One Perfect Day

I woke up the other day sweating, hyperventilating, my heart racing and my brain on high alert. Something is wrong, my mind yelled, and of course you have to pay attention to that sort of thing.  I took several deep breaths, opened my eyes and began looking around the room. I hadn't injured myself in my sleep.  My husband was still breathing; I could hear Zane snoring. It was early in the morning, so I could see that there were no intruders in the house. The alarm was still on.  Maisy, the secondary alarm dog, was sound asleep.

All was quiet, except in my head. I was having a garden variety panic attack.  As far as my brain was concerned, I am a terrible person, a bad mom, someone who has no friends, oh--and it is the end of the world.  I have a surgery coming up(July 8th), and my brain was convinced that I was going to die on the table, from complications or whatever.

I hate having panic attacks, because they aren't productive. I am used to feeling anxious.  I've read all the books on anxiety. I usually can problem solve my way out of my anxiety, unless it's a panic attack. I always try to talk my idiot brain out of them, as if my assertions can overcome hardwired brain responses.  I do deep breathing exercises. I get up and walk around. I try to redirect my thoughts.  I even pray.  None of that works for panic attacks.

And I keep all my freaking out to myself, because I don't want anyone in the house to freak out with me.  So I went downstairs and let out the dog and the cat into the backyard, started the coffee, and made breakfast.

Then I got mad at myself, and my mental nonsense. I'm not a person who is used to sitting around feeling crazy.  I'm a fighter.  Getting angry seemed counter productive, but there it was.  I just  said to heck with it.  If I have no reason to panic, but I'm panicking anyway, I may as well go do some things that make me panic.  So we packed up and went off to SeaWorld.  We hit their water park, Aquatica.  First on the agenda?  Sting Ray Falls, where you sit in a raft and slide down a big tube underneath a bunch of random stingrays.  Right away, my panic attack got worse.  My claustrophobia was hollering about the ride, because, enclosed space.  My acrophobia was screaming, because we had to climb about four stories up.  Zane noticed my nervousness, and I finally talked about what I was feeling.

"You should face your fears," Zane said.

"That's why we're here, son," I replied.

I took a picture of Larry and I, and my toothy smile.  That is panic on my face, but there's more. 

There's determination.  I could do this.  And I did.  I sat in the raft, I held on, and the ride began.   It was over in seconds, as most experiences are, and as we splashed down and floated to the exit, my panic attack went away.  At least for that day.  We floated on the "river", jumped waves in the wave pool, and had a blast. 

I'm still nervous about my surgery tomorrow.  I wouldn't be me if the "what ifs" weren't constantly running through my mind. But we had one perfect day this summer, where we were able to let some of the cares from the past two years go, and everyone was healthy, and we laughed and had fun as a family. 

It will do for now. 

I Watch Too Many Movies

Tuesday started off as another routine chemo day.  I would be getting a new chemo drug, and I would have 12 weeks of this before I would be finished.  Mentally, I had established my own inner countdown--four treatments down, 12 to go.

Routine.

Except that it wasn't routine.  As soon as the nurse inserted the needle into my mediport and tried to draw blood, nothing was routine.  What was supposed to happen after the insertion of the needle?  That would be blood flowing into the syringe.  This time, nothing happened.  No blood.  Nothing came out of my body.  The nurse didn't panic, but I certainly got anxious, especially when she immediately started pumping on the plunger that went with the syringe.  It appeared to my untrained eyes that my nurse was pumping massive amounts of air into a major vein located right next to my heart.   My anxiety rose rapidly.

Nobody really talks about the anxiety and the panic attacks that come with a cancer diagnosis. We start to freak out about everything, just because that lump we though was "nothing" was something. We cancer patients can no longer trust ourselves to know anything about what is going on in our bodies. Any little thing sets off a chain reaction of "What ifs?" that would drive anyone over the edge, but a person with an anxious personality, like me?  Amp that anxiety to 13.  If I can't catch my breath after climbing stairs, I'm dying.  If my feet hurt, it's some obscure cancer-related disease and my feet will have to be amputated. If my eye twitches because I'm tired, I think I'm losing my vision. Whatever is happening is THE. WORST. POSSIBLE. THING.

As I'm sitting in that chair, watching the nurse,  my brain is remembering that I've seen all the cop shows.  I've seen the movies where people are eliminated by some bad guy inserting a single air bubble into the IV of a victim in a hospital room.  I know what an embolism is, fer cryin' out loud!

