Finding Answers to Impossible Questions

You have probably had many instances in your life where you had to wonder how you got in the position you are in.        You end up questioning what happened, why it happened, and where you go from here.  Of course, many times, the answers to those questions are impossible to find.  The reason why you got sick, or why you have chronic pain, or why a loved one died too soon are things you often will never be able to figure out.  

That is when we often have to reach deep down into our souls to figure out the riddle - and if we can't figure it out, finding someone who can.

That is how life can be with Gastroparesis.    If your son is out playing with his best friend, and his best friend ends up missing school for a week with Chicken Pox, there is a decent chance your kid is probably next.   That is a concrete answer to why your son came down with the disease:  It is highly contagious, and his friend had it.  Cut and dry.

With Gastroparesis, there often is no obvious trigger.  You don't eat tainted hamburger meat and come down with this like you would food poisoning.   You don't hang out with a friend who has a stomach flu and end up coming down with one of your own.   You don't eat spicy food and suddenly have nausea and indigestion.   It may come as a consequence of another illness (IE, an unrelated illness that decides to attack this area of your body), but trying to figure out why that would happen is another mystery.

So, how can you have answers about this condition when you really don't know what the questions are to begin with?  That is the million dollar dilemma - if you can't ask the question "Why do I have this?", then you won't ever know why you do.    It seems that nobody really knows the why's and how's - and nobody can even really tell you what is going on inside of the body, per se.  They can explain the consequences of the illness - but can they fully explain what leads to those consequences?    In my opinion, the answer is not really.  This is not meant as a slight to the (few) experts that do exist in the treating of this condition.  It is just the nature of the beast.  How can one wake up one morning with a horrific stomach condition, and just have no idea how it came about, why it came about, and how to fix it?   Hopefully, somebody can figure out the answers some day.

In the meantime, if you are a loved one of someone with this condition, you shouldn't be expected to fully understand it.  The person suffering doesn't fully understand it, so how can you?     All you can do is support them during their lowest points and try your best to encourage them.   You can't possibly feel their physical pain, but you can help them with the emotional aspects of it.