|
|
||
|
|
I remember the days when I spent all my time playing basketball, softball and soccer. I was able to run a mile in six minutes, and play hard basketball for hours. I could jump further than any girl in my class, and ranked fourth in length of time I could perform arm hangs. I always had a dream to play basketball for the Lady Volunteers, the number one women's basketball team in the nation and only two hours from my home in Chattanooga, TN. That dream is now only a memory of what my life used to be like as I now have to spend every day struggling to get through some of the simplest things. On
July 19, 1994 I got sick with a virus that changed my life forever.
It started out as nausea then developed into a high fever and bad
headache. The fever lasted
for three days, but the virus had already done irreversible damage.
I began having trouble eating and over the course of the next few
months, things got progressively worse.
By the end of September I was having a difficult time eating
anything. As my weight
dropped and my normally giant-sized appetite decreased, I began to
realize the seriousness of the situation.
After months of testing and visits to various doctors, I was
finally diagnosed with gastroparesis on January 3, 1995.
Gastroparesis is a condition where the nerves in the stomach
become damaged, which results in stomach paralysis. On January 9, I went to the hospital and was put to sleep as my doctor put a scope into my stomach to look for blockages, obstructions, and tumors. A biopsy was performed, and I was thankful to find out the results were negative, but it was still only the beginning of my journey. Over the course of the next couple of months, I had a lot of tests run to determine the extent of the damage. On March 10, I was admitted to the hospital at a weight of 84 pounds. They immediately started me on an IV and TPN, a type of nutritional support that goes directly into the vein. Because I was so thin, the nurse had a hard time getting the special needle into my vein and poked at me for about ten minutes. I felt like screaming, but I knew that would only make the situation worse, so I bit my lip and tried to think about other things.
|
|
