Brilliant post!

Gosh my world view has most definately changed! Like you - i cant't make plans, and do not think ahead any further than next week - which i find incredibly sad, particularly as i am getting married in 3 months time...and as much as people say that at least i've got my wedding to look forward to, i just cant be excited just yet - as like you, i am taking each day as it comes, and am just grateful to get through the day! :o) i've found this particularly hard, as i have always been a very ambitious person - and always made plans for the future...but now i seem to of lost that...and am really trying to find it again! Also, as for my memory, that is so bad now...i can't remember anything past yesterday...my doctor seems to think that this is a natural reaction to trauma - that you shut everything else out...but i am finding it incredibly frustrating and have to write notes for everything now!

I have always been a worrier, but unfortunately for me, since my illness i have become even more of a worrier! i think its fantastic that you say the little pieces of crap don't matter for you anymore - because sadly, the illness has had the opposite effect on me, and i actually worry about the little things even more - which is really silly really! i am also incredibly sensitive to what people say now, and will get upset at the slightest comment! gosh, i sound like a complete disaster, haha!

Anyway, i'll ssssssh for now! great post though! x

I don't make plans very far in advance anymore either. I've always been a worrier but my PE experience made me much worse. I think I was in denial for several weeks about how close I came to death. I clearly remember the day it hit me. I had just returned to work and a co-worker was inquiring about what happened. I was telling her that they called the code team on me two or three times the first night in ICU and baam....
I have to admit that I freak out about it often now. I have these moments where I am consumed with thoughts of how I have to pay off my credit cards, house and car because if I die today day, I don't have enough life insurance to cover it all. I worry about what will happen to my two year old son. Things like that. On the other hand, I think I have become a more thankful person and stopped taking life for granted, for the most part anyway.

Well, it's certainly given me a keener sense of my mortality. I've taken steps to arrange things in my life, especially at my job, so that if I die tonight it won't be an utter disaster for whoever has to take over my work and such. And I guess it's made me more serious about some things, and made me reprioritize...I'm definitely focusing more on improving my Self, if you see what I mean...I'm trying to meditate regularly and be the best person I can, since one never knows when the end might come, and I want to feel good about my life when I die. Of course, this goes for everybody, but I guess coming close to death makes you more aware of the fact.

I agree with many...I've become much more aware of my own mortality and it's made me appreciate life all the more. I am about 6 1/2 mos. post-PE now and really feel pretty good most of the time---I walk several miles each day and do all my normal friend/family/kids activities. I just had to travel a lot recently and was stressed about that, but now that I've passed that hurdle I feel much more confident about dealing with this PE stuff. I am worried about my future...I really want to be there for all of my children, but after doing a lot of research I've found that only a very, very small percentage of PEs/DVTs that reoccur are fatal...which means that if I do get one again (& I will be paying close attention to my body) I will catch it, treat it, and know that I will always need warfarin. Funny what you say about the memory....my short-term memory has also been poorer than usual...I've heard many say that it is a side-effect of the drug.

As for planning far into the future---it's probably a good thing not to spend our lives planning things months in advance...good to live in the day (like children do)....the older I've gotten the more that I've realized that you can't plan life anyways :)

The first 6 months or so after my PE, I never wanted to be far from home. I think that had to do with the fact that when I had my PE, I was outside, a few houses down from my house. I suddenly couldn't breathe and passed out on my neighbor's steps. When I woke up, I still couldn't breath, but all I could think of was, I gotta somehow get home. I don't know how I managed to make it back home. I remember my vision was all goofed up and I was staggering and struggling for breath. But I knew my husband was home. And I thought, if I'm going to die, I'm dying at home, not on the sidewalk alone. So, the fact that I made it home and my husband was able to call 911... well, psychologically, I think I wanted to stay home because it felt safe. Now, I'm about 14 months out from my PE and I feel like I am able to make plans and think about the future although, I didn't do too much of that even before the PE.

I'm still a worrier, but I seem to have stopped worrying so much about the stupid stuff. Since the PE, I think my over all personality has changed a bit. I think I have an edge to me that I didn't have before the PE. I seem to be a bit more intense and have less patience. Not sure what that's about.

The good thing is that we do find a normalcy again, which I never thought I'd have back when I was first recovering from the PE. This thing rocks your world in unsuspecting ways, but we find our way through it.

