I remember the first time I got really sick. We were in Mexico for my best friends wedding. I hadn’t really been feeling well all week, but I attributed that to foreign food and more alcohol consumption than normal. The day of the wedding I felt a soon to be familiar turn of the stomach and made it just out of the gazebo to be sick in the bushes. I hadn’t been drinking that day but thought maybe I was coming down with something. I was trying to pull myself together so I could make a speech. One of the resort staff came over to see if I was okay, and handed me a napkin. I felt awful.
Over the next couple of months I was having a lot of trouble keeping anything down. I would go to the emergency room, and they would do their tests, come back with inconclusive results, and then send me home with Percocet. When I say that I couldn’t keep anything down, I mean I really couldn’t keep anything down. There were some days I didn’t eat more than a few soda crackers. I was weak, frail and I had lost close to 30 pounds. Now let me tell you something. I had a harder time with my body image at my smallest size than I did at my biggest. I couldn’t look at my own face in the mirror; my eyes and cheeks were hollow.
It wasn’t until months of feeling like this, and now addicted to Percocet, that I demanded more answers. I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s wrong with me. I will no longer accept your narcotics. I can’t live like this.
This story wouldn’t be complete without our favourite Percocet memory. I will add that addition to narcotics is not a laughing matter. It is serious and there is help available if you or someone you love is addicted to any drugs. I feel comfortable telling this story because my love affair with Percocet was short, and as soon as I realized I was addicted, as in taking it to sleep instead of for pain, I stopped. So anyways, the story. I had taken the day off work to go to a doctors appointment. My mom was picking me up, and when she came to the door to get me I grabbed my purse and put on my shoes. Then:
Mom: Are you ready to go?
Me: Yep
Mom: Are you sure?
Me: Yep
Mom: Are you going to put on some pants?
Me: *Looks down* Yep.
Anyways, back to our story. That’s when I was diagnosed with Gastroparesis. Gastroparesis is a form of neuropathy. It basically paralyses the muscles in your stomach that allow your food to move past your stomach. It would take me sometimes up to 24 hours to digest what I ate. When I was sick it was because I literally couldn’t fit anything else in my stomach.
The test for Gastroparesis would make anyone nauseous. They made me, someone who hadn’t kept anything down in months, eat radioactive eggs (SO GROSS), and then they would take pictures at certain intervals to see how much you had digested. I can’t recall the actual times, but at the time when a normal person would have fully digested their meal I had only digested 8% of my food.
I’m happy to report that since starting medication for this in 2015, I have had only one flare up that required hospitalization. The pills work very well, and I sometimes forget I even have it. I am in an online support group for others with this disease and sometimes it makes me so sad. I feel like I have a very mild version of the disease compared to others that may not have been able to eat solid food for years.
That’s complication #1.
At the same time that all that was going on, I had begun to lose my eye sight. Things were blurry. VERY blurry. I had a very weak prescription pair of glasses that I wore periodically. It got so bad that I actually felt very uncomfortable driving, I couldn’t see what was happening on the TV and the Christmas tree lights were all running together in blurry orbs of colour. I had trouble adjusting when moving between light and dark spaces.
When I went to get my prescription changed my optometrist told me she couldn’t help me. What do you mean? Just give me some stronger glasses! Well, it was a little more complicated than that. She told me that she suspected I had Diabetic Macular Edema. It’s swelling of the small blood vessels at the back of your eye. That old familiar wave of panic rushed over me. I can’t be blind, I mean, that would be completely life altering!
So I got my referral to the ophthalmologist. I wasn’t quite ready for the whole process. I was still nauseous all the time. They had to take pictures using contrast dye, that made me throw up immediately (I still think Tim Hortons should refund me for the coffee I lost). Thankfully that was the only time they had to use that dye. I’m already feeling awful, and also terrified that I may not get my vision back. When I first started getting treated, I had to go every 4 weeks. (Readers discretion is advised for this next part). The treatment is a needle that injects a drug into the back of your eyeball. It messes up my eyes usually for the rest of the day but I remember waking up in the morning after the first treatment. The sight of the tiny Christmas light bulbs almost brought tears to my eyes.
I was and still am so grateful for this technology. I wouldn’t say I’m in love with having to get needles in my eyes, but the benefits by far outweigh the horror of the procedure. I am also happy to report that after 4 years of treatments I have graduated to treatments every 12 weeks.
That is complication #2.
Those things now don’t affect me as much as they used to. I would say all things considered I am pretty healthy and so grateful for modern medicine. It’s incredible the things that we have that keep me living a normal life. I don’t miss the days of not being able to eat or see. I honestly thought that was going to be the worst of it. Ok universe, I get it. I should have taken better care of myself. You can stop now… but it didn’t.
Kari's Kidney 