Let me share with you one of the lessons that I have learned through a movie that has helped me during bad health days or other struggles. With gastroparesis, you have bad days called flare ups. The extent of these flare ups vary by day and person, but mine usually consist of pain, fatigue, and nausea (usually bad enough to prevent me from eating much at all.). In the beginning, on days like this, you would find me in bed or on the couch, curled up with a book or watching a movie. On one such day, I had some stuff that needed to get done and I knew I had to do it no matter how blah I felt. I was lacking motivation, and a thought came into my head. "Just Keep Swimming. Just Keep Swimming" said in the sing-song voice of Dory from Finding Nemo. It made me chuckle and I got up and did what I needed too. Need a reminder of that scene? Here you go, from YouTube:
It has served me well to remember to keep going and move on with life, even though hard times come. Gastroparesis, or any chronic health problem for that matter, could impede one's life, if they let it. You have to make the best of the situations you are handed and act. Once we start or keep "swimming" we do not focus so much on how we feel or our problems, and it helps us to keep going.
If we don't keep going we may end up regretting it. When we keep "swimming" we will either succeed or fail. No big deal either way. Some days we try to keep moving and keep distracted but it doesn't work so well. At least we learned how much we can actually do in a day.
I love this message from Meet The Robinsons, that I found on YouTube:
Click Here To View (I Could Not Get The Video to Work Here. Sorry!)
Basically, my advice to you is this. When you are having a rough day, scared for what tomorrow may bring, frustrated with pain or trials not allow you to live life to the fullest, or just plain tired, remember these two sayings: "Just Keep Swimming" and "Keep Moving Forward".
