A Quick Look Into My Brain! (Buckle up!)

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The definition of Depression is as follows:

1. Severe despondency and dejection, accompanied by feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy.

2. A condition of mental disturbance, typically with lack of energy and difficulty in maintaining concentration or interest in life.

I however would describe it as a nasty snake that can creep in and wrap itself around you and it will easily consume you before you even know it is there.  This snake as I like to call it has had a major impact on my life for quite some time, now whether or not I want to admit it is a whole different story.

              Growing up mental health was not something that was talked about or even I feel accepted in my family.  If you were felt different you didn’t talk about it you didn’t go see someone you just dealt with it.  Now this may have been only my perceived impression of how it was handled, but then again this is my blog and that is how I felt!

              I think that there are many people who have a negative view of depression and that they feel that all I do is sit around my house in a robe eating and crying.  I can let you know that is not the case.  I get up I go to work everyday and I come home and spend time playing with my family but mentally I do struggle with this.  It is a challenge that I fight every day that no one sees, I wish I could let people see it because then I think that it would be understood more but sadly I can’t put a projector on my brain and let you see what is going on in there.

              It's funny in many ways how many people will say things negatively about depression without knowing that they are talking to someone who is dealing with the same illness they are talking poorly about.  It took me a while and a lot of encouragement from my wonderful wife Censie but I started seeing a therapist and it has helped.  Now it's not like walking in having an epiphany and then I am all done but it is an ongoing battle of ups and downs where there are days that I feel great and then days that I feel like total shit.  I think that having my surgery has been hard for me mentally even though I feel healthy I am still adjusting to having a bag on my stomach for the rest of my life.  So this is something that I will continually look in the face and know that it is a part of me but it is not something that will consume me for the rest of my life.  I need to be present for my children and for my family!

“Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems”
― Epictetus

The definition of Anxiety is as follows:

1   A feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.

2.  Desire to do something, typically accompanied by unease.

              Now I compared depression to a snake that wraps itself around you where now I will compare Anxiety a little pesky worm inside your brain hopped up on speed making sure that you worry about everything.  In my case I worry about pretty much everything at all times.  So lets recap I have a snake holding me down and a worm making sure that I worry about every small detail about everything.

              If you have known me for any part of my life you could probably easily see me as being a pretty anxious person.  I get really bad social anxiety at this point as well.  Some of my anxiety stems from IBD.  I would always worry about what if eat something that makes me sick, where is the bathroom, are people counting how many times I go to the bathroom, and do people think I am making myself sick?  Now I worry about is my bag going to pop off, do people think that I smell, what are people thinking about me? 

              I also have a strong desire to make everyone like me and I cannot handle thinking that people are mad at me.  My coworkers know this now about me and it has become a joke that someone is just going to come up and say they are mad at me because they know I will not be able to let it go.  I worry about how people look at me and if they are judging me or if I did something to make them upset.  I worry about what people think about how me, how I look how I act.  It's like running a sprint all the time in my brain and it can be exhausting at times. 

              Luckily Censie has stood by me through all of these challenges because my Depression and my Anxiety were exasperated these last three years in dealing with my Ulcerative Colitis. 

              I am writing this post not to get people to feel sorry for me but to make mental health more normal and show an insight into my world.  I constantly hear bad things about people with mental health or that we must be weak if we go to counseling.  I would say the opposite.  I think that it takes a ton of strength to go to someone and admit that you need help and that you need support.  I want to make sure that neither of my children ever feels bad about being down on themselves or being nervous but if it becomes a huge issue in your life then you need to go and seek out support. 

Recovery? This Is Supposed To Be Easy Right?

Recovery?

 

So I am finally getting around to writing this post.  I don't know why but this has been one of the hardest posts to write.  I think that it is because I am having to go through everything again and think about all that I went through in the hospital. 

 

Hopefully you have already read my post http://ibddaddyandme.blogspot.com/2013/02/proctocolectomy-whats-that.html about my proctocolectemy surgery.  The surgery was only supposed to last 6-7 hours, but I can never do anything as planned so I went for 9-10 hours.  After the surgery the fun began, well I guess from what I can remember.  They had to place me in ICU right after my surgery because my heart rate was going sky high.  Now this is all information that has been told to me because I DON'T REMEMBER ANY OF IT!!!!

 

So I spent the night in ICU and then the next day as well.  Censie has told me that my mother came in and was talking to me and I asked her what time it was. She told me that it was noon and I told her that People's Court was on, how did I know that and how do I not remember watching People's Court in the ICU.  The only thing that I really remember about ICU was that they finally got me a normal room.  The only problem was I was on an ICU bed so I had to move beds, remember I had only been out of surgery for about 24 hours.  Trust me there were plenty of choice words that were said while we were moving from bed to bed.

