Egg the Size of A Cheerio…
February 13th, I began my day by eating some Nerds which had been going pretty okay. For me, any food I ate would cause pain and me to regret it later, but it generally didn’t cause a flare (defined by me as immobilized in bed for a minimum of a week) so my brain took that as it was still “fine” to eat.
I was just going about my day doing some cleaning around the house and had a pretty normal morning. I did have a random vertigo attack as I was cleaning so I just figured the air pressure must’ve been changing outside.
I showered and then rested on my couch watching that Netflix show I had gotten hooked on.
As I was watching TV, my hunger craving started appearing.
I want to define here that my hunger cravings are simply psychological cravings for the pleasure of eating and not for the nutritional or literal need of eating. My TPN fully nourishes me so anything I get in is considered a “bonus”.
I had wanted something more, something “heftier” to eat that was more than the peanut butter.
I then thought back to my time in the hospital when I had eaten blended up versions of food.
Aha! I’ll try blended up scrambled eggs!
I really wanted eggs and I knew how to make it super plain.
I was so excited because after I got the eggs into my mind, I could already practically taste it and it was just what my mind wanted to eat.
I cracked 1 egg into a bowl, scrambled it with a fork, and stuck it in the microwave to cook it (I used to do this every day for breakfast during my whole freshman year of college in my dorm).
After making sure it was fully cooked (it was pretty dry) I then grabbed a blender and blended it down until the egg was in super tiny pieces.
I added a little bit of salt and put some into a bowl (I overserved myself because I forgot that I couldn’t eat regular meals).
At 2:45pm I began eating 2 bites of the egg that were so small I could dissolve the pieces with my tongue. The pieces together would’ve been about the size of a cheerio.
I waited after those 2 bites (very challenging to restrain) to see if my body had any reactions before I kept eating.
I was distracted and watching my Netflix show the whole time (in the background) that I was very hooked on.
A minute later (2:46pm) I began getting sharp epigastric pain which prompted me to put the bowl of egg away so I didn’t eat more since I wasn’t sure if the pain was going to escalate (and I knew eating more would make it escalate).
After throwing the bowl of egg away, I sat back on the couch to watch my show.
At 3:11pm, I began feeling much more noticeable abdominal pain which made it hard to focus on my show. However, I was stubborn and wanted to keep watching so I managed to keep switching my focus back to the TV.
At 3:20pm I had to sprint to the bathroom to have diarrhea (likely from earlier or yesterday’s food and not from the egg; the egg moving through my system likely prompted a bowel movement).
At 3:30pm I had to shut the show off to take an oxycodone because I could no longer watch TV due to the intensity of the abdominal pain.
After taking the oxycodone, my pain dropped to its usual levels (a 7) and I wrote an essay on my couch that I needed to work on for class.
I got up off the couch at 5:40pm when my alarm went off to change my TPN.
I washed my hands, got my supplies out and prepped my vitamins.
After injecting the vitamins into the TPN bag, I was suddenly hit with vasovagal syncope-like reaction.
My eyes got really watery, and my face went pale. I immediately grabbed my phone (which is why my phone is ALWAYS on me- for medical emergencies like this because they always come out of nowhere) and dialed my dad.
In the process of dialing the phone I immediately dropped to the floor as I was hit with the most massive wave of nausea. My vertigo was also acting up alongside everything else which prompted me to keep my eyes closed. My stomach began hurting REAL bad and was swelling up like a balloon. I took my nausea medication at 5:55pm to no avail because I began vomiting shortly after.
I couldn’t really move, and my dad was on the phone trying to keep me calm and make sure that if I needed help and couldn’t dial 911, he would.
I kept vomiting over and over and the first round of vomit was- you guessed it, my 2 pieces of egg from 2:40pm earlier that day. Wild right?
That’s gastroparesis for you!
Since I still hadn’t really been able to open my eyes and DEFINITELY could not stand up- I had reached for a cardboard box by the trash to vomit in.
The remainder of the vomiting cycles were mostly clear so that was good.
After the vomiting I remained curled up laying on the floor with the vomit box next to me and my phone by my head with my dad on the other end with my eyes still closed.
As I was trying to keep myself calm, I talked to my dad about the characters from the Netflix show I had been watching. It helped in between the vomiting cycles.
At 7:10pm (AN HOUR LATER), I was able to move my TPN stuff to the floor to finish changing my TPN.
I had opened my eyes and realized my vomit box was leaking on the kitchen floor-great.
I somehow managed to get up (hunched over) and clean up the vomit and throw it out in the trash chute (because I had been in my apartment before with vomit in the trash and it can really stink up the place).
I hung up the phone with my dad and crawled into bed. I put on Netflix on my laptop and tried to determine whether I felt up to going to school the next day.
At 10pm that evening I took my pills without my muscle relaxer (just dealt with the esophagus pain) because I didn’t want the muscle relaxer to inhibit my vomiting if my body needed to vomit again.
February 14th, the next day.
My body really wanted to remind me that it’s in charge and that I should not be eating.
I woke up at 8:30am from my alarm and was in SO much pain. I had gotten out of bed to use the bathroom and the act of standing up made things immensely worse.
I emailed my professors that I wouldn’t come into class, but I’d attend virtually.
As I tried to change out of my pajamas, I began a dry heaving fit.
I took another oxycodone at 9:17a.m.
Pain however, kept escalating.
I tried my best to do my schoolwork, but my body just was not having it and strongly disliked that I was disobeying it.
I began vomiting again from doing too much classwork.
I took nausea medication, but the vomiting continued.
I quickly raced to my apartments front door carrying a trash bag-still vomiting from all the movement- to unlock the door so if I needed to call 911, they could get in by me unlocking the door with my phone.
I made it back to my bed and kept vomiting because again, movement is my worst enemy in these flares.
All of my symptoms flared up from this; I had so much acid reflux, my fatigue was awful, I began getting migraines, and my esophagus spasms were heightened.
My nurse came to visit me late in the afternoon to change my dressing and I unlocked the door from my phone since I couldn’t get up.
That evening I stopped vomiting but still had dry heaving fits with movement.
I had to email my school because the theatre show I was assigned to had me specifically working that week. Since I couldn’t move, I couldn’t go to classes or rehearsals.
It was very frustrating.
The flare from the eggs lasted 8 days long.
There’s too much that occurred every day to be able to write it all in this article but just know the days were spent how they were in the summer. The only difference is it was shorter because I didn’t continue eating whereas in the summer, I did because I didn’t know that food was making it worse.
Towards the end of the flare, I did catch up on schoolwork (I didn’t have much because I work ahead naturally so that ended up aiding me) but had a lot of fatigue troubles and tremor issues (which was hard because I was making a 3D model and my hands kept shaking).
Read how Emma recovers after her egg flare in, “Shows, Blood Labs, What Else Is New?”