What is life like with Achalasia?

It seems without fail I am asked this question at least once a week.  While I try to answer it for those who ask, I struggle to not gross them out or try to seem to dramatic by sharing "what life really is like living with this disease named Achalasia".  So I thought I would try to explain it here in a blog post, I hope I am able to actually describe it in a way that readers can get a visual for what a person with Achalasia experiences in a day.

Well the day of an Achalasian starts before dawn.  Imagine waking up in a coughing spell that concludes with you puking up whatever has been sitting in your esophagus since before you went to bed the night before.  That has become the normal routine in my life, in fact most of the night has probably been filled with episodes like this with the hope that you will actually get some meaningful sleep.  Then your alarm goes off and you roll out of bed, to start your waking hours of the day like every other person without this annoying disease.  You get in the shower and wash off splatters of puke from your night of sleep. And prepare yourself for the tasks that lie ahead of you.  After getting dressed, you make your way into the kitchen to grab what has become your new breakfast a bottle of Boost, a bottle of water and some gummy vitamins.  I slowly start to drink down the Boost hoping that it makes it into my stomach to provide the needed nutrition so I can make it through the morning.  Of course on cue the Boost is rejected and comes backup filling my mouth so much that it looks like I have chipmunk cheeks.  Again, I swallow it back down hoping it will stay down this time and try a technique of swallowing mouthfuls of water to create enough back pressure on my LES in hopes some of it makes it though into my stomach.  With a little bit of patience, I feel a cool sensation rush into my stomach and my hope has been realized this time.

I head out the door for work and make sure I grab my spit bottle just in case some of the water decides to make a reappearance back in the mouth.  I must state that having been recently diagnosed with Achalasia and waiting for surgery; what I am describing here is my normal routine before having surgery.  I hear from others in my Achalasian support group that after surgery life returns back to some normalcy that people without Achalasia experience on a daily basis.  I so hope they are right about that, but what has me on edge about it is that they keep stating that everyone's experience is different.