Caroline's Gastroparesis Fund

Hey everyone!

As a lot of you know, my health has been in a pretty rapid decline over the past several years. I have felt unwell for over a decade, but in the last year I have lost 40 pounds, the ability to eat, and a lot of hope.

After years and years of being told by doctors that there was nothing wrong with me, I was finally diagnosed early three years ago with gastroparesis and bowel motility issues. What this means, in a nutshell, is that my stomach and intestines are paralyzed, and can't move food through the way they should. Anything I ingest sits in my stomach for hours (and often days), and there is little relief when it finally does leave my stomach, because my whole digestive tract moves so slowly. This causes constant pain, nausea, and general discomfort, along with vomiting, dehydration, and malnutrition. Right now I am on a completely liquid diet (meal replacement drinks, juices, and broth), and am struggling to get in 600 or 700 calories a day. The lack of nutrition makes me super tired and foggy, and most of the time it's hard to get out of bed, let alone work a full time job and take care of day to day tasks.

There is no cure for gastroparesis, and the treatments are often dangerous and mostly ineffective. This is something I will most likely have to live with for the rest of my life. I probably won't ever be able to sit down to a regular meal (or even a regular snack, haha!) again; I probably won't ever be able to live a "normal" life. The days where I don't feel ill and in pain will probably be few and far between.

Over the past few years, I have slowly gotten buried in medical bills. I didn't have insurance for a quite a while, and I had to make trips to the emergency room and get a lot of testing done that I could not pay for. Even in the time that I HAVE had insurance, I've tacked on another several thousand dollars in tests, doctor's fees, and uncovered prescriptions, and the bills continue to grow.

At this point, there are out of state specialists I would like to see, and options I would like to explore as far as treatment goes, but I have run very low on money and I am scared to push myself deeper into medical debt. Some of the more promising treatments I would like to try (certain medications, acupuncture, Chinese medicine, naturopathy) are not covered by health insurance, and others (gastric bypass surgery, feeding tubes as a last resort) are, but would still be incredibly expensive.

I've often felt ready to give up during this past year, and sometimes it's hard to keep fighting when you know that there is not going to be any magic cure, that I'm not going to be able to find the right doctor, the right medication, the right procedure to make it go away. I do have hope, however, that there are treatments out there that could help me a great deal, or at least improve my quality of life.

Any donation would mean the world to me, and help me get my world a little closer to normal. Much love to all of you, and thanks for being there. <3