Coming to Terms With Your New Diagnosis

I've been diagnosed with Gastroparesis for five and a half years now, so it's been a while. I'm not an expert and I'm not licensed in anything, so the advice I give below is just from my own personal experience; however, I think having trotted down this road for some time now, it gives me a margin of "expertise". Along this road I have also been diagnosed with a couple of other diseases or conditions along the way, just to keep life a little extra spicy. Because one disease isn't enough!

So here is my (TOTALLY non-professional) advice on how to cope with being newly diagnose:: 

1. TAKE TIME TO SOAK IT IN

Just take the time you need to take it in, whether it be to shed tears, sleep on it, laugh about, to absorb it, whatever the case may be (everybody is different). Take the time you need to go home with the information and the diagnosis(es) your doctor has given you and sit with it. Ponder what this all means to and for you. Often times you've already been dealing with this disease for months to years, just without a name. Now it's just taking in the fact that you have a name to stick with all of the turmoil you've been experiencing. 

2. RESEARCH IT

After you've absorbed your diagnosis, take any information your doctor has given to you and read it thoroughly. After that, jump onto the Internet and see all that it has to offer...the good, the bad, and the ugly. Life is NOT going to be all peaches and cream with your disease/condition, so why live in a fantasy world, right? 

3. SHARE WITH FAMILY, FRIENDS, AND LOVED ONES

This is a step that is, sometimes, the hardest for newly, and old-ly (did I just make up s word?!) diagnosed to do. Those  who are not sick do not understand Chronic Illness, BUT how will they understand if we do not share what it is our illness is and how effects our lives? 

I, personally, am as honest as I can be with everyone in my life. I tell them about food not staying in, food staying in too long (if you catch my drift), being in pain, wanting to pass out, being tired, dry skin, dying hair, and all of the other parts that go along with my diseases. There's no other way for them to understand what it's like to be in my body if I don't tell them. 

4. FORGIVE YOURSELF

Every day is not going to be your day. Every week is not going to be your week. You're going to have missed plans, disappointed friends and family. It happens. But they do not (fully) understand the battle that you are fighting with your body every second of every day. Forgive yourself when those missed opportunities happen. Sure, you'll feel sad and disappointed, but you'll come to realize that you're ability to get up tomorrow is WAY more important than going out for a drink with Bobby tonight. 

5. ELIMINATE THE HATE

If there are people in your life who continually being you down, hate on you for your disease(s), your inability to go out the way you used to, etc despite you having explained why, then it's time for you to have a serious chat with them. After said serious chat and no change, give them one to two months to get their act together and then give them the boot. Your health is ENTIRELY too important to waste time and energy on negative people in your life who don't want to take the time to try and understand the changes in your life. 

6. FIND OUT WHAT WORKS FOR YOU

Everyone, the doctor, the nutritionist, the physical therapist, the psychologist, your family, friends, people with the disease, people with family who have the disease, people who schlep holistic stuff...EVERYONE will give you advice. It's all well meaning. It's all overwhelming. Find what works for YOU. It takes time. It takes failure. It takes experimenting. But do what works for you without all of the voices telling you what to do. 

Those are just a few of the tips that I have with coping with a new diagnosis. There are, I'm sure, more that I could come up with, but these are what I came up with for you all today. I hope that you find them useful and can pass them along!