
The third time I threw up my dinner in the morning, nearly 14 hours after eating it, my husband suggested that maybe, just maybe, something was wrong. I didnât just have the stomach flu. I was 22, newly married, stressed beyond belief in a graduate program for teaching, and the flu I thought I had wasnât going away. I was sick so often it soon became routine: wake up, throw up, go to class.
No, I wasnât pregnant.
By the time my Masterâs program ended, I had been diagnosed with gastroparesis, a âbroken stomach.â Essentially, my stomach could not digest food properly, holding onto every meal I ate instead of letting them pass through my digestive tract. This produced debilitating nausea. The food would sit there until I inevitably threw it back up again, shockingly undigested, the next day. I turned down a teaching position, lived on saltines and Gatorade and faxed my prescriptions to Canada at the local FedEx, trying to find the right medication. I was frustrated and underweight and fainting and aimless.
Books were my escape. Stories, in which no one was sick and every problem could be solved. I loved murder mysteries best, because my mood was dark and I knew Iâd get all the answers in the end. What I was dealing with was vague and capricious and couldnât be managed entirely, only sometimes held at bay, as though my stomach had become a petulant child I was constantly trying to appease. It felt unfair and senseless.
But books always made sense. So I wrote one.
It took time, and many failed attempts. But I had time to fail, and then to succeed. I had nothing but time. (And here I must acknowledge my privilege to have a family who would support me all the way despite living in a country that does not care for its sick and disabled workers.) I wrote a story about a girl who feels lost and aimless, and another who feels sick but doesnât know why. I created a story where you, the reader, will get all your answers in the end. And youâll learn that this illness, in all its confusing complexity, holds an answer after all.
Now, years later, Iâve found a new normal. Itâs boring, involving eating the same things at the same time of day, every day with little variation. It involves the right medication, found after trying so many pills I couldnât name them all if I wanted to. But Iâm better, at a healthier weight, and I havenât fainted in over a year. Itâs a problem Iâve managed to⦠well, manage. Not all are so lucky. Chronic illnesses often arenât well-known or understood, and GI illnesses in particular are shrouded in shame and silence. You wonât find them in a murder mystery at your local bookstore.
Until now. Happy reading. My mystery novel, âMonsters Among Us,â is now published.
source https://www.programage.com/news/How_My_Chronic_Illness_Inspired_Me_to_Write_a_Murder_Mystery_1610352009467352.html
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