Tag Archives for anxiety

Gratitude and Creativity: Storms Don’t Last Forever

I have a legal battle with my employer in progress. Late last year – a few weeks before Christmas to be exact – I found out my horrible boss had wielded her powers to terminate my employment, which left me without extended health benefits or a job to return to when I regain my health. It was a shock to my system. It increased my pain, my blood pressure, my anxiety and made it impossible for me to sleep; or turn off my brain so I could get any kind of rest at all. I had to figure out what to do to fight back, while making sure I take care of my health. Those two things are hard to do when you’re in constant debilitating pain. Things I know my horrible boss has not lost an ounce of sleep or felt a pang of guilt about as she metes out this punishment to me because I refused to share the details of my health condition with her.

I hired a lawyer to deal directly with my horrible boss and the company’s horrible lawyer who has demonstrated that she must not have taken an ethics course in law school. Every minute that I have to contribute to dealing with this issue is time that I am not afforded to take care of my health. This lawsuit is causing me to have greater physical pain, emotional and psychological pain. I’m trying to give the information my lawyer needs from me to in small segments, so I don’t become overwhelmed again to the point where my pain is unbearable and I have to go to the emergency room to seek help to manage it. That happened on a few occasions before – and once since – I hired my lawyer and handed everything over to him.

It pains me to know that people I worked with on a daily basis now treat me this way without compassion for my suffering. We shared ideas and laughed together, and provided support to each other to do work that was never easy. I was part of a team until the moment I chose to guard the facts of my health from a woman who understands nothing about boundaries, confidentiality, or privacy. I chose to listen to my intuition and protect myself, which as it turns out, was the right thing to do.

Storms Don't Last Forever

Storms Don’t Last Forever

A couple of nights ago, we had a terrible thunderstorm. There were deafening claps of thunder followed by lengthy flashes of lightning. I’ve always been afraid of thunderstorms. Each flash of lightning made me shudder. I turned to my art/gratitude journal to preoccupy me from what was happening outside my windows. Thankfully, after a few hours, the storm ended and peace was restored to the night. I have to believe that just as that storm and many others I’ve witnessed in my life end, so will what I am enduring with my horrible boss. I have to believe that her mission to inflict harm will be thwarted and I will finally have peace restored to my life.

 

The Doors – Riders On the Storm

Nerve Block Nervousness

On Tuesday morning I’m getting a nerve block. A Ganglion Impar Block to be more specific. The pain specialist ordered it during my last visit to the pain clinic for hopefully better pain management. The closer I get to the appointment, the more nervous I become. I know the intention of the procedure is to reduce my pain – although temporarily – but the process that’s been described to me along with the odds that it may not work are starting to play on my nerves.

I have instructions to start fasting at midnight tomorrow night because I will receive full anesthesia as if having a big surgery. Then I will check into the Outpatient/Ambulatory Surgery department at the hospital at 8:30 AM on Tuesday. Once I strip down to nothing but a blue hospital gown and my vitals are recorded, an orderly will wheel me down sterile corridors while making small talk with me about the weather. The destination will be an even more sterile room with scrubbed, masked strangers who will be predictably cheerful as they organize trays of instruments and measure precise quantities of nerve-numbing medicines.

Ganglion Impar Block Instruments

Ganglion Impar Block Instruments

As described, the procedure will require me lie face down on my stomach “with a pillow under the pelvis to help flatten out the lower lumbar spine’s natural curvature. Your lower back and intergluteal cleft [that’s ‘butt crack’ in layman’s terms] will be prepped and draped in a sterile manner before local anesthesia is administered at the point of entry of the needle into your skin. When your skin is adequately anesthetized, the needle will be advanced under fluoroscopy guidance until correct needle placement is obtained. Its correct placement will also be confirmed by administration of contrast dye. Once position is confirmed either a diagnostic block (to determine if your perineal pain is visceral or somatic), or a therapeutic block will be preformed.”

I think the best part of all this will be my lack of consciousness as I lie on that table with my naked butt in the air when they penetrate my tailbone with the needle. With that wondrous image in my mind, my hope is that when I wake up I will have better pain relief. I hope I don’t experience a pain flare up before that relief arrives as the pain specialist has forewarned. I hope I can have a few months of better pain relief before the next wave of intense pain arrives when I have the big surgery at the end of the summer. I know I’m hoping for a lot.

 

Pat Benatar – Anxiety (Get Nervous)

Monday Monday

I have spent the last few days recovering from the procedure I had on Thursday that failed to deliver the results my surgeon was hoping it would achieve. Although it did make me have a pain flare up. Thursday night was very uncomfortable and I woke up every few hours during the night. I was fortunate to have pain medication to cover me during the night– the pain specialist modified my medications a few weeks ago to make sure I have pain relief when I’m awake at night, which is typical of my life now.

I’m now back to what I call ‘normal pain levels’. The sharp pain I had because of the procedure has passed. What’s left is the pain that is always with me. The pain that reminds me that there is something wrong with my body that needs to be put right.

Tomorrow morning (Monday), I’ll be meeting with my surgeon to discuss what she believes should be the next step. She has already made it clear that she has significant concerns about performing the surgery prescribed for my condition. Tomorrow’s appointment will push me closer to making a decision that may change my life so drastically I won’t recognize myself.

It isn’t noon yet and my anxiety about tomorrow’s appointment can’t be measured.

 

I leave with The Mamas & The Papas whose words I hope are not an omen of what I should expect tomorrow

The Mamas & The Papas – Monday Monday