My family immediately took the attitude with me that this just wasn't a big deal, and to some extent I've absorbed that attitude. (Funny, considering a PE is what killed my grandfather in his 50s.) Life happens, bad stuff happens in life, and you play the hand you're dealt. My family was so nonchalant, in fact, that it really sobered me when I realized that I've had 2 separate PE - and they're usually fatal 35% of the time. You do the math: I can't have another.

I'm not AT ALL meaning to sound nonchalant or to minimize what we're all going through, but we were all lucky for making it through this, and I tend to think of it more like some annoying medical condition - maybe diabetes - requiring longterm vigilance and care rather than the near-death experience that it was. I'm in denial, essentially! Actually, I use diabetes as my barometer when I get really annoyed by my coumadin monitoring (at least I don't have to do daily monitoring, like a diabetic!).

I totally identify with the "waking up tomorrow" goal - that's exactly the way I felt the first few weeks out of the hospital. I would sit there, worry-worry-worry, trying to get to sleep and then I would just think, "Well, all I gotta do is ... wake up."

I echo a lot of the comments here. When my dad died 8 years ago (from a PE), it changed quite literally everything. It was polarizing. Things and people who were good became everything to me. Things and people who were bad ... I just walked away from, or like you said - they just became "clutter" that fell away (I stopped paying attention to them really). Awareness of mortality has a way of just cutting through the shite (to steal your euphamism), so you can get on with the Very Important Things in Life. So for me ... I was already very aware of what my priorities should be (me, my fam, my loved ones), everything else is second.

That being said ... in the six months prior to my PE, I had let some of those priorities slide. I wasn't thinking of myself first ... and I don't mean this in a self-centered sense but rather in the sense that I wasn't taking care of myself the way I should (just letting people walk all over me a bit too much, and it was reeeeally stressful). And my job was beginning to rule my life and affect my relationships ... and I may be different from some others here, but on my deathbed, I do not see myself saying, "Jeez, I wish I would finished that project." Don't get me wrong - some of my colleagues are my best friends, and I don't want to dump on them, even in death (ha ha!). But I see myself evaluating whether or not I lived the best life I could, if I was happy ... if I loved well, and if I in turn was loved well by others. That's really it.

I am totally planning for the future (and my career) these days (5 months post PE) ... but I also recognize that all the planning in the world sometimes does not get you where you expect to be ... as we all know too well, it throws you a curveball every now and again! Whether it's a PE or mortgage-backed security lending (lol!), sometimes you just land right in it, ya know?

I think 5 years from now, I want to be able to look back at myself and laugh about how much I worried for no good reason (I hope!).

Great post!

What a great post!

I'll add what I'm feeling right now, but I'll probably be back again later, to add something that I'll be feeling at that time. Because for me, that's probably one of the biggest changes, at least in this moment. I've never been a very moody person, but wow! it's just like I can change in a moment now.

I can't say I'm more aware of my mortality than before but I'm not scared of it any more. When I thought I was about to die I felt very peaceful, so I'm happy to not be afraid.

I'm a natural planner, but when I try to plan these days I just get frustrated! So I'm planning on giving that up........

My short term memory is....huh? What was the question?

Sorry to make you all suffer me, I'm feeling really, really low today and trying to cheer myself up.

Seriously, one thing which has changed, and that in fact I want to hold on to is not worrying about the details. I want to love my husband and children and parents and friends as much as I possibly can, because maybe I'll be gone tomorrow and they'll never know if I don't tell them and show them today!

One big change is I'm learning not to care as much about what people think. I need to do what makes me and my family happy, and that's it. Let people think whatever they want.......

Can't wait to read more replies!

Yeah, I seriously feel overwhelming emotions now when I think about how much I love my husband and my family. Every time I talk to my brothers on the phone, I tell them I love them and instead of them getting weird about that like they would have in the past, they tell me they love me too.

Time is fleeting so you gotta get your I Love Yous in before it's too late.

I can really relate to everything that you've already said - but - what I do realise is that we are all so knowledgeable now about hearts, lungs, drugs, tests - things that we never even thought about before and we've learnt most of it from other people on here! This site is tremendous because the more we know - the more intelligent questions we can ask the doctors - the more informed we are! It's our health that's at stake and we are the only ones who know how we feel! I know this sounds a bit selfish but I've learnt that we need to put ourselves first some times ! Hugs to you all - Sandie x

It is great to see evryone sharing. I reaaly needed to read all of your post. I have been battling fatigue and it pains me to say "depression" also. I hug my kids and talk to them all of the time. I am glad to find this forum because I feel a good week coming on and I have'nt felt that in a year. The power of positive thinking and good thoughts will get us all through the rest of our days no matter what happens. We can beat this!!!!

