Pulmonary Embolism Support Group
By far the most common form of pulmonary embolism is a thromboembolism, which occurs when a blood clot, generally a venous thrombus, becomes dislodged from its site of formation and embolizes to the arterial blood supply of one of the lungs. Symptoms may include difficulty breathing, pain during breathing, and more rarely circulatory instability and death.
Well it finally happened Sunday night. I hit my emotional rock bottom after maintaining my strength for 3 weeks of extreme illness pre-diagnosis and the 4 weeks since.
My mind could no longer ignore the fact that I survived through 8hrs in the emergency room and 24hrs in intensive care alone because my husband was on a flight from Dallas to Brisbane then Brisbane to Perth and not contactable. Then 2 weeks of daily home nurse visits and sleeplessness and now one month out I am finally in the therapeutic range but have been informed that I probably had a PE in 2005 (review of old scans) so I need to see a hematologist for further investigation.
And so the most minor of tiffs between me and my husband (i won't even explain the trigger cos it's sooo trivial) lead to hours of anger and then crying and an extreme range of emotions I've never felt sober!!! I think I went through the 7 stages of grief in about 2 hours. My darling hubby was as shocked as I was by my sudden inability to cope with my situation but at least he was there (he travels a lot for work - about 50% of the time he's away) and able to help me through it.
I was fine again after some sleep and back to my normal brave self soldiering through the trauma. The difference now is i know that there are very deep emotions under the surface that need to be acknowledged and respected in order to recover fully.
My mind could no longer ignore the fact that I survived through 8hrs in the emergency room and 24hrs in intensive care alone because my husband was on a flight from Dallas to Brisbane then Brisbane to Perth and not contactable. Then 2 weeks of daily home nurse visits and sleeplessness and now one month out I am finally in the therapeutic range but have been informed that I probably had a PE in 2005 (review of old scans) so I need to see a hematologist for further investigation.
And so the most minor of tiffs between me and my husband (i won't even explain the trigger cos it's sooo trivial) lead to hours of anger and then crying and an extreme range of emotions I've never felt sober!!! I think I went through the 7 stages of grief in about 2 hours. My darling hubby was as shocked as I was by my sudden inability to cope with my situation but at least he was there (he travels a lot for work - about 50% of the time he's away) and able to help me through it.
I was fine again after some sleep and back to my normal brave self soldiering through the trauma. The difference now is i know that there are very deep emotions under the surface that need to be acknowledged and respected in order to recover fully.
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Look at what my best friend did with my picture!
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We all have 24 hours in a day. How we spend these hours is important. Watching a little bit of a video about how sitting affects us made me aware of how much sitting and laying down I do. Gonna have to work on that.Your turn. Tell me another truth.
I wound up doing therapy for a while. Saw a gal who specialized in people who had survived traumatic events. For a while, all I'd do was cry when I got in there, but it was kind of nice not to be burdening the husband with the tears that he couldn't do anything about.
Eventually, I added an anti-anxiety med to the mix, which really helped stabilize me and let me get my feet back under me. I just went off it for good this week, so I was on it about two years all told.
I mean, you gotta do what is going to work for you and that can be a really personal choice when it comes to your brain freaking out and trying to run the show. You've got so much other stuff to spend energy on, ya know?
But, yeah, this IS actually a good step in recovery. Working through some of these feelings can really help you move forward in SO many ways.
Hang in there! Keep us posted!
Your ups and downs are completely understandable----I'm not making light of them because I know they can be awful.
Being a 'brave soldier' is what many of us do but it doesn't mean you can't also feel helpless or maybe even hopeless. I'm glad to see that you 'soldiered' through this one.
http://www.dailystrength.org/c/Pulmonary_Embolism/forum/14108796-its-normal-have-emotional
I don't know if you read that thread or not---- but it might help you to read how another person gets through the bad times.
Take care.
Vent your feelings as much as you need too. I will be a year out on June 21 and I promise it does get better