We have all (well anyway paying attention and not buying into conspiracy theories) had moments or months or longer of fear over the past almost 2 years now. For me this year has been a roller coaster of ups and downs regarding my own personal health issues. I finally felt ok with it all once I had the Sjogren's diagnosis and the neurosurgeon advising me that the heartbeat in my ear didn't sound like the scary "vein brain thing" that would require an angiogram and then possibly a procedure to fix it.
I felt unburdened and it felt safe to breathe again. Then Omicron started, but I got my booster and still felt a little better. Then everybody and their brother started having symptoms at work and coming in anyway..would I ever be able to not live in fear? Even my follow up with my rheumatologist made me a little apprehensive. She doesn't like the levels of one of the blood tests and wants me to follow up in 4 months and possibly 3-4 times every year....she's worried about me developing lymphoma. It's supposed to be a rare development (6% of Sjogren's patients end up with it) so I was just going to shove it in the back of my mind and actually NOT worry about it...was I wrong to feel that way? I don't know. I haven't really had time to overthink it because my mom was just diagnosed with cancer NOW in the present, not a someday maybe thing to worry about.
I even tried to downplay it when I first heard.....it's just skin cancer, that's easily fixed, nothing to worry about. Except it's not typical skin cancer, it's in an unusual place, a very private place. 5 year survival rates are allover the place based on info I don't have yet. CT scans are in the works and biopsies of nearby lymph nodes too. The surgery is scheduled just after the New Year and she'll need radiation. And she's also made it clear that if she can't have the quality of life she wants, she's requested nothing be done. So it's all still up in the air and unknown and out of my control...my perfect nightmare. I hate all of it. I hate feeling helpless to help her, I hate not knowing everything.
I am still so new to mindfullness and meditation and it's sooo hard.
The most valuable thing I have learned is something simple and obvious. I've always considered myself an overthinker, but through the books I've been reading I realize a more accurate label is Story teller.
That's me. I am the queen of story telling. My brain is so creative and prolific. I can tell stories for hours, it's what keeps me up at night, it's what makes me miserable. Because it's hardwired in all of us to write the worst stories, we gravitate to them, it's what has saved our lives since cave man times. We must anticipate danger to stay alive. Happy stories aren't helpful. I am slowly learning to recognize when I start to tell a story and stop it, I have even been able to change the story to a completely different perspective.
I can use work as an example. I was only scheduled one day (instead of the 3 I request) and it wasn't even doing my job, it was cashiering. I am never scheduled to cashier. I told myself a million stories about why this happened-- they don't like me, they would rather I not be there, they are punishing me for some unknown wrong and then I stopped and started telling other stories---they were giving me a break because I had been scheduled 4 long shifts in a row or they thought I would like a break...but these, too, were stories. So I decided to go to the source and just flat out ask. And guess what? It was a mistake, a complete oversight. That's it.
The best part of this is that it reinforced what I already knew, I was telling myself stories with zero basis in fact. Making it easier to remind myself the next time that I was just storytelling.
And that's where I am now. I have NO IDEA what's going to happen with my mom. Everything in my brain is just a story...the bad and the good. I am not a psychic and I have no idea what is going to happen, next week or next month or next year. I have to live in this moment right now and stop my brain when it wants to tell me a story. But have you met me?? IT'S REALLY FUCKING HARD TO DO!!
So here I am back to being scared but not for my health, for my mom's and that's so much harder.
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