Theme
3:59am February 20, 2013

OMFG this is going to be bad. (As in I will likely be puking in a few hours.)

So they want to see exactly how slow my stomach moves and/or what else about it makes me unable to eat. Because despite my requesting it, they never ran this test in the hospital, and I need it in order to narrow down possible treatments.

So they made me stop everything – no food, no meds, no water, nothing – at 9 pm, and stop the med that speeds up my stomach (Reglan) way earlier in the day than even that.

It’s past three in the morning. I can’t use my bipap to sleep with because I’m too nauseated, and throwing up in your sleep with a bipap on is a good way to get yourself killed.

And by too nauseated, I mean the only thing keeping me from throwing up is an iron self-control stemming from having been emetophobic well into young adulthood, combined with lots and lots of prayer. (The kind of prayer I even used when I was an atheist as a kid because I was that terrified of throwing up. Right now it’s not fear of vomiting, as much as fear they’ll call off the test if I show up already puking with an empty stomach.)

And the test itself? Will involve feeding me food with a tracer in it so they can see how fast my stomach empties.

The food? Solid food, I’m told. I haven’t been able to eat solid food since August. It apparently has to be solid because liquid goes through faster.

As my friend put it, they’re likely to find exactly how fast my stomach empties – through my mouth. I’m good with willpower but not that good.

Especially since by now I’ve missed… I literally can’t count the number of anti-nausea meds and stomach-speeding-up meds I’ve missed and will have missed by morning. Let me try. 8. At least 8. More by the time of the test. Normally I even have to wake up in the middle of the night a few times to take some.

I desperately want to be able to show them how slow (or fast) my stomach actually empties, because I have to know that to get some of the further treatments that could reduce the ridiculous number of meds I’m on. But I’m really afraid that I’ll just… start puking practically the moment I start eating, because I’m already badly nauseated with nothing in my stomach.

Worse – whether or not I can keep enough food in there for them to measure my motility, this has the potential to ruin my day, or even longer than my day. Once I start vomiting it’s hard to stop. If I can’t keep my meds themselves down, that’s a crisis that could end in the ER or worse. And even if I can, this is likely to leave my stomach very upset for days.

But they don’t seem to think of those things. And there are worse scenarios I’m not even contemplating at the moment, though I know they exist due to the experiences of friends. All they think about is getting their damn test results and not what their test is likely to do to me.

And I’m scared I won’t even make it to the point where I eat the food.

At this point I will get less than two hours sleep if any at all. That’s a good recipe for a migraine which is a good recipe for more nausea. Not eating and missing meds are also good recipes for migraines.

And all to prove what the doctors are pretty sure they already know. I mean I understand why they have to know for sure. But holy fuck. I’m dreading this more than I can even convey. Because it’s already much worse than I expected just trying to get through the night before.