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About four years ago, 28-year-old chef Louise Rogers began to feel a strange burn in her chest after she ate. It felt very much like heartburn, and her doctors agreed. They prescribed her tablets to reduce and control her stomach acid, which seemed to maintain the situation.
Two-and-a-half years later, the burn became much stronger and instead of just stomach acid rising, Rogers began to choke out whole bites and pieces of food that she’d eaten in her previous meal.
These incidents were horrifying enough that they always woke up Rogers’ partner at night in bed, because Rogers would gurgle and choke so loudly.
Rogers remembered spending long stretches of time in the bathroom, bringing her entire meal back up. “I felt drained by it – physically, mentally, and emotionally.”
Aside from telling her partner, Rogers kept her condition a secret. She felt embarrassed and ashamed by her state, especially since she spent so much of her time and career making food for other people – food that she now couldn’t even eat herself.
After suffering from this disease for three years, Rogers had lost over 40 pounds. People would approach her and tell her that she looked amazing because of how much weight she’d lost, but Rogers only saw it as a “nightmare.”
It was only recently that Rogers went to see a doctor for her condition.
There, Rogers was diagnosed with achalasia, a condition where the muscle that connects the esophagus to the stomach is too-tightly contracted. Rogers’ body wasn’t physically allowing her food to travel and stay in her stomach.
Her doctors scheduled Rogers to undergo a procedure that would effectively loosen the tight muscles, allowing her to gradually resume a more normal dietary pattern.
Just a couple months after the procedure, Rogers already reports feeling much better. “It had been an exhausting couple of years. But knowing I might be close to being able to eat and drink hit me and I was in tears.
“Cooking is everything to me, so after I became unwell, I never stopped – though I knew the majority of my meals would come back up,” Rogers admits.
Rogers’ paranoia has her drinking water every five minutes, to make sure the effects and goals of the operation are still working as they should, but she looks forward to returning back to her old self very soon. “[My surgeon has] …given me the chance to be happy again.”
