It was the end of the road

A few weeks ago I found out I only had a short time left to live. It was scary and confusing and a million different thought went through my head. As I went to see the doctor that Monday morning I looked around my room and into my closet and wondered what would happen with all of my stuff. Who would even want my clothes and my shoes and my books? I knew as soon as the doctor took a look at my test results that I had taken the Friday before that I would be admitted into the hospital never to leave again. I debated writing letters to the girls and composed them in my head, but I hoped I had enough time to write them while I was in the hospital.

In retrospect I was happy with how my life had played out. I didn't have many complaints and had so much to be thankful for. If I ever had to be ready to go it was as good as time as any. I was sad to think about all the things I would miss, mostly with the girls. Watching them grow up is something I really wanted but wouldn't get to have. I guessed I had a few weeks at the most and wondered what I should spend my time doing. I figured I would have access to a computer and that gave me a lot of options.

In the days leading up to my doctor appointment my condition was quickly getting worse. I went about 2 hours out of town on a BBQ with family and friends and worried the whole time I was there. The nearest emergency room was so far away I hoped I could last the day. All I could think about was what if, what if, what if. I did not enjoy myself at all. When we finally left I thought maybe we should just head to the emergency room and once they saw my results they could keep me then, but I decided to go home and did feel a little bit better once there.

Headache, shakiness, overall just a bad feeling. When I made it to finally see the doctor I admitted I was having a lot of anxiety. When he told me my blood work all came back fine, quite healthy actually, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. Tumor. Rapidly growing tumor somewhere in my body slowly destroying me. The doctor went over the "what it might be" with me and when I mentioned tumor he knew that I had also been researching the condition on my own. Thank you google for allowing me to do that at home.

Then he told me he didn't think I had a tumor. He went ahead and put in a request for one more blood test and sent me home for two weeks to monitor my condition.  As I left his office I was more confused than ever. Could this really just be anxiety again?

In 2001 I had a panic attack that put me in the emergency room. After a quick work up and evaluation I was sent home with valium. Over the next several months I struggled with nightly anxiety attacks. Eventually I went on Paxil and things were much different. I was calm. I was not anxious. I also didn't feel much of anything anymore, which is good and bad. I didn't stress, not that anyone would have knows I was stressing, I kept in I guess. I started collage and joined a gym. I felt calm. After 8 months on Paxil I decided I was better and weaned myself off a bit too fast. Don't do that, you have strange reactions when you come off of mediation like that. Afterwards the anxiety and panic were controllable and I was mostly fine.

Mostly. I am a hypochondriac now. but I am not longer scared of dying, I have come to accept that it is going to happen at some point. I deal with it but I still have some issues most people don't. I can't take medications without worrying, even simple things like tylenol. I worry that I will get the side effect. It is just easier not to take anything, luckily I rarely have conditions that warrant medicine.

I worked myself up that weekend and the doctor sent me home with a test kit to monitor myself, which I have never used. What was wrong with me? Well, I had low blood sugar. I checked one morning after eating because I felt shaky and I was pretty sure my blood sugar was high, but it wasn't, it was low. 82 to be exact. When I googled blood sugar it seemed way too low. The next day around the same time I felt shaky again and when I tested it was 78. Now I was worried. I was eating and still getting really dangerously low readings, or so I thought. I was also drinking coffee, and looking back I have always known to be sensitive to caffeine. One cup a day usually causes me to get jittery. Was it just the coffee? I don't know but just incase I don't drink it anymore.  Well, I drink decaf now.

The doctor also sent me home with a bottle of Xanax. Do you want valium or Xanax, he asked, and I didn't know, I don't remember what worked better back then because I rarely took them, you know, because of the issue I have with taking medications and all. The bottle of Xanax is still sitting in the cabinet above my chair and it hasn't been opened. At least it is there if I need it. It helps just knowing it is there, unopened, in case I ever need it.

Weeks have gone by, the jitters have stopped and slowly so has the anxiety. I could probably even drink coffee and deal with the caffeine jitters again. Well, not quite yet, but maybe soon. Or not, maybe I will just switch to decaf, or tea. I am still trying to decide. In the meantime I am reminded how fear is the worse thing I have to deal with. Fear itself is scary. Anxiety will always be a part of me, a part that I have to fight with to keep under control. I guess I don't mind a good fight every now and then.

I guess I was never really dying. I guess. Sometimes I still wonder if the doctor didn't notice something. Maybe the numbers are really too low and maybe there is a tumor slowly killing me. Maybe I am not being overly sensitive and maybe I am wasting time not getting treatment that might save me. Maybe maybe maybe maybe maybe, all a part of having anxiety. I worry that one day something will be wrong and I won't find out because I will just write it off as having anxiety. Luckily everything so far has been just anxiety. Nothing has been wrong. Well, I DID have a cancerous mole on my ear cut off, but I wasn't anxious about that. Funny how that works.

What set me off this time, everything was going great? I have no idea. I know a friend's daughter was recently diagnosed with diabetes and I was pretty upset about it. Initially I thought I had diabetes only to find out my number was not at all high, which turned into having a low number, so I was hypoglycemic, except that is really rare and unlikely, unless you have a tumor, so that had to be it. I also, during this short weekend, had headaches so I was pretty sure I had high blood pressure only to test and ind out it was actually low105/70 and therefore I self diagnosed myself again and determined I was just dehydrated.

It was an interesting weekend and the crazy thoughts that went through my head make me question and lack of sanity I pretend to have. One thing I do wonder ... it amazes me how the body mentally controls things. I had several physical ailments, headaches, jitters, dizzy spells. If I can cause my own body to physically react it should be possible to mentally control my body all the time right? If something ever does go wrong I would have to assume that I am in control of my body, well, when I am in control of my sanity, and therefore I should be able to heal myself, mentally and physically. Just food for thought.