I wrote a journal entry a few weeks back about this same thing, wondering if it was a common experience, after going thru a trauma, to feel sort of apathetic toward the day to day stuff. I wonder too if that signifies a world-view change, or is it just emotional burnout? I used to be so high strung; now I'm just feeling lackadaisical, like I don't even care if I spelled lackadaisical right.
Maybe it just takes being clubbed over the head with a you're-not-getting-any-younger-and-you're-gonna-die-too stick to prioritize what's important in life. I can look at a situation now, with a bored eye, and decide if I want to spend the effort of emotion on it or not. Mostly these days I choose NOT.

I feel like a Dead Man Walking and it is matter of when, no if's about it.
I love these Drs with broad sweeping statements like "some people live for hundreds of years on Coumadin without a problem"

I would always like to add "yeah but they didn't get in a fender bender JUST enough to pop the airbag, get their brain bleeding and death too shortly following huh?"

Thats a long time not to get in a fender bender, hey, maybe it will be today!!!!
Dead Man Walking

Hi all! I had my PE about a month ago. Strangely it hasn't shortened my worldview, but instead reinforced it. Between growing up in a very religious environment, and becoming a cop, I have had many opportunities to see how there are no coincidences and many minor miracles everyday. So many events large and small have had to occur at just the right moment in time to have brought us to where we are today, let alone where we and others around us will end up tomorrow.

For instance... The breeze must have been blowing just right to cause the bee to be exactly where a 14 year old girl would step on it as she was walking near the pool where I, by random scheduling, was a new 16 yr old lifeguard. I helped her to her mom's car which led to teen crushes and dating for a while in high school. I left for the Army then became a cop before we ran into each other again. This time we got married and had a son. That son, when he was 17, was lifeguarding at a senior center when an elderly gentleman went down in full cardiac arrest while on a treadmill. My son remembered his CPR training and got a rare save, allowing this much loved man three more years with his family before he passed away. So, because of nice summer breeze and a bee sting, several youngsters got to spend an extra 3 years with their grandfather! I know this because I met those kids at the funeral and they were so thrilled to meet my son, "Andrew the Lifeguard" who saved grampa! Who knows what my son may have inspired in those kids.

I firmly believe I am where I am now for a reason! Maybe I simply need to be out of the way for now to allow something else to occur. I'd rather be at the beach, but I guess a nurse trainee needed a live patient to practice on!!

Interestingly enough though, I found the DS website when I was searching the web for exercise information for PE sufferers. Was it coincidental that this particular series of worldview discussions had only started about 45 minutes before I joined DS and no one had responded yet when I saw it? Yeah, it kinda weirded me out the way these things do sometimes, so I didn't post right away, even though I think what I am saying now will resonate with a few folks.

And Patastrophe, your question will have an impact on folks you will never meet. Maybe larger than you imagined.

Along with the reinforcement, there is for me a "value added" worldview impact for arising from the near escape with death. All of my doctors have been pretty blunt saying I could easily be dead. Then, when I arrived at my family doctor after being released from the hospital, my PT/INR had spiked to from 2.0 to 8.0 for no apparent reason, leaving everyone else a tad panicked once again. But I am still good to go! Guess there is more to do! The wonder for me, and may be for you, is just what other miracles will we be part of since we are still here in the big playground.

One last thing that is actually pretty cool about this whole deal is this: When you get this close to being dead, you gain back that child-like sense of the truth. Or really you allow yourself to just strip away all the accumulated garbage from what people are saying and you start answering honestly the questions in your mind that you might have otherwise unconsciously ignored. It's like a bulb just lighting up in your head when you hear or see something that you might have tolerated or accepted before, but you realize you may not have time for double-speak or euphemisms that blur the truth. What you have to be careful about is being too blunt about what you are thinking when you are talking to people who aren't quite ready to see and hear things in the same light. Just trust that if you are tactful, you can still get your message across.

So anyway... Like I said... What's next for us??

Jim

jm-my mom and stepdad are both cops, bless you for the job you do.