Gastroparesis and Family Gatherings
By now most of you know my grandfather died, he was 82 years old and lived an amazing life! You can read his obituary here: Harold Welsh. Looking through the scrapbooks of his life was very enlightening. He had some major accomplishments and went all over the world. He was truly a great man. We all gathered as a family last week to share our stories of Pa and reminisce before the funeral on the 24th. As with most family gatherings this involved food.
We have a chef in my family, my “baby” cousin. He is a great chef and he brought his talents to that dinner. Being the weak willed person I am, I ate. Turkey, stuffing, potatoes, sweet potatoes (don’t ask me why it was thanksgiving themed) a recipe my Granny used to call corn is king and rolls. Now as you already know, eating solid food for me is a big no-no. So I vomited once there and about a million and one more times at home. I was miserable! My stomach hurt, I was so very nauseated and I felt like at any moment I was going to pop. I guess I did in a sense. So after that night I got to thinking, because after all there is a funeral coming up and all good southern women feed the family, what can I do to stop this from happening again?
I came up with a few ideas that I think may help me in the future. You may have seen my Twitter post about Beech-Nut pouches. I swear by those things. When I cannot stand to eat another bowl of soup, or make another glass of juice or drink another meal replacement shake, I pull one or two of those out and have that instead. Most times they stay down nicely. So I started a “meal kit” for my purse. I have two pouches, one veggie one fruit, a meal shake and something I absolutely love that I find works for me, seaweed.
I get these roasted seaweed snacks from our local Asian market and it satisfies my need to chew without 1) filling me with unnecessary air like gum does and 2) being a lot to eat. Each little stick of roasted seaweed is 10 Cal to give you an idea of how much actual food it is. I haven’t had a problem digesting these, yet. I will say yet because gosh only knows what can happen.
So I have a game plan. But I want to ask you, what do you do for family gatherings? Got any ideas or tips that you think will help?
pattycakedoll 