Dakota Heath and Jordyn Glick are a young couple facing the challenges of her gastroparesis. He is her devoted caregiver, navigating the unpredictable nature of her illness and the impact it has on their lives.
Dakota Heath, 26, and Jordyn Glick, 27, at their apartment building in Lubbock, Texas. Heath takes care of Glick, who has an unpredictable and painful gastrointestinal disorder. Roughly a quarter of family caregivers are young adult s. They're young and in love. But she's sick, and he's her caregiver, and that means nothing else comes easy. There are days when Jordyn Glick, 27, can't eat or drink at all. She gets so tired and weak she can barely stand up.
She has gastroparesis, where food stalls out in her stomach and doesn't get digested. It comes with unpredictable bouts of nausea, periods of agony in her guts, and malnutrition. Earlier this year, she didn't leave their house in Lubbock, Texas, at all for two and a half months. Dakota Heath, her 26-year-old boyfriend of four years, is her watchman,'always picking up on the small things,' he says. He's on alert for her next flareup, the kind that can leave her bedridden for a week. He listens for a particular note in her cough that might mean she's going to vomit again. Sometimes she gets so dehydrated from vomiting that he takes her to the ER —again. (Five times in the last few months.)Of course, he's anxious. Bigger picture, he worries about what might happen to her in the future, the one they intend to share. He'd been depressed in the past, but this is something else. They can't plan anything, from the next day to the next ten years. 'There have been times when I have had breakdowns, because of everything piling up, accumulating,' he says. For both Heath and Glick, there is no living for the moment, like other 20-somethings do. Still, like every young couple, they dream and plot the shape of their lives together. Often that means planning from a defensive crouch, hoping to tame her illness enough to see through the chapters they'd pictured — a graduate degree for her, a career devoted to doing good in the world for him. Possibly one day having kids.Glick and Heath make vegetable soup togethe
GASTROPARESIS CAREGIVER RELATIONSHIP YOUNG ADULT HEALTH ISSUES
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