"Am I about to die from an embolism?" I blurted, ready to at least punch her for killing me.  In my growing hysteria, I wasn't thinking about what the poor woman's motive might be for murdering me in a crowded chemo room with my husband standing right there.  That would have required less anxiety and more actual brain.  I was thinking of the movies, and the TV shows, and freaking myself out. 

"What?" the exasperated nurse replied, still trying to get blood out of my chest. She laughed.  "No, you aren't going to die from an embolism! Give me some credit here!" 

She then explained what she was trying to do, and why no actual air had gone into my vein. Essentially, the needle was stuck in the port, having never exited to the other side as it is supposed to do.  After a few more moments of fiddling with my mediport, she finally got it to work.  I have never been more happy to see blood coming out of a syringe in my life.  I was especially happy that the blood was red and looked normal.  Routine.

"See, I do know what I'm doing!"  The nurse teased me.  I sheepishly smiled back. 

I am Rude

I don't usually discuss work here.  Most days it is just plain monotonous and uninteresting, moving one pile of paper to the other. And I fully recognize that my geeking out over cross-battery assessment is mind numbingly boring to others, and I don't want any readers dying of sheer boredom.  But today I need to talk about work.  I hope that you can bear with me.

Yesterday morning I got an email from my boss, saying that she wanted to meet with me that afternoon to discuss some "issues".  Issues?  What did I do now, I wondered?  What did I forget to do, or do that I shouldn't have?  I felt a panic attack starting, that sensation of my stomach falling into my gut, the heart racing, the sweats, the shaking.  I may have even burst into tears, I don't remember. 

I knew that my anxiety was over the top.  I knew that I was overreacting to what was likely nothing.  I knew all that on an intellectual level, but guess what?  Intellect means not a darn thing when you're having a panic attack. I had to sit there for hours of this, because every time I would see the clock, I would get worked up again.  I was so freaked out that I couldn't even eat lunch. Finally it was the appointed time.  My boss shut the door to her office and got right down to business. 

I'm rude. 

Yep.  That was the big news.  I'm rude and I make rude comments.  Everybody says so, she told me. It's unprofessional, she said.  People are complaining to me all the time.  I need to do some self-reflection, which is why she was graciously telling me this. 

I'm rude. 

I have reflected upon my alleged rudeness, as requested. But how am I supposed to know that I'm being rude?  All of these "people" deemed my behavior or comments rude...and they did not give me the respect of asking me about it, they just went whining about it to my boss.  Had they shown me the tiniest bit of respect, and asked me about whatever it was they had a problem with, there would have been no issue.  I would have had the chance to clarify or apologize or whatever to resolve the problem.  THAT would have been the professional thing to do, instead of this passive aggression.  

I have reflected, and I am a little angry right now. Also hurt, because my boss has known me for twenty years and she still has no clue about who I am and what makes me a happy worker.  Instead of supporting me by insisting that these complainers speak to me first like adults, which I have asked her to do, fell for the drama, ready to believe the worst of me.   

These people made a judgment about me, said nothing to me about it, wallowed in their self-righteousness, and then tattled on me. That's pretty darn rude, in my book. Disrespectful. Selfish.  I feel like I've been bullied.  I feel like I have been placed into a hostile work environment.  Where is the respect for individual differences in this situation?   Respect for individual differences means not jumping to conclusions about a person's behavior. Respecting individual differences means being flexible enough to avoid snap judgments about a person. Respecting individual differences means holding the person accountable so they can explain themselves or apologize. Respecting individual differences means allowing the other person to participate in a dialogue in order to solve the problem. What I am getting in this particular instance is that I'm supposed to go out of my way to be respectful of everyone else, but nobody has to give me the same consideration if they don't like my temperament?  Because I am different, I'm singled out.  I should be used to that, but I'm not.

I'm rude. I'm also an introvert and I don't pick up on some social cues. I have trouble understanding when others are joking.  I often say the first thing that pops into my head without censoring myself.  I don't like changes in my routine. I become obsessive about certain topics.  I get distracted easily and I hate to be interrupted when I am trying to finish a task. I have a tendency toward sarcasm or condescension when I become anxious.   Most of my meltdowns happen on the inside, but they do happen. Instead of respecting my differences, I'm being forced into someone else's mold. I don't like it.

Okay, that's all I wanted to say.  I tried to keep the ranting to a minimum.  What am I going to do about this?  I can't really say right now, because I am still processing the whole traumatic day.  Maybe I'll win the lottery.  A winning lottery ticket buys a whole bunch of therapy sessions, doesn't it?