Hi, and welcome. Glad you joined. It's such a strange recovery process. I went to see a therapist for a bit too and it seemed to really help me process things and better deal with the emotional fall out. Glad you're reaching out!

Hi,
New here, too. Just a few weeks post massive PE and surgeries. I have had some agitation in the evenings, and occasional depression, too. I know it is common, especially when you have a life threatening condition. Go easy on yourself, talk it out and try to keep surrounded by positive people. If you can, try to look forward and know that you are safe and getting good care. Find the positive and bring that forward. Even appreciating simple things can help. I wish you the best.

I'm almost 5 months PE, and I think it's safe to say that many of us have experienced similar emotions.

I had been in therapy prior to my PE (courtesy of a separation from my wife), and the focus has shifted from the pain of separation to how to adjust to the changes that have taken place in my life, and how to adjust to the SLOW process of recovery.

Welcome to the group, and I hope you can draw from all of our experiences as you move forward in health.

Hey! Welcome on board! Glad you are here to join us!

I'm just past a year out on my PEs, and I'm just starting to feel like I'm reclaiming my life again. It has been a long hard year in so many ways ... I've done therapy, spent lots of time on this group, been on anti-anxiety meds. It is all just steps in getting through what was a terrifying situation.

Give yourself permission to feel those negative emotions. Don't let them take over your life ... but if you try to ignore them, they'll just come back stronger.

Try to find a therapist who is good with traumatic stress, grieving, and/or health issues and I think you'll be well on the way to setting yourself right.

Best of wishes ... keep us all posted!

Thanks to all! It helps that I'm still able to teach dance--in fact, the first class I taught after I had my filter removed in November of 2010 was the very same class I collapsed in front of last May. (I blorfed out my whole story in my journal) They're like my little guardian angels.

Good evening,
Any thoughts on why you think you are struggling at the 8 month mark?
Robert

I think a lot of it is the fact that I work with the public and have to have the "Game Face" on, plus I've always been a lot stronger than other family members. I also had abdominal surgery to remove an embedded filter in November--I feel like all of the stress I felt and all the emotional stuff I held back because hey, at least I didn't die so I have no reason to be depressed, is coming down on me with a vengeance. I never really dealt with it.
I haven't really talked to anyone about it because I'm surrounded by people who I feel expect me to be better than I am and I don't want to disappoint them by admitting I'm not doing that well.

Hi Fahnette!
Your comments inspired me to join. I was just diagnosed with PE on the 19th and I already feel the stress. My husband is upset because I am not allowed to go back to work yet. I feel like he thinks I should be all better because I am out of the hospital. Yet I am not better, I still get short of breath and have pain in my chest and back. I don't want to say anything to my kids or my husband because I don't want them to worry but, I don't want them to think everything is just peachy. I am glad to know this site exist and that is normal to have the emotional roller-coaster. Thank you!

Thanks for your story Fahnette...very interesting insights @ #7. I feel like I have no reason to be upset either, since I didn't die! And I haven't allowed myself to take even one day off work yet either. I hope it doesn't catch up with me later...but honestly I think I would be more depressed if I felt like I couldn't be at least semi-"normal".

I think most all of us carry the same burden you do, that is, that so many others rely on us and EXPECT us to be stronger than what this allows us to be.

I returned to work less than a week after my PE. I work in sales, and part of what I do involves heavy lifting. To my surprise, when I'd load my truck, none of my warehouse guys would come over to help me, as they'd gotten used to me doing it myself for the past few years.

It was only after I collapsed one morning that they realized that I wasn't 100% recovered.

I receive lots of help now. :)

I don't think it's unusual at all to have a delayed emotional response, particularly if you're someone who generally sucks stuff up and has a stoic sense of things. If you don't deal with it when it happens, you're gonna have to deal with it at some point. It's that whole you can run but you can't hide thing.

Got my appointment with a therapist who specializes in PTSD and anxiety next week. Fingers crossed.

To El Luchadore (hee!)--yes! It's like "Well, you're here. Yes it's an extremely physical job but you're here so you must be okay to do stuff." Uh, no. The first time my pulse elevated and I got all light-headed while I was teaching was quite educational for a lot of people.
One of my students was out for 6 months after having a titanium rod installed in her spine during our 2007-2008 season. She's appointed herself the Person Who Looks After Me In Class.

Good evening Fahnette,
With only a slice of info., its hard to know what exactly is causing your trouble. As RMB said, a delayed emotional response is not all that uncommon. I am about a year out from my PEs and have done a lot of reflecting throughout the year (as all of us do after something like this). Similar to your situation, I have always been viewed at home and work as solid, stable, etc. and in good physical health.

After being hit with PEs, I immediately went back into that mode of survival. Examples include taking no time off from a demanding job situation, telling essentially noone outside of close family and friends about my condition, and relentlessly trying build back my physical fitness to where it was before my PEs. I realize now that this was probably not the best way to go about things.

Looking back at everything, I think the battle to build everything back to where it was; physically, emotionally, etc. is difficult to deal with and it randomly just hits us over the head sometimes causing mental anguish. I have also come to realize that I just can't do some of things I used to do before and accepting that sometimes is not easy. The second thing I have noticed is that I don't care so much about some of the things I did before, particularly petty things or work related issues.

You mentioned disconnection and anger. I think it is easy to feel disconnected from people because you know that the person you are interacting with has probably not had to go through what you did (this person has NO idea what I have been through). I would also suspect that you don't advertise what you have gone through to others, so it is this pent up badge of honor that you have inside (thats basically what I do). Who wants to be a victim..right? Recently, I have started to experiment with opening up a little with people about my situation as I found that keeping it all to myself for so long was starting to build up some resentment in me as well.

Lastly, I think some of the anger may come from the realization that we may not be happy with how we live certain parts of our lives; yet we still keep doing the same things we did before we had a PE over and over again...i.e., trying to be perfect at work, trying to be strong all the time, worrying about petty things...etc. (you can fill in the blanks).

The life threatening illness is the wake-up call to change how we do things. When we ignore the wake-up call and go back to the same old way of doing things, I think that is where the resentment, anger and depression comes from. We are ignoring what we know to be true.

So, my experiment has been to try to listen to the inner messages and change some things. I am not taking certain things as seriously as I used, not beating myself up over endless work issues, trying to be more open with people, accepting being able to do less, giving up the need for perfection, etc. So far, it seems to be helping. We'll see where it leads.

Sorry for the long post. I hope some of this helpful.

Best of luck,
Robert

Nice post, Robert.

It's like you've been rooting around in my head, Robert. Especially the bit about not advertising what I've been through. I teach dance to children and I always have to have the face on, even when my incision is screeching at me or my lungs feel like someone is squeezing the air out of them. If I told people how I was really doing when they asked, it would probably scare the bejeebers out of them.

Luckily the older students understand that sometimes I just gotta camp out on the floor and be in pain, especially because five of them have been majorly ill or had surgery in the last two years and they know what it's like to reach your limit.