 

 

So I finally got up to my normal room and was trying to get going on everything.  The next day I started on clear liquids and was up trying to move and walk  My parents were impressed with how far I was walking right after surgery.  I thought wow we are doing well and we are going to have a smooth road ahead with this recovery, stupid brain!  I did not have that smooth road ahead sadly.  Saturday I was so excited because my kiddos were coming up to see me for the first time, after not seeing them since Wednesday morning this was going to be awesome!  Once again nothing can go as planned.  I had been working on eating clear liquid, Jude had brought me some balloons to make me feel better.  Luckily he was distracted because the clear liquids did not sit well.  I asked for a bucket but sadly no one could find one in time and I vomited all over myself. 

 

So sadly at this point we had to rush Jude out of the room at that point so I could get cleaned up and he had to go home.  Then later in the evening the right side of my face started to swell up.  So they were concerned with an infection or an abscess in my face.  All great things to think about while sitting in the hospital.  So they then had to take me down for a CT Scan on my face.  This was all fine I wanted to see what was going on but again had to change beds, and then when they were bringing me back they took me to the wrong room I had to remind them what room I was in!  So luckily it was not the scary things that we had been talking about but my saliva gland shut down, come on can I catch a break.  So at this point I was running a pretty high fever kept feeling sick to my stomach and felt pretty horrible.  I remember my mom sitting by my bed until almost midnight just holding my hand because I felt so sick.

 

So now we are to Sunday, see what I am talking about I had a great time.  Sunday was a sad day because my parents were leaving to head back home that day.  I continued to try and get up and walk so that I could do as much as possible and hopefully be able to go home as soon as possible.  The problem was that every time that I would eat something I would be sick to my stomach.  The had been giving me antibiotics as well to help with the swelling in my face and trying to get the saliva gland to start working as well.  I was told by my doctor that with these types of surgeries that the small intestine goes to sleep and has to wake up to start processing the fluids into my bag.  They were thinking that mine small intestine was still asleep, so again got up walking trying to make it wake up and start working.

 

Monday then came and I continued to try and eat items and continued to try and walk.  I was trying to be the model patient and was trying to do everything I could to make this work.  The doctors talked to me about putting in an NG tube, which is a tube that goes in through your nose and sucks all the fluid out of your stomach, fun I know but we decided not to do that yet.  However I continued to vomit and get sick to my stomach on Monday.  So then came Tuesday, I had a very small say in it but we decided to put the NG Tube in.  If you have never had an NG Tube placed please pray that you never have to have it done.  This was an experience that I never wanted to have and pray I never have to again.  So while you are awake you have a tube placed down your nose and you have to keep trying to swallow while the keep pushing.  So the problem with this is that I had a ton of fluid built up on my stomach from the prior two days with eating and drinking fluid.  So as you can imagine fluid on your stomach and being gagged does not work out well.  I feel extremely sorry for the two nurses, because I vomited twice all over them!  This was a little embarrassing.  They got it in luckily and started taking the fluid off, I felt a ton better but still shocked that this took place. 

 

So I have never shared this picture I hated it but you can see the fun of the NG tube and also the swelling in my face.

 

So the problem with an NG Tube is that you do not get to eat or drink anything while it is in.  So from Tuesday to Saturday it was pretty much the same thing. Sitting around, napping, visiting, trying to walk as much as possible, and not thinking about eating or drinking.  I was lucky though the did give me a wet washcloth to wipe the inside of my mouth out because it was so dry but they would take it away right away so that I didn't suck the water out of it.  So with having this NG Tube put in I had a PICC Line put in which is an IV but goes into a Large Vein in my chest.  The reason that this was put in was because they then gave me what they call TPN, which as my nurses tried to tell me is steak in bag.  It gave me all the nutrition that I needed. 

 

Luckily they then did allow me to start eating lemon drops so that the sour would hopefully help my saliva gland would hopefully start working.  So then they turned off the NG tube and I was allowed to start drinking items again and the best part was that my stoma started producing and my Ostomy was working!  This was awesome news because finally the whole reason we did the surgery was beginning to work!  So then on Saturday they took the NG Tube out, this was not fun either.  I got very little warning they just took the tape off and then pulled, I could not believe what just happened to me but was so thankful to have it out.  I then started eating food and then by Monday I was getting discharged from the hospital.  I am amazed at how much the NG Tube helped my healing and if I had known it was going to do that then I would have done it sooner.    So this is my story of my hospital stay but in the end it worked out well and I was able to come home with "Gustav" the stoma.  Thank you for taking the time to read this as well as every one's ongoing support!