The Beauty of Spoonie Friends

Friendship is very important for people throughout life. You learn to share, to grow, to love, to laugh, and to have adventure with friends differently than you do with your family. Your friends help cultivate in you a side of yourself that your parents and your siblings aren't able to. Maybe it's because family is always there. Maybe it's because they have those same traits as you. Whatever the case may be, friends bring out a different side of you than family does. 

The same can be said for Spoonie Friends. These are beautiful, special, and unique friendships that bring out a different side of you. That speak to a part of your life that not everyone understands. It's a friendship built on shared experiences and pain. But it's one that you would not give up for the world. 

I have been lucky enough to make three good friends recently within the Spoonie Community. They're friendship during the good and the bad times helps keep a smile on my face when all I really want to do is cry. While we may or may not share the same disease(s), we share some of the same experiences:: social stigmas, lost friends/family, lost jobs, feeling of worthlessness, the desire to achieve goals, lack of understanding from medical professionals, and the list goes on. Just by being able to be there for each other via text--they all live all over the U.S--we're able to support each other, make each other laugh, and give each other ideas when we just feel too sick to use common sense. 

Spoonie friends can relate to having tubes shoved down their noses and PICC lines put in their arms and being forced to take handfuls of medications twice a day (or more). It's a friendship founded on a negative subject but, because we're survivors, we're able to turn it into something beautiful. Who else can text someone they've never actually met and talk about throwing up or having bathroom accidents? SPOONIES! Who else can you drunk text (medicated on morphine) at 2am while you're in the hospital and have the text make NO SENSE and have them just say "You're medicated, aren't you?" SPOONIES!

Everyone, whether you're part of the Chronic Illness Community (Spoonie) or not, needs friendship. You need that someone or someones that you KNOW that you can count on to be there, even through text, when you're having a bad day. Im lucky enough to have found three beautiful ladies who understand what I'm going through and are there to support me as much as they can. I hope that all Spoonies can find someone too. 

Friendship and Gastroparesis...Is It Awkward For You?

I'm sure having someone in your life that has Gastroparesis is not easy to see. Trust me, being the person with Gastroparesis is not easy to live with! I'm sure that it's awkward not knowing whether the person is capable or up to doing certain activities, whether saying certain jokes around them will be offensive, witnessing them getting ill and not knowing what to do is scary...I get it, trust me! Maybe it's awkward for some people to be around someone who spontaneously spews their food, has a metal appliance surgically implanted in their tummy that they've named Alfred, can't eat anything much more than a kindergartner would eat—hey, it makes me a cheap date!—or constantly feels seasick, I get it, I really do.

What I'm going to tell you is this:: It's okay.

It's alright to have questions.

It's alright to be nervous or apprehensive.

It's alright to not know what to do.

All you have to do is ask! Ask what it's like to live with Gastroparesis and how I manage things. Ask what you can do for me should you be with me and I'm having a flare—bring me water. Ask what I feel like doing—hiking, bowling, walks, PICTURES!!! What I feel like eating—CHOCOLATE!! Text me or call me and just ask me how I'm doing. You would be surprised how meaningful a simple text can be to someone, even if it's in the middle of the night and I don't get it until morning. It shows that you're thinking of me.

Let me know now, while I'm in a “simple” flare, if it's too much for you and you're going to hit the road before things get worse. I don't want to count on you and then have my heart broken because you didn't show up when I thought you would—it's happened to me and it's happened to others, it stinks. Let me know if I'm using too much medical terminology and just need to use simple terms or just not talk about it at all. Or, very plainly, just tell me what makes you feel awkward—I'd like to think of myself as Wonder Woman, but I can't read your mind...I'll work on it!

At the end of the day, just love me like you would love someone who doesn't have Gastroparesis. Have understanding and compassion that, sometimes, it's just not going to happen for me. Sometimes, you, me, the couch, and the TV might have to make a day of it. Hug me, tight sometimes, like you would any other friend that you have.

[Thank you to Undiagnosable_ on Instagram for her contribution to suggestions on ways to be a friend with a person with Gastroparesis]