My Honesty: Being Overwhelmed and Fearful

I don’t have a witty introduction for you guys this time.

This time, I just have my brutal truth.

I’m overwhelmed and full of fear.

Some of you know a few of the things that I’ve been going through over the last six months,
but for those of you that don’t…

I’ve been having an extremely difficult time with my physical health.

After seeing close to a dozen doctors, I was finally diagnosed with endometriosis.

For those not familiar with that term (which included myself until I was informed),
endometriosis is a chronic condition where tissue that is only supposed to grow inside a woman’s uterus starts to grow outside of the uterus and adheres itself to other organs, most often within the pelvis,
and basically wreaks havoc within the body.

My experience with it has included a next-level type of pain, nausea and vomiting, and extreme fatigue. I couldn’t understand why, seemingly out of nowhere, it felt like my body was fighting me almost every day. Getting through each day and going through basic routines suddenly became as difficult as climbing a mountain with a broken leg. Trying to get through the work day felt impossible, feeling stabbing sensations in my stomach while I was on the floor playing with my son, and ending up falling to the kitchen floor with gut-wrenching pain while trying to cook dinner in the evening was beyond disheartening.

Appointment after appointment and referral and referral with so many different doctors left me feeling more and more discouraged, because I learned that there aren’t many treatment options for endometriosis. Healing started to feel unattainable But after many consultations and lots of personal research, I finally agreed to try hormone therapy in hopes that it would at least allow me to get back to some sense of normalcy.
I just wanted to feel better, I wanted some improvement, I wanted some type of peace.

Sounds simple enough, right?
It probably would have been, if I didn’t have the type of luck that I have.
Because six weeks into hormone therapy, I’m back in the hospital with a medical emergency.

To make an extremely long and traumatic story short:
the hormones that I was taking to treat one condition had caused a new and potentially life-threatening problem.

I went to the ER thinking that my heart rate was high and my chest was hurting because I was anxious,
only to find out that I had a pulmonary embolism and right leg deep vein thrombosis.
The doctors told me that, as a result of the hormone therapy, a blood clot had formed in my right leg
that ended up breaking off and lodging into my left lung.

In that moment, I coudn’t feel anything other than terror.
Pure, undiluted, unadulterated terror.

We all watch medical shows where fake patients are going through extreme medical emergencies and the physicians are coming up with these off-the-wall fixes to treat them just in the nick of time to save their life.
Hell, I’ve been addicted to Grey’s Anatomy for a decade - to the point where I’ve convinced myself that I could probably perform a coronary artery bypass surgery unassisted lol.

But in the real world, to be laying in a hospital bed and having three doctors looking you in the face and telling you that you could have died if you hadn’t gone to the hospital when you did,

It’s not exciting. It’s not entertaining. It’s fucking terrifying.

That was three weeks ago, and I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around everything that’s happened. Another hospital stay, another slew of medication changes, wearing a heart monitor at home, and even more doctor’s appointments to attend each week.

I wake up in the morning and automatically wonder what new hell awaits me that day.

I question every ache, twitch, strain and pain I feel and find myself filled with fear that something else is going wrong. That something new is going to send me back to the hospital and take me away from my son and my family.

That something else is going to threaten my quality of life, or my life itself.

My muscles are always tense, my mind is always filled, my emotions are all over the place.

In short: I’m overwhelmed and fearful.

Again, I’m not conceited enough to believe that my current experiences are more or less significant than anyone else’s experiences.
These last couple years especially, the entire world has been going through these same feelings on an almost daily basis.
We don’t know what to expect, we’re not sure what’s going to happen, and we’re not always sure what the next best move is.

Being overwhelmed and fearful at the same time is grueling.

But I think we all are left with one common question:

“What the hell do I do?”

What is the best decision to make, given what I’m facing?
How do I make sure that I’m moving in a way that’s best not just for myself, but for my family, my kids, my dependents, my loved ones?

What should I do next?

I feel like the answer to that question is probably one of the scariest realities that we have to face:
you have to do whatever is best for you.
Because it’s vague. It’s ambiguous. And our brains don’t do well with ambiguity.
Our mental capacities work objectively - they’re constantly looking to make logical sense of the world around us.
But when the world around us doesn’t make sense, or is completely out of order,
we’re sent into a mental, physical, and emotional frenzy.

That’s what I’ve been trying to navigate over the last handful of months.
This constant internal frenzy and mayhem.
An internal tsunami almost that never stops.
I have a great team of providers behind me that are working hard to find solutions for me and are trying their hardest to lead me in the right direction, but that doesn’t always mean that my mind and emotions are keeping up.

Even when we have a sense of direction, or a general idea of what we’re supposed to do in times of high stress,
we still have another battle to face: our inner being.
That part of us that’s sitting back watching and taking in everything that’s happening around us
and is trying to make sense of it, but oftentimes just can’t.

This isn’t a blog entry that’s going to end with some sage piece of cosmic wisdom.
I’m still trying to figure out the best way to heal myself, both physically and emotionally.
Instead, I wanted to offer both validation and empathy to anyone else that’s currently struggling
with feeling overwhelmed and fearful, because it’s incredibly fucking scary.

The only thing that I can do, that we can do, is continue to try and persevere.

That what’s my support system keeps telling me, and that’s what I would tell you.

That, and to allow yourself both the physical and emotional space that you need to feel your feelings and to find whatever works for you to take care of yourself. ♡