I still cannot believe the power of the mind when it comes to traumatic events. The drive to my oncologist's office this morning was the equivilent to walking in quick sand. This normally only four minute drive felt like an hour drive in complete silence with only the voice in my head to reckon with. In fact, I could hear it as if it was narrating my life, "as she drove down that familiar road, she had no idea how her life was about to change". I know, it sounds crazy.
Sitting in that office waiting made me physically sick. It wasn't a long wait, but the waiting was driving me crazy. I got more and more nauseuas every second. I closed my eyes and felt like the room as getting smaller around me. And even after I got the good news that my labs and x-ray were normal, I had to wait in a line of cancer patients to make my next follow-up appointment. That itself had me on the verge of a panic attack. I started sweating and feeling like I couldn't get a full breath of air. I just needed to get outside. I sat down and did some deep breathing with my eyes closed but it didn't help.
Finally, I left and the minute I stepped outside everything just went away and I felt "normal" again. Of coarse we all know that I'm not.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Vietnam
I was at my parents house with the twins the other night sharing a bottle of wine (or two, or three). I was talking about the motorcycle class that I failed and how I decided I wasn't going to go back and finish it. My reason was that I was terrified of dying and that the thought of driving a motorcycle in the city made me very uncomfortable. I stated that should I ever move out to the country, I may reconsider and get my liscense the old fashioned way.
Completely off topic (or so I thought), my dad looks at me and says, "I was thinking about you and you were in Vietnam." I thought it was a pretty crazy thing for him to say, especially because he was in the Vietnam war and never talks about it. I laughed and made a joke about how I must not have made it since I'm here now as his daughter. Then he opened up in his own way by telling me how I was scared that I was going to die every single day, (repeat) every (pause) single (pause) day (long pause).
I'm not very comfortable talking to people about my cancer - especially people who have no idea what it's like. It's become a pet peeve actually to listen to someone who has only known a great uncle who had prostrate cancer or the woman three blocks away who has breast cancer drone on and on about what they think they know. But this was different. We weren't talking about cancer, per say we were talking about the fear of dying and that's something we both had experience with.
He told me he thinks that I have PTSD and I told him I KNOW that I do. He gave me some advice about how the Vietman vets say "it don't mean nothing" and how any time something makes me mad our upset I should ask myself "will this matter tomorrow" before flying off the handle. I told him that I'm quite the opposite - that I feel as if I don't care enough about things; that I let almost everything roll right off of me.
My dad and I haven't been that close for years. I love that man more than anything and think he's the most brilliant, amazing man I've ever known. We just don't have a whole lot in common and after becoming a mom, my mom is my "go to". But this conversation meant more to me than any conversation I'd ever had (pause, repeat) ever.
Completely off topic (or so I thought), my dad looks at me and says, "I was thinking about you and you were in Vietnam." I thought it was a pretty crazy thing for him to say, especially because he was in the Vietnam war and never talks about it. I laughed and made a joke about how I must not have made it since I'm here now as his daughter. Then he opened up in his own way by telling me how I was scared that I was going to die every single day, (repeat) every (pause) single (pause) day (long pause).
I'm not very comfortable talking to people about my cancer - especially people who have no idea what it's like. It's become a pet peeve actually to listen to someone who has only known a great uncle who had prostrate cancer or the woman three blocks away who has breast cancer drone on and on about what they think they know. But this was different. We weren't talking about cancer, per say we were talking about the fear of dying and that's something we both had experience with.
He told me he thinks that I have PTSD and I told him I KNOW that I do. He gave me some advice about how the Vietman vets say "it don't mean nothing" and how any time something makes me mad our upset I should ask myself "will this matter tomorrow" before flying off the handle. I told him that I'm quite the opposite - that I feel as if I don't care enough about things; that I let almost everything roll right off of me.
My dad and I haven't been that close for years. I love that man more than anything and think he's the most brilliant, amazing man I've ever known. We just don't have a whole lot in common and after becoming a mom, my mom is my "go to". But this conversation meant more to me than any conversation I'd ever had (pause, repeat) ever.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
