It’s Been Five Years
Prose written on the fifth anniversary of my dad’s passing.
It’s been five years. I lost my Faja five years ago today. I reflect every year on this day, recounting all he has missed and what I have missed. I hugged my nephew and brother, knowing we only now have each other. Three Milne’s robbed of the man from whom our souls were created. My nephew and my future kids will never meet him, which is almost the hardest of the pills to swallow.
It’s been five years. Sometimes, I believe I’ll see him again. It usually hits as I drive to our favorite bagel spot and past our old house on Terra Court. It feels like the wind is knocked out of me, and I have to remember he’s gone, and I’ll never see him again.
It’s been five years. I laugh when I talk about him and how he’s gone to help myself cope. I think he would want it that way. But deep down, laughing about the worst thing I’ve ever been through makes me feel sick.
It’s been five years. I’ve graduated twice. I’ve lived in a new city. I’ve moved four times. I’ve become an aunt. I’ve lost family and friends, both alive and dead. I’ve made new friends. I’ve had my heart broken. I’ve been diagnosed with an incurable illness. I’ve fallen in love. I’ve traveled the world. I met the man I will tell him children about.
It’s been five years of missing my dad, who meant the world to me.
Emetophobia
Essay on living with a debilitating phobia
I have an irrational fear of throwing up and others throwing up. This fear has affected almost every aspect of my life since I developed it at the ripe age of five years old. My parents, my best friend Sage, and I went on a trip to Mexico. I wish I could forget that vacation, but I have a mind that makes every traumatic experience I face last forever.
We arrived at a beautiful beachside resort, planning on having a nice peaceful trip for our winter break. However, on the third night, I woke up extremely ill, throwing up more than I ever had before. The next night Sage and I both got sick. Being in another country, my mom and dad got worried and called a doctor.
He held the appointment in our hotel room as Sage and I were both still sick to get out of bed. Our small bodies were unable to eat nor drink. The doctor seemed frantic yet nonchalant about the whole ordeal, joking with us about Christmas and asking us what we wanted Santa to bring this year. He didn’t diagnose us but told my parents that he would prescribe a medication that would make us “feel better in no time.” Later that day, my mom took Sage and me to the neighboring hotel as we were feeling better and wanted to go swimming and shopping. My dad met us there after picking up our medication and a couple of red Gatorades to get us hydrated again.
He opened the white paper bag to find a small bottle of pills to swallow. Being only five, Sage and I had never swallowed pills before. My parents were also confused but didn’t look into it much and handed us each one tablet and a Gatorade. Sage swallowed hers, and I followed shortly after. Within minutes I felt awful and began running to the nearest bathroom. In this case, it was at the top of a huge outdoor staircase packed with tourists. I only made it halfway up the stairs before throwing up all over them in the middle of what had to be at least a hundred people.
All alone
I was humiliated, crying for my parents as people stared at me. It turns out the doctor got our medication switched with an older woman who was also staying in the same hotel.
After that day, I developed a crippling fear of throwing up and wouldn’t swallow another pill for thirteen years.
*
The last time I threw up, I was ten years old. I had gotten food poisoning from a cheese pizza I ate. I remember being terrified as I woke up in the middle of the night yelling for my mom. Each time I vomited, I would tremble and panic. I began associating things with throwing up. I don't eat pizza or anything overly greasy to this day. I didn’t wear the shirt I had on that night again. The green blanket I threw up on never entered my bedroom after that. I started being nervous about what foods I ate in general.
I never realized that I had an anxiety disorder.
I thought that what I was feeling was normal.
Shortly after returning to my mom's house at the beginning of quarantine, I started feeling sick. I was constantly nauseous and had horrible abdominal pain, and intense headaches. By April 2020, the nausea was killing me mentally. I couldn’t deal with the thought that I could throw up at any point in time. If I were nauseous before bed, I wouldn’t sleep; in my mind, sleep meant throwing up because I wouldn’t be alert enough to stop it. I was also on a strict chicken and rice diet, which after a certain period of time, felt like I was force-feeding myself cotton balls, it lost all appeal, but I was too scared to consume anything else. I am more than positive that I should’ve thrown up, I got so close at times, but it felt like it wasn’t an option. My body wouldn’t allow it. My mom would sit with me in the yard as I repeated how scared I was while spitting into the grass. When the nausea would get bad, my stomach would warm up, and saliva filled the inside of my mouth, so I would just sit
spitting
crying
terrified.
I hated it when she would tell me that it was okay and that I just needed to allow myself to throw up. I couldn’t do it. I truly believed that I would be accepting death if I allowed it.
I started meeting with doctors at the end of April. They would ask me about the pain, but that wasn’t the issue. I can deal with the pain; I just need help with the nausea. They never listened or would just ask if I was pregnant and brush it off. I explained to them that the nausea scared me, but like my mom and everyone around me, they said it was okay to throw up and not to worry about it. They didn’t understand me.
After a panic attack that left me more defeated than usual, I decided to turn to Google: I’m afraid of throwing up. There it was like a present wrapped in a huge shiny bow:
Emetophobia:
Noun
extreme fear of vomiting.
The amount of validation I felt after finding it was enough to make me cry, which I did, in fact, do. When no one understands how you feel, it can make you feel crazy.
I started researching other people who are emetophobic, and in doing so, I was brought to the reality of my phobia and everything it controlled in my life.
It started on that trip to Mexico.
It fuels my fears of drinking, smoking, and drugs (I have never tried any of them).
I neglect careers that could put me in a position where I could witness people throwing up.
I wouldn’t look into other rooms when visiting the hospital.
I didn’t go to a single party in high school or college.
