Hello. Before we begin I'm going to insert a *Trigger warning: Eating Disorders.* Anorexia nervosa, Bulimia nervosa, Binge eating disorder, Rumination disorder, Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder* (Also, I'm not very good at grammar or spelling....lol so let me know if you find something I should fix! Because no matter how many times I proof read there will probably still be some mistakes!)
I have been keeping something I went through, that was pretty traumatic, to myself and to a handful of people. I didn't mean to do this, but it's opened my eyes to the reality that people often struggle with huge challenges....in silence.
January 2020 I started to notice that my food would get stuck in my esophagus maybe once or twice a week. It was annoying but honestly wasn't that big of a deal! Gradually, it started happening more frequently to the point that it happened every time I ate. So many people said "Oh just eat slower" or "Chew your food more!" or "You're probably just stressed out." I thought maybe all these were true but it just didn't seem right. In May 2020 I decided to go and see a doctor. She ordered me an Endoscopy but the earliest they could get me in was August.... I was moving to Washington from Colorado a week after this procedure...hehe YAY! So August came, they tried stretching out my esophagus but hours after the Endoscopy the choking still was happening. I noticed some foods were a little worse than others, but overall I was able to eat just about anything, just had some moments of needing to wait until I could feel it "drop" into my stomach. The doctors thought it might be something called Achalasia but there were many more tests that needed to be done before they could make that call. But I was moving wooonnnnddderrrfullllllll.
I started my first teaching job at Rainier Christian High School in September and just pushed aside the problem I was having. I was managing it, but it still was annoying and interfered with every meal. October 2020 is where things really took a turn, October I was at a beach house with some friends and during one breakfast no matter what I tried to eat I shortly after threw it all up. I could not keep down anything I tried. That same weekend I noticed that I started to cough a lot throughout the night. (During COVID that's not a super settling feeling lol.) After this weekend is when throwing up became apart of my every day. Gradually it moved from food just getting stuck to food either going down or not going down. There was no in between, During the school day I began to stop eating because I couldn't teach with the fear that at any moment every I just tried to eat would just come up! I didn't like going to social gatherings because it was always centered around food. December 2020 came, Dustin and I were visiting his family and that was the first moment I realized that my clothes weren't fitting me anymore. Everything was starting to feel really baggy or wouldn't even fit with a belt.
By January 2021 throwing up happened at every meal. I never knew how much was really going down. I moved into pretty much a full liquid diet. Ensure, sometimes smoothies, tomato soup, avocado.... that's all I could manage. Weirdly, rice cake and peanut butter usually did good too, but over all that was my diet everyday. Days would pass by and I would be starving. I would dream about food. There would be times I would just sit and cry with Dustin because I just wanted some water because I felt so thirsty. (I could cry this very second thinking about how big of a support Dustin was through this all. He cared for me every single day when I was at my absolute rock bottom worst. He is so gentle, patient, kind, and loving. A true angel from heaven who took care of me.) January I began taking calling doctors in Washington more seriously to get help. I saw a Doctor January 6th who passed me on to another Doctor that couldn't see me until February (on a video call mind you, Because of COVID, doctor's are not seeing many people in office. How can you full assess someone over a glitchy zoom call???! horrible). From January until March I got passed from doctor to doctor to doctor only being able to explain myself over zoom. Insurance got in the way of me being able to see the right doctors faster, and I had to start the whole process over with a new hospital. As much as I tried to express my urgency no one could have truly understood the condition I was in unless seeing me physically. In March 2021 I woke up one day to go to school, after having a whole weekend of not being able to consume anything, and I didn't think I would be able to make it through the day. I felt so weak, hungry and dead. I showed up but asked my principal if I could go home and recovery from the weekend. I ended up just sleeping all of Monday and still not being able to swallow anything. Ice chips weren't working, ice cream, popsicle.....nothing. So Tuesday I decided to go to urgent care to get some fluids.
By going to urgent care they were able to speed up my process and got me connected with the right doctors. I still had a few more zoom calls and getting passed to different doctors but finally I landed in the hands of Doctor Louie. Praise God. I should have gone to urgent care WAY before I did! But finally after calls and scheduling and trying to explain myself I had the last two tests I needed scheduled and a surgery in the calendar!
I went home for spring break the first week of April. I went to go visit my friend Sarah and she noticed I was not looking well at all. The last time she had seen me was November and I was only starting to lose my weight and having to change my diet, so I looked extremely different by April. Sarah called and called and tried to get me to go see her husband who was a doctor to see if I could get my surgery done in Colorado that week!!! I was so annoyed. I didn't want help. I didn't want to do anything. I was beyond exhausted and was borderline malnourished. I couldn't even understand the state I was in. There were some days I didn't even want to be living anymore. Life is not sitting in front of a toilet throwing up everything you just consumed meal after meal after meal after meal after meal day after day after day after day week after week after week after week month after month after month after month. I was not living. I was merely existing, hanging by a thread.
I wanted nothing more than to have curves, have my clothing fit tight, to eat until I felt full, to exercise, ski, bike, run, swim, to feel beautiful, to lift a backpack without it feeling like 100 pounds, to stand up and not feel like I was going to pass out, to have people stop commenting on how TINY I was. I was miserable.
Finally in April I was able to get my Manometry test done. The absolute worst thing that can happen to a human!! BLEHHH. Esophageal manometry (muh-NOM-uh-tree) is a test that shows whether your esophagus is working properly. The esophagus is a long, muscular tube that connects your throat to your stomach. When you swallow, your esophagus contracts and pushes food into your stomach. Esophageal manometry measures the contractions. They stuff a sensor down your nose, hit your gag reflex (EWWWWW) and can see the movement of the muscles in your esophagus. Honestly the worst thing that could happen to a human. hahaha I was throwing up, crying, and snot was flying everywhere....not cute. After that test I had a barium swallow test, where they use an x-ray to watch where it was getting caught up. I swallowed as much of the barium as I could and on the screen it showed it going all the way down and then just sitting at the end of my esophagus. 1 min still there.....2 minutes still there no movement....5 minutes still there no movement....just caught and not going into my stomach.
The day of my Manometry I was weighed at 92 pounds. A normal weight over the last 5 years was 130 pounds. I lost every ounce of muscle and fat. I was a skeleton! I felt so ugly. I would look in the mirror and see a twig lost behind her baggy clothes. I hated feeling like I wasn't strong or attractive. Below are two pictures when I felt like I was at my lowest point and a picture from May 202o for comparison.
After many tests they confirmed that it was Achalasia. The nerves at the bottom of my esophagus had died off and didn't know how to send the message to my brain to relax and let my food or drink into my stomach.
Finally the best day of my life arrived. April 21, 2021. Doctor Brian Louie was my surgeon and did a Hellar Myotomy.
I wake up every day so grateful for a nutritional breakfast, to pack a lunch, and to plan a dinner. I can't describe everything at the moment. I think I'll need to do a follow up blog on everything I've learned and reflected on post surgery. So I think I'll wrap this blog up, but stay tuned for more because I'm not done telling my story yet!
