Navigating a Ship in Rough Waters: The Emotional Impact of Physical Illness

My mental state pictured in one convenient graph

For fun, let's take a look at a parenthetical slice of my life - say, the dates of 05.28.2013 to 06.01.2013, the present day. For many, any given five day period is mundane, but not unpleasant. Beds are slept in, meals are eaten, work is completed, fun is had, etc., etc. Hovering over the baseline of complacency is never a bad place to find oneself.


Prior to lunggunk, I would like to think that I established a pretty nice emotional baseline for myself. After the stress of being in a mental hospital had passed and I had once again become reacquainted with my routine, any point above or below my baseline was not a make-or-break event that would determine the overall climate of my day. If something unpleasant happened, I would brush it from my shoulder like I would a little ladybug who chose the wrong landing pad. If something good happened, I would bask in the happiness that a pleasant experience evokes and then return to the commonplace task with which I was previously engaged.  It was a relief to feel like a normal person again. And then...

....enter stage right (lung), my new best friend and bitterest enemy: BLOODCLOT.

The physical pain I have been experiencing has been documented in my previous posts. Right now, I want to get back to that parenthetical time period referenced above. Let's talk about 05.28.2013, my first day back to work after being off for approximately a week...

Consider the graph above, paying attention first to the baseline. On this particular morning, I awoke feeling indifferent. I groomed as much as necessary, ate my "breakfast" of anticoagulants and psychiatric medications, dressed, and began looking for my ID badge to complete my wardrobe. When I couldn't find it, it induced a state of panic that was disproportionate to the situation. In this game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, a little point can be marked on the graph below the zero degree baseline.

If misplacing a plastic badge can provoke my generalized anxiety enough to produce a panic attack, you, dear reader, can only imagine how a more "serious" event would make me feel like I was mired in quicksand, sinking into a whirlpool of anxiety that would require more than an ativan to free me. This five day period has been full of these moments - my moods have been cycling so rapidly and unpredictably that I am unsure how I will be feeling five minutes from now.

The pulmonary embolism diagnosis was completely out of the blue. I'm sure that my preexisting anxiety problems do not "help" the situation, but this experience has rendered me largely incapable of controlling my emotional responses to both positive and negative stimuli. I am now hyper-aware of my own mortality. Because of this, all of my emotions have become more intense.

My baseline has been re-calibrated. When it was previously complacency/indifference it is now stress/anxiety. I either feel positive stress (excitement, elation, etc.) or negative stress (impotence, incompetence, etc.).

I pine for peace. Indifference used to be odious to me - now I would welcome it with open arms. Eventually, my physical problems will pass and I'm sure I will feel "normal" again. As for now, I have to navigate these rough emotional waves the best I can.

***

When I was a child, there was a chinchilla for sale in a local pet store. A warning sign was placed on his cage imploring the shoppers to not "poke, prod or blow on" the little rodent because, presumably, his moods were unstable. Recently, I have been thinking about this chinchilla and feeling sympathy for him. I hope he found a good home.

Hopeful Hopelessness

This is actually what I looked like at my desk today.

If I live to be exactly 82 years old, I will have survived 29,951 days. Really, every day does matter but if you consider one day out of almost 30,000, it is pretty inconsequential.

Today was not a Good Day.

Instead of outlining all of the insignificant facts that made this a Bad Day, I will talk about why I have recently been having more Bad Days than Good.

Since I am being exact with my calculations, I lost my husband to suicide 628 days ago (see my earlier post). Since that time, I have navigated the aftermath of his death (planning a funeral, buying an urn, finding ways to honor his memory), changed offices at my job three times, started dating someone, broke up with said someone, was admitted to a mental hospital, and then was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism.

Through all of these things, I was able to convince myself that life was still "okay." Until the pulmonary embolism.

When Ben died, I believed that my life was over, too. However, by finding ways to honor his memory, I love him more than ever and feel more happiness than sadness when I think of him. I don't need to talk about what an amazing person he was - anyone who knew him is aware of that. Anyone who ever saw us together understands how deep my love was for him. Nothing else needs to be said.

The pulmonary embolism diagnosis literally almost killed me. I am sitting at my computer typing because of sheer luck. Perhaps if the wind was blowing a different way that day, I would not have been so lucky. After being released from the hospital, I care so much less about things that should matter to me: work, relationships, even my own well-being. I suppose facing one's own mortality will elicit such a reaction. However, these feelings are distinctly NOT ME.

It frightens me how little I care. It frightens me that a future that was once bright and full of hope is now a black hole of negative energy. It's almost as if my life stopped that day in the ER when the doctor looked at me with a stony expression and explained that I have a clot in my lung. Being in the hospital was novel but, when I was released, I felt like I was swimming in dark waters without a life preserver.

The lights could have gone out and not come back on.

I plow through and do what is expected of me. I don't enjoy it. Mostly, I feel angered and annoyed. I am not such a fool to believe that anything is beyond hope but hope is just beyond my reach.

Through whatever tears I am unable to hold back, I remind myself that everything is temporary. My mood is temporary, my health problems are temporary, life is temporary. Today was bad, tomorrow may be great. Even my present exasperation cannot prevent me from believing in the future. By nature, I am a positive person. Even if tomorrow is bad, there is the next day. Or the next.

If all else fails, I will blame my anguish on my unexpectedly bad menstrual cycles. Hormones, hormones, hormones, cry, cry, cry.