GERD?❔❓

It stands for Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease, basically a chronic heartburn.  Due to its position, it took a while to figure out what was wrong with me.  A doctor said it’s lung infection and asked for an X-Ray, was given antibiotics, Voltaren later.  It’s chest pain, so let’s do ECG, or may be it’s just trivial muscles cramp, take some painkillers.  It’s probably gall stones, was sent for an abdomen ultrasounds.  But no, let’s do urea breath test, then gastroscopy.  Finally, a wise doctor came along and solved the mystery and then I was given Nexium*, Nexium, and more Nexium.

So in the end, it’s just me eating too much rice??  

A few years ago I developed this acid reflux that came on almost every other day.  Eating too much rice was definitely one of the triggers and remains so.  No joke, it’s painful indeed!  It started between my breastbone and right rib cage, the pain then radiates all the way and spreads across my back.  When it happens, I sit up (as gravity helps) with a heat pack between the wall and my back.  Unfortunately nothing helps much once it starts, you just have to wait for it to run its course and that for me usually means until the morning comes.  Then I’ll either call in sick because I hadn’t slept or else not have a great rest of the day.

Common Pain, Common Gain?

It turns out to be a fairly common condition many people suffer from.  It’s hard to believe at first when it felt so awful and abnormal, but then pain is indeed a common human experience.  As you can imagine, it’s disruptive when it comes on every other day.  I couldn’t function normally when I had to sit up in pain until morning that often.  But then you come to live with it eventually.

I’m not sure how others manage, but I continue to struggle with it although it’s better now (not every other day, it’s now reduced to about once a week).  While I won’t choose to be in pain, there are things I’ve learnt through them and GERD may be one of those.

Kindness of People Apparent 🙂🙂

Friends used to challenge me knowing how much I can eat, but when they learnt of the reflux, they stopped.  More than that, I have experienced kindness from people who obviously care.

They check on me when they know I’m sick.  One day a friend even sent food to my home (  rightly catered for me!) afraid I would be hungry and too sick to cook.  Then there are many who would accommodate to what I can eat when the reflux attack comes in the day time and I was still out.  And then there are those who go to the extreme of confiscating my stash they know are triggers to the reflux.

Seriously, give me back my food! 

But then, I can see they do it out of care and I am grateful for these friends.

Slowness in Learning 

There are things I cannot quite control e.g., reflux frequency seems significantly higher when I’m stressed.  But then there’re things I can definitely control.  I know there are certain foods that are triggers to my reflux, but they look so good at times I indulge in them and then it didn’t turn out well. 

It reminds me of something.

Many mistake Christians living as driven by blind faith and not by reason.  But that’s actually not what it says, instead this is what it is –

“for we walk by faith, not by sight.”  2 Corinthians 5:7

It doesn’t say live by faith, not by reason.  But rather, live by faith, not by sight.  And that’s right, because sight may deceive, doesn’t it?  It was Tim Keller who gave the helpful illustrations, suppose:

1. You know the truth about your condition from the doctor: certain foods are going to kill you. But then, in the PRESENCE OF A GREAT STEAK !  You don’t feel what he said is true, although you know it is.  You see the great steak and you eat away.  That’s living by sight. 👀
2. You go into the operation theatre for a surgery that’s been discussed many times by trusted professionals and you know it is a safe procedure, you’ll be fine and all that. But now you walk in and see the operating bed, and the straps (what are those for?!), and then you started to doubt.  What you see makes you doubt the truth you actually already know, that’s living by sight.

It is not as though you gain new information that changes your mind, but rather you’re just driven by sight.  So it is with me.  I know it is bad and will likely trigger another reflux, but then it looks so good!  And then like a fool I gave in and suffered for it.  Then I realise when I was in the midst of pain, and I will say to myself: Remember this and don’t do it next time.

At some point I need to ask myself if I really want to be ruled by pain to keep me on track.  Not just GERD, but life lessons in general, many times I could have spared myself the fall if I heeded advice, don’t have to experience it to know it is a bad idea.

Recognising Human Weakness 

I used to think I have a high threshold for physical pain.  I was the smug child who looked down on others recoiling at syringes and dentists.  ‘Go on and poked my arm,’ I said silently as I confidently looked away, thinking , ‘you all, cry-babies.’**

🕟 Years past and now there are times when I just sit there crying because of how painful it is on some nights.  It reminds me of human weakness and how limited and feeble we are.  Human weakness, I’m sure it needs no much convincing for many people who suffer different kinds of physical ailments.  But then I had been in good health and GERD was not what I expected.  Now it teaches me to sympathise with others in pain too.

Remembering the Good Times 💬

So I remember the many years before GERD visited me.  And I also know there are many other blessings I’m currently enjoying and not even realising.  So I learn to count my blessings and consider, ‘What else do I have ‘good’ right now?’  And I see there are many.

But now I realise there is no guarantee they are to stay.  In fact, if I live long enough (and isn’t that supposedly the desired case?), one by one they will all change, decay, or disappear.  Not uplifting, but it’s meant to be sobering.  It helps me reflect on reality so I can live rightly.

Listening in the Hours of Silence 🌑

Silence without, but active within.

With hours to pass until morning, I sit reflecting on different things.  Sometimes I feel disoriented by the pain, but other times it produces worthwhile thoughts that I find helpful.

