Getting back on track

Here I am home sick from work again.  I hate this!! I have been vomiting half the night and all morning.  My back has a huge knot of pain between my shoulder blades and I feel like shit.  I have not been taking my own advice and I let the busyness of life get in the way of managing my Plan properly and now I am paying the price.

Yes this sucks but I know that I can and will get back on track.  I had gone shopping at Jebbia's (our local produce store) and stocked up on fresh fruits and veggies for juicing and smoothies.  So back to taking the time to prepare those nutrient packed meals instead of grabbing what's quick (foods that will make me sick).  It's easier to know the right plan of action but it's harder to implement it.  As I said before a good Comprehensive Management Plan takes time and work, but it is so important to put in that time and effort to feel good.  I wish I didn't have Gastroparesis but I do and if I want to live symptom free I have to manage my plan. 

That being said it is also important to remember that getting back on track doesn't happen instantly. You have to be patient and stick to your Plan and it will come around but it takes time.  Don't give up if you don't feel better after sticking to your Plan for just a day or two.  It might actually take a week, or even two, before you are feeling better and symptom free.  Then once you are feeling better, stick to your plan!  I know easy for me to say, right.  It is easier said than done but I can not stress enough how important it is to do the work.  A good Comprehensive Management Plan is a lifestyle change, it is not a short term "diet".  Unfortunately Gastroparesis is a chronic condition that has to be managed.

Also, don't let yourself wallow in self pity because that does not do anything for you.  Instead take the time to take care of yourself.  Take a long hot bath, listen to some relaxing meditation do anything that is relaxing for you.  Tension and stress will exacerbate symptoms so try to relieve the tension and stress as much as possible.  It's easy to get stressed out when the symptoms flare but that will only make the flare up worse.  A viscous cycle I know!  So I am going to take my own advice and fill up my jacuzzi tub and take a long relaxing bath.  Then hopefully I'll feel good enough later today to do my Yoga routine.  In the meantime I am going to make some fresh juice and water it down so that it won't be so upsetting to my stomach.  Then I plan to sip on it throughout the day.  Once I'm confident my stomach won't reject it I might try some pureed beets, but for the most part it is going to be an all liquid diet kind of day.  I of course will make sure I'm getting the proper nutrients in and hopefully my stomach will stop rejecting everything.  If not I may have to make another trip to the ER to get fluids.

Another point I would like to make.  There are different stages of diets that you sometimes have to change to depending on your symptoms.  For example, I am very symptomatic right now so I am going to stick to an all liquid diet.  Then once I start to feel a little better I can go to a semi-liquid diet.  After that I can work up to the semi-solid diet that I can tolerate.  I say semi-solid because most solid foods are intolerable for me at any time regardless of how good I feel.

The alternative to getting back on track is to stay sick or get even more sick.  That is not a choice I am going to make.  I will get back on track and I will feel better.  In the meantime I have to let this flare up run its course and be very strict with my Plan so that I don't exacerbate the symptoms I'm already dealing with. 

The Importance of Maintaining Your Comprehensive Management Plan

I can not stress enough how important it is to maintain a Comprehensive Management Plan that works for you.  I had been feeling really good and had gotten busy with different things and let myself get distracted from my Plan which resulted in a severe flare up with violent vomiting that caused me to miss a couple days from work.  Gastroparesis reared its ugly head and brought me back to reality real quick.  Life gets busy and maintaining a good Plan takes work and is very time consuming.  It's easy to get distracted or off track, especially when your feeling good, but it is just as important to get yourself back on track and stick with the Plan that you know works.

My back has been bothering me and has made it really hard to do my morning workout routines.  I've even had a hard time doing the Yoga and that has been killing me because I just don't feel good if I don't get my Yoga routine in.  Then I made a trip out of town for a dear friends wedding.  As I've expressed in other posts, I am horrible at directions.  I get lost sooo easy.  I stress out and get severe anxiety and tense up all over.  After that trip my entire body was tensed up for a week, no exaggeration!  Wouldn't have missed being a part of my friends wedding for anything but I should have found someone to go with me to do the driving.  I had some other issues going on that was causing me a lot of stress and all of these added stressors just exacerbated my symptoms.  I had also not had a massage in about a month.  I didn't really realize how much getting a massage had become a part of my Plan until I was no longer getting them.

So now I am getting a massage about once a week and my back is feeling better.  This is allowing me to start getting my workouts in again.  I am also getting back into my daily routine that I know makes me feel better. 

It's important to remember that the Plan works but it is not a cure.  I still have Gastroparesis and that has not changed.  Maintaining my Plan allows me to live 90% symptom free but if I do not manage my Plan that results in being more symptomatic instead of being symptom free.  This is a lifestyle change not a short term objective. For me it seems that if I let one part of the Plan slide it doesn't take long for the rest to follow.  Before I know it I am very sick with nausea and vomiting and it doesn't go away very fast.  Maintaining your Plan is hard work and time consuming but the benefits are sooo worth the time and effort.  I have Gastroparesis but Gastroparesis does not have me!