I am nervous around drunk people and had a panic attack at one of my dad’s Superbowl parties when my brother's friend threw up in my room.
I have safe foods.
I wouldn’t even try swallowing pills.
I always look for a bathroom or exit when I enter a building, and if neither of those is close enough, a trash can.
If someone said they felt sick, I would badger them. What kind of sick? Are you going to throw up?
Now that I knew what I had, I hoped it would help at my doctor’s appointment. But, unfortunately, I think I let optimism get the best of me. Not a single doctor of mine knew what it was, so I explained it every visit, and to my prevail, I was prescribed Zofran (four milligrams), the anti-nausea medication used for cancer patients. They stressed how well it works for everyone.
Everyone except me.
So, they tried Zofran again, but this time eight milligrams; the only issue was that the one I was taking prior dissolved under the tongue, and I had to swallow this new one. I neglected to take it for the first few days until I got more nauseous than I ever had before and took it. Like a champ, I may add. That one little pill was so invigorating. It was one small step in the right direction away from my fears.
Unfortunately, the Zofran rarely worked. So I was stuck. Stuck with thoughts that would poke and prod at my mind and body all day, every day. Then the testing and procedures began in hopes of finding the cause of my consistent nausea:
Blood tests
Abdominal ultrasound
Endoscopy
Abdominal Ct
Stomach emptying study
Head Ct
Pelvic ultrasound
Transvaginal ultrasound
All normal.
After my final tests, I returned to my third Gastroenterologist, who prescribed me anti-depressants. He said it was my last resort and that maybe my PTSD, OCD, and depression were showing physical symptoms. I was reluctant after watching my best friends turn into zombies on anti-depressants, but I was hopeless. I was in an endless cycle of anxiety and fear, and if this pill took that all away and I wasn’t sick anymore, I would have no choice but to take it. After only a week on that medication, I was changing mentally. I was angry. I was sad. I was suicidal for the first time in my life. It heightened every emotion I was already feeling, so my doctor told me to stop taking it and return to his office.
When I arrived, I was still under the spell of the pills, and that visit didn’t help whatsoever. I sat in a small room with my mom while we waited for him for almost an hour. When he finally saw me, he said we were out of options. And before he exited the room, he grabbed my chart and said, “liberate your diet and see a psychologist. It’s all in your head.”
Until then, I felt like he was the only doctor who cared and listened, so when those words left his mouth, and he left that room… I lost it.
I kept taking the Zofran every eight hours on the dot, even if it didn’t help; it was just so I knew that I was doing everything in my power to make it go away. I also started telling my friends that I am emetophobic; I thought it might help them understand what I was going through.
My best friend Alex was very empathetic and did everything in his power to not trigger me and my fears. When we went to Lollapalooza, he did his best to keep me out of the way of anyone that looked sick. While we were watching All Time Low, we found ourselves next to a garbage bin. I didn’t think anything of it until I saw three girls running for it and flinging it open. I quickly turned in the opposite direction and ran into Alex, so he knew I was walking away. She’s throwing up, right? He turned to the girls, nodded, and we kept walking all the way back to my apartment. He kept repeating that it was ok that we took a break, but I felt so guilty the entire time we were at the festival.
On the other hand, Skylar used it against me. He purposefully would gag when we were on the phone or talk about how it was so easy for him and his other friends to just throw up after a long night of drinking. Once when he came to visit me, we went into the alley around midnight so he could smoke. At the time, the apartment I lived in was above a bar; the bar and apartments shared a hallway to the alley, so people would usually stumble out there. That night mid-conversation, someone flung the door open and started throwing up, I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them. I immediately covered my ears and started crying, begging Skylar to leave. Instead, he made me stay until he finished his blunt. Getting high was more important than my stupid fears. During that same visit with Skylar, he threw up in my apartment and didn’t tell me until I was holding a towel dirtied by his vomit.
Being emetophobic is embarrassing.
I’m afraid of a natural bodily function
and even though I keep telling myself that,
I am still terrified.
After nearly two years of constant nausea and anxiety, I found a new doctor, Dr. Kliethermes, an obstetrician, and gynecologist, but he can also diagnose endometriosis which is not something most OB-GYNs can do. He is the only doctor in Michigan that can diagnose endo, which meant I needed to make an appointment months in advance. Once, I finally had my appointment with him, and he really listened. He wrote down my definition of emetophobia in my chart and flagged it for everyone to see. We ended up booking me for a diagnostic laparoscopy to see if I had endo, and if I did, he said he would remove it as well.
I had my surgery on October 26, 2021, and that day was horrifying. I was seen by my whole medical team one by one, each explaining their role in my surgery. Each one asked me about my emetophobia. In between their visits, I would try not to look at any of the other patients, begging them, in my mind, not to throw up. Then my anesthesiologist came in and told me that my breathing tube could make me vomit post-op, and that’s when my fears began. I knew my body probably wouldn’t allow it, but just in case, I let him explain it more. Then two nurses came in to put in my IV. I’m not afraid of needles, but getting IVs makes me nauseous. When the female nurse was done inserting the IV, the male nurse told me that when it went in, my heart rate went up to 140 beats per minute from 80. He asked me if that was when I got nauseous, and it was. I had never been made present to that before; the physical effect this phobia has on me is pretty frightening.
When I got to recovery and woke up, the first thing I remember was feeling like I was about to puke, but there was an oxygen mask on me that my weak body couldn’t get off. My nurse, Justin, ran over to me after hearing my heart monitor beep rapidly. Justin took the mask off my face, handed me a bucket, grabbed my arm, and said, “it’s ok if you throw up, Faythe; I’m here. My sister is emetophobic too.” I stopped panicking, grabbed his arm back, and stared at him.
I’m not the only one.