss comments on it every time she is in the office. When she asked why I had a blue fabric bag hanging on my waist, I explained that it was covering the gastric bag. I told her I have a friend who is making some more attractive covers and she said “well, thank God.” Then she started in on the pole and the bag again. It took everything I’ve learned through this experience, up to and including surgery without anesthetic, to keep from crying. Her parting shot of “I can’t wait until you get that tube out” was almost too much. I have been struggling with the decision to say yes to the feeding tube from the first time I was told the tube had slipped—the day after the initial surgery. I questioned it again a week later when it had to be replaced again, and a week and a half after that. And yesterday. It’s getting harder to believe this is helping, harder to just try and accept and keep going. When you add outright meanness on top, it makes it almost impossible. As I write this, I am reminding myself I’ve promised to be open about everything. I’ve nearly erased this four times. I have the idea to not complain, to carry on, so built into me that it took me a week and a half to work up to asking my doctor for pain meds for the continually aching hole in my stomach. It hasn’t had a chance to heal, but I was sucking it up and just gritting my teeth. But, as my doctor pointed out, if you don’t say anything, nothing will change. It’s true. So, I am not deleting half the blog this time. Some days, it is harder than others. Some days, I can’t do it, and I want to cry. Today started out good, even considering everything, it’s ended rather differently. I’m not sure I can do this. What do you do when someone says something so unfeeling you are left reeling? Something that sets you back so far, all you can do is sit and let the tears tumble out of your eyes? Why am I asking? I received a note today. I have been in turns crying, angry and so close to the abyss I can hear the wind whistling through the entry. What could possibly have been said to create this vortex of emotion? “I hope you are feeling better. Things get more challenging as the Reaper approaches.” I am hoping that this is a case of misunderstanding, that the writer of the note does not realize that the Reaper is not approaching—he is camped out in my living room having a pizza party. One of the reasons I started this blog, and made the decision to share this journey with you was because so few people have even heard of gastroparesis, let alone understand it. As you all know, I also have the additional challenge of esophageal spasms, which makes it just that more difficult. I feel a little like I have failed to make things clear. That perhaps I have not been as honest or as open as I need to be for people to really understand. This note does give me an opening I have been looking for, or maybe another question to pose: how do I respond to people who say “get well soon”? There really is no getting better right now. There is no cure or answer. There are palliative measures, anti-nausea drugs, pills that relieve the spasm and of course now, my new friend, the feeding tube. Right now, the reality is there is no “getting well”. There are times of feeling better. The feeding tube has given me more energy, wounds that haven’t healed correctly are finally healing. Of course on the flip side. I am tethered to it for twelve long hours a day. It’s not an easy answer. It’s not easy to face every day. And yes, some days I don’t want to face it anymore. I know there are a lot of my fellow GP sufferers that have feeding tubes. I don’t know what their experience with the tube is, whether they have become accustomed to it and just hope for a day when it’s not there or if they wake up dreading the day. As I have said before, my experience is subjective, and right now it’s hard. It’s hard to face, it’s hard to know things are going downhill no matter how I struggle to go uphill. Some days it’s just hard to not take the plunge into the abyss. This disease is not simple. It is not just “tummy trouble” as someone said to me recently. It is something that is taking lives. How many this year? Young, old, it doesn’t matter. Maybe that is where I have fallen down in sharing this journey with you. Because it is scary, the more you know, the scarier it gets. I am afraid. Deeply afraid. I try not to show it, or to be “down” when I am chatting gleefully away on Facebook or Twitter, but underneath I am trembling all the time. My days are planned around my illness in so many ways. The tube, the feeding, the continual pain from the GP, spasms and other things follow me day and night. I can never escape. I can feel the wind of the abyss at my back. I have done everything right and still my body is failing. How far will it fall? The question haunts me every day. Is there really hope my esophagus will heal with this rest and I will be able to eat again? I don’t know. I can have liquid by mouth, but on a bad day, it still doesn’t go down. Today was one of those days. Will I end up in bed, unable to get out and walk in the forest? Is the chance of seeing some of the places I want to see—or see again—gone? All the people I want to meet, is that gone as well? I don’t know, and that terrifies me. I do know that comments like the one in the note make the day so hard, I can barely see to the end of it. Yes, the Reaper lurks in the wings and as people are fond of saying “anyone could walk into a bus tomorrow” but I have the bus within me. And sometimes it feels like it is just waiting for its chance. Did the writer of the note understand this? No, I don’t think so. But that doesn’t change the reaction. It doesn’t stop the tears. And it certainly doesn’t stop the fear. |
Muffy MorriganMultum in Parvo means much in little and it describes life so well. I have gastroparesis, esophageal spasm and other issues that offer challenges to my daily life. This is the blog of those days. Archives
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