It’s been two years since Jacinda Turner’s life was thrown into chaos through the most simple thing: an inability to eat.
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A quick breakfast before rushing to work; a leisurely Sunday lunch with friends; a snack on the run – all gone from her daily life as she struggles with gastroparesis.
The little-known condition affects the stomach’s nerves or muscles, making it impossible for the body to break down food, causing intense nausea and illness.
Ms Turner, 33, was struck down by the condition without any warning in 2015.
Every day she goes through a painful, relentless, hours-long routine of forcing ground-up medications and nutrients through tubes to her stomach and heart, enduring constant nausea, exhaustion and a host of side-effects.
The port installed to feed nutrients straight through to her bloodstream leaves her frighteningly vulnerable to infection: she’s been in hospital three times for sepsis.
At one point she weighed just 49 kilograms.
“When I got down to the 49 kilos … it didn’t feel like myself, it felt like an out-of-body experience,” she said.
“I thought that was it.”
Her family, including dad Dennis Turner, sister Temira Bunton and cousin Kim Burk, have made it their mission to help other sufferers through the Gastroparesis Launceston support group.
Mr Turner said without the dedication of the doctors and nurses at Launceston General Hospital, his daughter would not have survived.
Recently Treasurer Peter Gutwein successfully lobbied for a $10,000 grant from the state government to invest in more research into gastroparesis.
The funding, from the Premier’s Discretionary Fund, will make its way to researchers at Western Sydney University where it is hoped they will learn more about the mysterious condition and how to give relief and resolution to sufferers.
Mr Turner said Mr Gutwein was one of the few who had listened to their story, taken action and campaigned for funding.
Mr Gutwein said he had never heard of gastropaersis until he met the Turners.
“When we met [Dennis] spoke so passionately about his fight to find a cure for his daughter and the helplessness he felt that he immediately touched a nerve in me,” he said.
“Here was a father trying every possible way to raise both awareness and support, largely off his own bat with just his family’s backing for a disease that little is known and even less understood.”
Two years on from her diagnosis, Ms Turner is trying to live a more normal life, now at a healthy weight and working toward spending time volunteering in the community.
“I don’t know what it’s like to not feel sick … but I feel pretty lucky, there’s people worse off than I am,” she said.
“My aim is to get back into the working environment.”