My mom came to visit this weekend. Sometimes you just need to see your mama before you can really, truly feel better. I haven’t seen my mom since before the bomb was dropped. Up until now, the only person in my family I have seen is my sister who was with me when I was told about the need for transplant evaluation. We were both in such a state of shock that not a lot of processing was done until well after we parted ways. It was good to see my mom, and take a bit of time to process together. To just be together.
When I was little and I had chest pain, or other heart issues, my mom would come and sit beside me on my bed and lay one hand over the left side of my chest and close her eyes. I could feel my heart beating against her hand, and she would count the beats, feel my breaths. She has done this for years. There is absolutely nothing scientific about this way of determining pulse or respiration, but I know it isn’t just me that feels better when my mama’s hand is on my heart and we can feel it beat together. I know that my heart slows down in those quiet moments, and with her hand on me, my body relaxes, my breath comes a bit easier, my mom is there and I can feel my heartbeat, and I am okay.
There is not a moment of this road I have walked without her, and we have both stumbled here and there but I know that – this heart or the next, my mom will be right there beside me, counting the beats and easing my fears.
Tomorrow it will be two weeks since the news that is heart transplant barreled in to my life and brain with less ceremony than a Mack truck. The first week I was pretty numb, I spent a few days laying in my bed, on my couch, and on the floor of various rooms of my apartment just kind of zoning out. I wasn’t even really thinking about the news. I wasn’t really thinking at all. If my mind was a house, nobody was home. When feelings did come back, they did not take their time. I haven’t had a lot of practice catching grand pianos falling from the sky, which may be why I didn’t handle ALL THE FEELINGS very well when they came, they weren’t light or easy to hold on to. They came fast, zero to sixty, and they couldn’t seem to take turns. Anger, and sadness teamed up and caused the bizarre, dark kind of amusement that makes people laugh at funerals. Then I would think I had pulled myself together only to find myself completely defeated again. I felt more than a little unhinged.
Once the feelings were back the flashbacks and panic attacks arrived as well. It should come as no surprise to anyone, that (largely due to my medical background) I have a long and well documented history of PTSD. The way I have explained it is this – over the last several years of trauma informed therapy I have moved my tolerance for triggers further and further from the edge, it takes larger or more frequent triggers to really cause much of a disturbance. Something may knock me back a little but I am not very close to the edge so my emotions generally stay in check. This doctors appointment punted me back to within striking distance of the edge, and every physical symptom I have started causing tremendous distress and panic.
One night, as I was falling asleep, something about how quickly I was drifting off scared me and I shot awake and into a panic attack because to me it felt too similar to how it feels to drift under anesthetic. I was terrified. I did not want to go to sleep, lose time, wake up confused and in pain. It took me an hour to use my tools and convince myself that I was safe and that I was just going to sleep for the night not having surgery. You would think this is obvious but you would be wrong, you cannot reason with a panicked brain.
Things are improving. I will be moving to twice a week therapy for a while to get these triggers under control. I am communicating my feelings to the best of my ability and giving myself both permission to feel things and permission to take some time off from my hyper-vigilance.
Soon I will have a heart cath, and meet with the Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant team. My team, my mom and sisters will be with me. I am so thankful to have them and that they have worked to understand as much as they can about how I process things and not rush or push. I have done really great changing some eating habits and watching my water intake and retention. There are good things among the hard stuff. I am back at work and for the most part I am able to do what I have always done with a few tweaks and accommodations here and there. I am thankful for the kindness and understanding of my friends and co-workers. I am going to do my best to keep posting here, both for myself and for all of you who wish to follow along. This could be a very long road. I’m straightening my cape. It doesn’t make me super human or anything, but man does it make an outfit pop!
Capes And Roller Skates 