Friday, August 31, 2012

The meaning of "scared"...

I'm writing about being scared bc I thought the scariness was over. I don't walk around in life scared. I've had scary instances, but nothing too bad. I was scared when I had back surgery, bc I was 18 & I could have been paralyzed. I was scared when I was 4 months pregnant w Rianna, & had placenta abruption & almost lost her. That was the most scared I'd ever been. When I went into Prompt Care, I was fine. It's when she came back & told me the EKG was bad that I started becoming a nervous wreck. I was scared of the VTACs I was having, scared I was having a heart attack, & scared I was going to crash, esp while David wasn't there. When Dr. Lane told me what the Echo revealed & I had to have surgery, scared became my middle name...well, Scaredy-cat became my middle name. I had the surgery, & although I'm healing nicely & I get more mobile and strong every day, there are still things that scare me. Last week, I went to the surgeon for a post-op check. I was scared of the pain I'd feel when the PA removed those 2 stitches, which turned out to be nothing. Fast forward to today...the reason(s) I'm terrified.

Today, I meet w my cardiologist. I have to have my 1st Echo since surgery. What if it says, "nice try, you fixed the ASD & mitral valve, I have something new for ya"...ok, so I know the machine's not going to talk, & esp in the words I used, but what if my heart is playing a nasty trick on me since it let me live as long as I did before surgery was necessary? Also, what if I can't live comfortably w/o this lifevest? As aggravating as it is to be hooked up to it, I now feel like it's my security blanket, & that I sincerely need it, even if it's to maintain peace of mind. Maybe my main fear is this: the doctors originally did a lot of those tests pre-surgery bc they wanted to see what they were getting into. They didn't want to go in blind, & they didn't want to put me through surgery if what I needed was a heart transplant. They said that if they didn't feel confident doing the surgery, they would have sent me to Emory to get on the transplant list. That was so...well, to use my vocab word of the day...scary. After surgery, Dr. Hunter said that everything went well, but my left ventricle was larger than it should be. He said that it may or may not return to its normal size bc there's no telling how long it's been enlarged. He said that my heart may not know how to act since it spent 30 years like this. So in case you were wondering why I'm such a nervous wreck today, it's bc I'm scared that it's not fixed. I'm scared that I'll eventually need a transplant. I don't want that option. Do you know how long heart transplant lists are? Do you think I really want to go through another thing like this? Bc if I did, how do we know it'll work? So yes, the reason I'm scared of this appt and probably many others in the future is bc I'm scared that my time is more limited now, than before all this happened. I know we all have to die, I know that I'm not more special than other people who die everyday from heart issues, but I can't help but to be scared. I don't want to be at one of my appts and hear that I will live only such & such more time. So, if my appt goes well today, then good. I'll be worry-almost-free...that is, until time for my next checkup, which is Sept 10th...sigh...& now that I've become a nervous wreck, I have to tell the doc my fears, bc they don't want me start going nuts. I don't want antidepressants, which is something they put a lot of open heart patients on. I was on them in the hospital, & said I wouldn't need them when I got out. I'll still hold my ground to that for a certain extent, it's just when I start going completely nuts that I will probably need them. I hate medicine...

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