When Your Stomach Fails You
Everything started at age eight when I stopped being able to eat lunch at school. If you ask a thousand different people with gastroparesis, “What do you do when your stomach fails you?” They will give you a thousand different answers. When I was in third grade my answer was to refuse to eat lunch and snacks anymore.
Of course, this made my parents very anxious, and started them asking me a bazillion questions. I almost wanted to ask them, “What would you do when your stomach fails you?” but I knew I couldn’t talk to my parents like that.
It wasn’t until the end of third grade and the summer of my nine-year-old check-up that my parents really went on high alert. But as soon as I saw Dr. Monroe, my pediatrician, she noticed I had fallen off the growth charts for weight and then was reminded that even though I had barely turned nine I was on the highly competitive level six gymnastics team. Instead of thinking, “What do you do when your stomach fails you?” She decided to plaster me with the eating disorder label and dismiss all possible physical possibilities for my stomach failing me.