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The way Lily Tock spent her Christmas this year may, tragically, be a sign of how she will end up living the rest of her life: missing out on eating the arrays of food others set before them – and her.
For the past two years, Tock has endured dizziness, nausea, and stomach pain whenever she ate. She went to the doctor for help, but they weren’t able to diagnose her condition.
As time passed, Tock’s condition only worsened until finally, in January of this year, she realized she wasn’t able to eat any food at all. Anything she tried to eat – from her favorite foods like pizza and chocolate, to healthy foods like roast dinners and vegetables – didn’t stay down. Her body would either cause her to choke on her food or force her to vomit it all back up again later.
When Tock returned to the doctor, they finally diagnosed her with gastroparesis, a chronic medical condition when a person’s stomach becomes paralyzed and isn’t able to process food as it normally would.
Since January, Tock has been fitted with tubes linking to her heart and small intestine that provide her body with the proper nutrients, vitamins, and minerals.
This deterioration hasn’t been easy. “I’d do anything to eat,” Tock confessed, “It’s like sitting there with something you really in front of it but you aren’t allowed it. I often try to avoid meal times because I just want to eat.”
Doctors aren’t sure what else they can do to help Tock battle her condition.
She wants to undergo a procedure that will fit a gastric pacemaker into her stomach, but doctors aren’t confident about the odds of this procedure. On the chance that it works, Tock will gradually be able to retrain her stomach to accept food.
If it doesn’t, Tock will have to resign herself to only eating a very restricted diet for the rest of her life.
As she and her doctors determine her next steps, Tock is hoping to do everything she can to raise awareness of the disease. “'I want people to be able to ask their doctors for the tests so they can catch this awful illness early.”
