Wow! Long-time no see! How are you doing? Have you seen any good movies recently? How do you really feel about the "live-action" remake of The Lion King (It's okay, your secret hatred is safe with me)? Writing this post feels like I'm stretching a muscle that I haven't worked in ages... and it's kind of terrifying. First of all, here's some much-needed context: I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease when I was 14 years old. The easiest way to explain Crohn's Disease is that it causes inflammation throughout the body, but mine is within the small intestine. To make a long story short, I had been in remission for over six years, and this summer I had a major flair-up of my disease.
What does this have to do with movies and this blog overall? I'm glad you asked.
In May, Rocketman was released in theaters. My brother is a huge fan of Elton John, so naturally, we got tickets to an early screening because we were so excited about this film. I've never once in my "professional sick person" career questioned how my disease would affect my movie-going experience. I've seen the signs that say "may cause motion sickness" but I usually glanced over them because, for a time, they didn't apply to me... until Rocketman.
Let me tell you, you never realize how much a camera moves and spins around until you have to deal with motion sickness.
There's a specific scene in Rocketman where Elton John (Taron Egerton) is playing the piano during his stadium tour and the piano is spinning in the opposite direction than the camera is spinning. It signifies the moment that he starts truly spinning out of control and as the song gets louder, the quicker the costume changes get and the faster the piano spins.
Ironically enough, this moment also signified when motion sickness would become a new norm for me while watching movies this summer. I never threw-up from motion sickness, but I did get a bit queasy and dizzy whenever a camera would spin too much in a movie. The only other movies I watched this summer (in theaters) were Aladdin and Hobbs and Shaw, both pretty intense if you get dizzy easily. I was terrified of going to the movies for a while because I didn't know if I would get sick or if I would be totally fine walking out of the theater. I also wasn't writing about movies because I obviously wasn't seeing any new movies and I would even get sick from typing at my desk(!!!).
I was in rough shape and extremely frustrated that I wasn't able to do something that I was so passionate about.
Thankfully I'm getting the right vitamins in my body now, which means that I'm not getting the feeling of motion sickness as often as I was this summer (yay!). I'm on the up-and-up again and hopefully, remission is on the horizon. I've returned to my (almost) weekly movie theater visits and I'm hoping to have some more content for you guys very soon. It's a slow process of getting back into writing, but new content is coming!
Thank you so much for being patient as I try to figure out my health and I hope you will stick around for more movie watching shenanigans!
xx Chloe Tomes
p.s. I still haven't rewatched Rocketman since I saw it in theaters... Maybe it's time to try it again? Leave your thoughts below.
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