I learn to stay quiet, be patient, to struggle well.  That’s what trials in life are like at times – you can protest and whinge all you want, it’s not going to drive them away.  Who are you waging war against?  If you’ll have to go through it, you’ll have to go through it anyway.

“Consider the work of God:

    who can make straight what he has made crooked?” Ecclesiastes 7:13

There’s a reason He’s made the crooks in my lot whatever they may be, it is not for me to know, but to trust.  Easier said than done, of course, easier said than done.  But I try.

Then I also learn to listen in the quiet and to recognise light in darkness.  You stare long enough and you start to see what you haven’t been able to recognise, there is light indeed.  To really know my place as a mere feeble human actually brings a peculiar sense of peace because I also know I’m not defenceless and that my defence doesn’t depend on me who’s not strong.  There is strength in weakness because the strength is provided from a source that doesn’t run out, unlike me who feels depleted each time GERD comes.

Truth Matters

It took about half a year of visiting 5 different doctors/specialists before it’s finally properly diagnosed.  Knowing what it is helps, even when it’s disappointing to hear it’s something to be managed than cured.  Even when I continued to live with the same recurring pain and it didn’t get better for a long while, I still felt helped just by knowing what it is.  Know it, then I can start to manage it to some extent at least.

But not everyone thinks so.  I now remember one of my aunties never goes for a health check-up. Reason?  She’s afraid to be told something is wrong.  So she avoids doctors and the hospital like a plague .  That doesn’t change the fact though, does it?  If you’re sick, you’re sick.  You need help.  But if you refuse to know your condition, then any possibility of being rescued is eliminated.  Actually I also wonder if by avoiding the doctors you can get any peace at all, especially when you know your reason of not going.

Yet in some sense I can understand why some would rather not know and live in oblivion until the end comes.  Some does the same with their loved ones, do not let them know their critical condition, let them live happily those last moments and die.  I would probably do that too if defeat is definite.  But what if there is hope and what if there is help?  And what if it is time critical for one to be rescued?  Then surely there is every reason to want to face the truth and deal with it.  Otherwise, I do agree:

“.. Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” 1 Corinthians 15:32

Physical illness is terrible, but what if there’s something worse than physical illness and death?  What if there’s a bigger ultimate beyond life on earth?  And if there is hope and if there is help for it (even guaranteed help), would you still rather not know?

If it’s meaningless and hopeless, then make the best use of the time by just enjoying what’s passing anyway.  But if there is hope, then make the best use of the time by getting to the help, no?

Truth does matter, especially when the stake is high.  Do not live in oblivion, take the time to find it out.

 

Mental vs Physical Pain❓

Without getting into any complexity and talk about how one may in turn affect the other, vice versa, etc, but to put it simply, in my experience, I think physical pain is harder to manage than mental suffering.  Especially where physical pain is constant, whereas mental pain has its recesses (even if it deeply affects your life, the agony isn’t usually full on in your face constantly).  It comes, it goes.  It may come back again, but you do have your breaks.

While physical pain is often literal and real, mental pain tends to exaggerate your feelings beyond reality.  For example, if one day I feel particularly weary of life and started to entertain thoughts of dying, but I then suddenly have a very bad, say, toothache (have you had a seriously bad toothache?  Else a severe migraine  would fit in the illustration too), I think I will promise to be good if I be spared of the agonizing toothache.  May be that’s just a natural human’s response to pain – survival and all.  But it still makes the point that I was fooled by my feelings that I wanted to die.  Let alone dying, try toothache first!

Over the past few years, I watched a friend deteriorates while losing the battle to cancer.  I also remember the many episodes grandma went through in the last decade of her life and the plastic bag full of (20?) different medicines to be taken in different dosage at different times of the day.  What about the self-monitoring kit?  ‘Where else to prick?  It’s all bruised’, one auntie said when it is time to get another blood sample from grandma. 💉

So I used to think, I felt depressed because I can afford to.  Try having to spend your day like grandma did, I won’t have the luxury to brood over my imaginary problems.  But later on I come to recognise that there is such thing as clinical depression and people do have hormonal imbalance that affects them mentally.  Yet in today’s age where people are encouraged to focus on self, I think many cases are perhaps self-inflicted than real.

Having said that, I do believe genuine mental suffering can be incredibly tormenting.  It’s in the mind, and it is all in the mind.  That’s the whole point.  It plays with your mind, detaches you from reality and persuades you that all is hopeless.  So much so that it drives some to self-harm, others to suicide.  But even in such cases, I wonder what went through their mind, say, between the time they took the leap and the time their body reached the ground.

Meanwhile..

So those are a few things I’ve learnt or thought about for the past 6 years or so with regard to my GERD.  I’m sure I’ll think about other things in the years to come.

*One of the medicines people take to treat acid reflux.

**Truth be told, ironically, I was actually ignorant that I have a fear of blood.  I only found out years later when I was allowed into the clinic surgery room as Mom underwent a surgery (I left half way feeling faint – and still wasn’t aware of it!  Until later when I told Mom what happened to me outside the room during the second half of her surgery and she went, ‘Oohh, hi yoo, jia lat ah! 你害怕血啦’ = ‘Oh dear, you poor thing, you have a fear of blood!’).  My ego was hurt, but then I was aware of it then on.