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Our physical symptoms are talked about every day all day, there are multiple diagnostic and lab tests that our doctors dissect at every appointment. There is usually one question directed towards your mental health when you check-in for an appointment. A nurse will ask you “Have you had any suicidal thoughts?” That’s it.
I wish they would worry more about our mental well being as well as our physical symptoms. I wish that doctors would send patients to a therapist as soon as they are diagnosed. Being diagnosed with a life long chronic illness is life-changing and overwhelming.
I’ve reached out for help a few times over the years, but I had to seek that help and I’m glad I did. But I wish I didn’t have to. It would have been easier if it was offered to me in the first place or if someone recognized that I needed help beyond my physical symptoms.
This past year was rough. I suffered my first ever panic attack and it was terrifying. I had recovered from my surgery but ended up back in the hospital with an abscess and then when I recovered from that, I was readmitted the next day with another abscess. It was never-ending and depressing.
On about Day 16 of this abscess saga, I was in my hospital room at night. Kevin had gone home for the night and my night nurse was starting my TPN treatment. It was around 10 or 11 p.m. Not too long after my infusion began, I felt like something was wrong. I couldn’t really put it into words. My nurse walked back into the room and I told her something was not right.
She was immediately attentive to my concerns especially when I couldn’t explain why I felt that way. Also, this was my first night with this nurse, so she didn’t really know me that well. Within a few minutes, I felt this tightness in my chest and I was very short of breath, I couldn’t take a deep breath. I was agitated and told my nurse I can’t breathe! Of course, I know that if you’re talking you can breathe. My nurse put the oxygen on me and started measuring my vitals.
Within minutes there were multiple people in the room. All there to do different tasks, EKG, lab work, chest x-ray, etc. My nurse had called a Rapid Response, which is about a level below a Code Blue.
I was profusely sweating, dripping wet. My nurse kept wiping off the sweat, so my distress was visible. All the tests were coming back normal. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that all of a sudden I was going to stop breathing and no one was going to be able to do anything about it. Which was completely irrational. I was surrounded by medical professionals with life resuscitating equipment. If I was going to stop breathing I was in the right place.
Within about 20 minutes my breathing calmed down and my nurse called Kevin for me, I couldn’t talk the way I was breathing. I told my nurse I didn’t want to be by myself and she said she wouldn’t leave me until Kevin got there. After a heart attack was ruled out, they considered the idea that it could have been an allergic reaction to something and gave me diphenhydramine as a precaution but by the following day, it was decided that I had suffered from a panic attack.
It was one of the scariest things I have ever been through and I’ve actually almost died, but those times were more just physically grueling. This was mentally exhausting and scary. The next day I was transferred to a University hospital because my doctor recommended it and said I needed to go where they specialize in Crohn’s Disease and have resources that he couldn’t access. By the time I got there I was crying at random times throughout the day. When my new doctors came to meet me, I told them I needed to meet with someone from Psych.
I met with a Psychologist and he prescribed some anti-depressants for me, which did really help me. However, they never followed up with me. They never once came back to check on me. I was there for another three weeks.
It’s okay not to be okay and it’s okay to ask for help. I just wish that it was offered more often so we didn’t have to ask because not everyone is going to raise their hand and say I need help. I’ve learned a lot over the last twenty years and I know I have to stick up for myself, but a patient that was diagnosed today may not know that yet and probably will need that extra help.