Thursday, April 15, 2010
Morning, Noon, and Night Sickness--The Real Deal--Part Two
These are real-life snapshots of life with severe nausea from my own experiences as well as those of several of my friends:
"I threw up 10x a day for 6 months straight with my son."
"My body was in starvation mode. I had to get IV's continually just to stay alive."
"I always wondered if people thought I was drunk and hungover, because I'd be puking all over the driveway or having to stop the car and pull over to open the door and throw up, and I didn't look at all pregnant."
"I've had to interrupt conversations and also rush off in the middle of work to throw-up."
"Nothing worked for me. You name it, I've tried it. There was no medicine that took it away."
"I lost an entire meal when my husband gave me a goodnight kiss on the cheek."
"Even while relaxing in the bathtub I couldn't stop throwing up uncontrollably."
"I feel like a black cloud has covered my life, and I can't see a light at the end of the tunnel."
"I avoid going to the doctor in the first trimester because nothing they say helps me and I usually lose so much weight I just get lectures on how I need to eat more anyhow. As if I can stop the nausea and gain weight!"
"My kids imitate me throwing up and/or laugh and think it's either really funny or really scary and they look like they are going to cry."
"I could not take a single sip of water or sprite without heaving uncontrollably for hours. Then I was so weak I couldn't move."
"I feel like a shell of a person. I don't fix my hair, I don't smile anymore. I don't have the energy to do my hobbies anymore. All I do is lay around and throw up."
"I have begged my loved ones to get a gun and put me out of my misery."
"I haven't had a good, home-cooked meal in weeks. I've never purchased or fed my kids so much junk in all of my life."
"YUCK, I am SO TIRED of the nausea and blinding headaches. I feel like a truck ran over me and I look like crap every day. I'm lucky if I get out of my pajamas."
"I end up in my bed a lot and watch a lot of TV in order to escape the misery. I know it's not the greatest lifestyle but I just don't know what else to do with myself sometimes because I feel so horrible."
"I can't stop eating the same thing, over and over again, because it's the only thing that sounds good. So, I will have 10 meals in a row of chicken casserole or pizza everyday for a month."
"I'm getting quite depressed because I am so sick of feeling sick. I just want some relief. I'm praying for it to end soon."
"I sometimes get the idea that nobody out there understands anything about morning, noon, and night sickness and thinks I'm just trying to soak up attention or get out of responsibilities. I hate it because I would give anything to feel good and be busy and accomplishing things like I used to before this hit me. It's not like just a passing cold where you suffer through it and go about your day -- it's debilitating nausea that makes you just want to crawl into bed but you can't because you have kids to take care of. It's so hard!"
"I've always wanted to have a beanpole body. I finally got it, at the price of eating one piece of toast or less a day, which was all I could stomach. I finally realized that I wasn't made to be that thin and that I'd rather be myself and eat healthily and not have nausea than be a skeleton who couldn't eat anything."
"Even though I haven't been pregnant for a couple of years, pregnancy nausea ruined me so badly that if I smell a certain thing in the morning that used to make me throw up while pregnant, I get nauseous, even now."
"I weep over my kids at night when I watch them sleeping peacefully or when I hold a newborn baby because it reminds me that there is a reward for all of this suffering."
"I feel so selfish when I'm pregnant. My whole day revolves around finding things for myself to eat to survive the day. I can hardly keep up with my kids' needs and I don't have the strength to do anything but lie on the couch once they are in bed. I can't cook meals or tend to my husband's needs. I hate being the one always being served instead of serving him."
"I feel like slapping the next person who tells me to eat a few Saltines and then my nausea will go away."
"I can't imagine going through this again. I feel like there is no possible way I could endure this another time."
"I've been tempted to consider abortion as a way out of my endless sickness. Then I feel bad, because I know it's murder. Then I wonder if other women have had abortions because of hypermesis. And I think about how we can help them to get through this so they don't think abortion is the only answer."
"I couldn't go off of Unisom my entire 9 months. If so, I'd be running out of my client's homes, throwing up in their bushes."
"I break down crying often because I just don't think I can take another day of being constantly nauseous. I'm at the end of my rope."
Putting it into numbers:
My pregnant friend has thrown up about 500 times in the last month and a half. Even 1/4 of 500 is way too much. Can you imagine?
I have dry heaved/gagged/thrown up somewhere between 300-400 times in the last 6 weeks.
I have spent 540 hours in the last 6 weeks feeling like I'm going to throw up. That's 32,400 minutes of feeling miserable.
99% of everything I eat leaves a bad after-taste, churning in my stomach, and nauseous feeling.
One woman's story of life with severe 9-month-long hypermesis gravidarum:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
One of the things that made me saddest was that whenever anyone (husband/kids) got too close to me, all I could smell was a nasty metallic smell that sent me running for the bathroom...even if they had just bathed! Had to hold everyone at arms length for months.
Post a Comment