Health- slipping in a sliding zone
Well, the newspaper article has hit the stands and I am on the front page... talk about nerve wracking!
The article that appears in the Suffolk News Herald can be found by clicking here and seeing it set off just a little panic attack... not because of the article, which tells about why I entered the Reader's Digest contest and at the bottom gives a link to G-PACT to find out more about Gastroparesis but... because of all things... the photo.
Like many with an incurable chronic illness I have some pretty major body images issues thanks to loss of hair, tooth loss and other things associated with the ravages of malnutrition and I tend to avoid the lenses of cameras like a plague.
It also does not help that I am one of the Gastroparesis sufferers that gained a lot of weight with the condition due to the starvation effect (where the body goes into survival mode and one can actually gain weight on very few calories, the body storing anything it gets as fat as the metabolism slows) and though I have lost over 90 pounds in the past two years and am still losing I am still over-weight. When a person is over-weight the logical thing is to go on a diet... but how does one do that when they already are barely getting calories?
Yes, I had a crying jag, sobbing and horrified at the picture because it makes me look so... old and fat. (Well, lol, I am old and fat) This was followed by a pretty major flare of my duodenal ulcers and an attack of Dumping Syndrome... fun times!
My husband kept explaining it was the camera angle and the lighting and reminding me that the reporter said "I am a writer and not a photographer, so I will do my best", so to prove it he took my picture then and there (after blowing my nose and combing my hair) at a better angle with the camera on my cell phone...
So, even though I hate cameras I had my picture taken twice in one day...
I soon calmed and posted the article, scary pic and all, on my Facebook page and Twitter because it is NOT all about me and my fears and phobias about how I look do not even come close to how important it is to me to get awareness out there and that is why I entered the Reader's Digest contest and did the interview in the first place... not to get a good picture.
I have to say that Emily Collins, the reporter, was just as sweet as she can be and so concerned with making sure that I was comfortable through the whole process... she had never heard of Gastroparesis (how many times have we heard this?) and slogged through many websites that I gave her, expressing her shock at just how bad it is and the surprise that it is not better known. No, I do not and refuse to 'blame her' for the picture that appeared with the article... what is a photo in the grand scheme of things?
The only tiny stumble in the online article is that the direct link to vote is incomplete and does not direct to my entry but to the main page... though the print article does have the correct link.
When I was interviewed I was number 16 in the rankings... and when I checked before starting this entry I am now at number 10!!!
The article is having an effect... and though there is still over a month to go in the contest (it ends on November 1) I have managed to cling in the top 20 so far and am rising thanks to everyone that has been voting daily and the new votes sparked by the article.
I ask that you please vote, and continue to vote daily.
I never thought that I would be doing this well in the contest and would have a chance in winning... I just hoped that someone might see it and it might raise a little awareness... but now I am hoping that it will really get printed in Reader's Digest and that real awareness will come from this.
Never be afraid to take a risk and put yourself out there to raise awareness... you never know when a little something you do is the thing that makes a huge difference.
Today the citizens of Suffolk, Virginia, learned that there is a condition called Gastroparesis that affects up to 4% of the population because I decided to try something new to raise awareness... and with everyone's help in voting daily WE can make it so everyone that reads a Reader's Digest learns about it.
I cannot do this alone... this is a group effort... alone I would just be an entry languishing somewhere on the bottom of the contest. This would not be my victory at all but a victory for Awareness!
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