"Fear is akin to dreaming one's life away."~Yann Martel, from The Life of Pi
In my senior year of high school I read the novel The Life of Pi by Yann Martel, right as it was starting to make its way onto top book lists. I dog eared many pages of quotes and compiled a word document with all of them. I then printed them and framed them to hang around my dorm room in college. There were so many good things to remember from that book! Unfortunately, in the process of changing computers several times, I've misplaced this document and have had a hard time finding all of my favorites on quote sites around the web. However, I did manage to recall this one tonight as I sat down to type out how I'm feeling about my upcoming departure for Boise and what lies ahead - not just the day of surgery and the few weeks after while I get the initial healing under way, but for the next year of recovery (it takes about a year for the swelling to completely go away).
When this quote popped into my head as I was thinking about where to begin tonight, it occurred to me that this embodies what I want to say perfectly. I am scared. I am flying across the country by myself to have surgery. This will be the most major surgery I ever have after the initial 2 night stay at the hospital, I will be recovering while trying to cook, do laundry, and basically take complete care of myself - I also will have no car, so if I need to run to the store, I will take the bus (which is fine) and carry whatever I purchase back to where I'm staying. Just in case, I'm probably going to make about 4 trips total to 2 different grocery stores (Winco and Whole Foods...Winco is cheaper, but I am on a very restricted diet - no gluten, no dairy, no soy, just to name the big ones - and certain things just can't be bought at a regular grocery store). I plan on buying enough food to make meals to feed me for most of my stay, if not all of it. I will chop and freeze what I won't use in the first week, that way just in case I'm really laid up, all I have to do is dump stuff into a pan and fry. I hope that I won't be that bad, but because I will essentially be on my own without many resources besides medical staff (I do have one friend in the area, thankfully), I want to make sure I will be okay. Overall, I'm doing my best to plan for the worst case scenario, while hoping and imagining the best case scenario.
I'm also scared about the surgery itself, mainly because I'm worried something will go wrong and I'll lose the ear or get a bad infection and be in a lot of pain for a long time after the surgery. I have had so many things go wrong this year medically, but I'm trying to focus on the positive (plus, at some point SOMETHING has to go right, no?).
So back to the quote. Fear. I am scared. In fact, when I went to the doctor this afternoon and they took my pulse, the nurse left it on my finger beeping out loud while going over my medications with me and filling out my information in my chart. At one point I began thinking about the trip and the surgery and I heard the beeping speed up because of how anxious those thoughts made me. However, I've learned how to control my emotions over the past four years, so I took some deep breaths and changed my focus and I heard my heart rate drop back down. I found this pretty amusing, and the nurse was still doing the paperwork, so I had some fun. I thought about the surgery again, and the beeping quickened again. Then, I relaxed myself again. At this point the nurse kind of looked over at the unit kind of funny, so I figured I better stop lest she decides somethings wrong with my heart...
The point is, fear can - and will - take over your being if you let it. If I "gave in" to my fear and stewed in it, I would be a nervous wreck. The thing is, I know this. When I feel the fear creeping up into my heart and throat, I am aware of those sensations. Now, years ago, I probably would have shoved them down and eventually exploded. But because of my extensive DBT training over the past four years, I know a healthier way. I acknowledge the fear. I even go as far as to validate it's existence...I say "hi", and "yes, there's that feeling again", and "gosh, I can see why I would feel this way". But here's the turning point. I don't engage the fear. I don't ruminate in it and go to all the "what if" scenarios it creates in my head. Instead, I change the subject to something else. Sometimes I can do this subtly, like by focusing on what I need to do between then and when I leave to ease the fear, but other times I need to focus on some good music, or surf the internet. "Do what works" in the moment. Oh, and of course, breathe! I know what it feels like to relax completely in a meditative or hypnotic state. And, when I take my breath, I recreate that feeling each time I breathe out until it settles me.
When you are engaged in fear, there's no room to live. Your body goes into fight or flight mode and focuses only on the basics of survival. There's no room for joy, fun, or living in the present. Fear robs you of that. So, I use my skills to bypass the fear and live my life. I like to say for this case that instead of thinking about how scared I am, I'm using that fear to motivate me to plan and get everything in place in case something goes wrong. I'm channeling the adrenaline it creates in order to get done what needs to get done before I leave in 3 days...and there's still a TON to do!
And of course, I keep it all in perspective. The absolute worst thing that could happen is I die, and the chances of that happening are pretty much zilch as long as I watch for any signs of infection, and if I notice any, call the surgeon. Yes, I could lose the ear to infection and be left with no ear at all. But I have to remember that the chance is again very low. Plus, cosmetically, no one really notices my little ear, so most likely they wouldn't notice that either. And, overall, being left without an ear, is nothing compared to being without any other body part. I want an ear. But, if something goes wrong, I can pretty much lead as normal of a life without one as I can with one.
So, I am just doing my best not to rush things. I don't want to get so caught up in the outcome that I miss the experience leading up to the outcome. I want to feel everyday and notice what I am doing instead of focusing on the fear and "what ifs" all day and missing the wonderful life I'm already living. That's another reason I want to write this blog. I can get out what keeps me 'dreaming my life away', without letting it dominate my life all day, while also being 'forced' to reflect on my emotions and activities surrounding this change in my life - before, during, and after.
This is a journey. It is not an overnight fix. A very wise lady reminded me of that today. She told me to give it time as the surgery was just the beginning of the journey and that it would most likely take me about a year to adjust. That made me think. I intellectually knew having this surgery would change things, but before that remark I hadn't really stopped to think about what and how things would change. While at this point I can only guess, I am doing my best to stay open and accepting of any changes this process brings about - both physically and emotionally. I am looking forwards to how this process enriches the journey I'm already on. After all, it all boils down to embracing life's journey in the end.
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