Almost Wordless Wednesday: Butterflies

First, choose from the options that thrill you.

Then, choose the ones that also teach you.

And from these, choose the scariest.

Butterflies in your tummy are a good thing,



The Universe

...and Save My Sanity

Image by wadem via Flickr

So yesterday I talked about my fear of death and the "death realization" episodes that seem to occur as I fall asleep. I shared that I had an insight, where I realized that these episode might be the result of my multiple physical health problems and NOT the effects of psychological trauma from my cancer experience. I admitted that I might have put the cart before the horse.

So here is the thing:

I've known for a while that my dysautonomia causes tachycardia or fast heart beating. I've noticed that episodes of fast heart beats happened to me at any time and in any place. That includes when I am in bed. When I started taking a beta-blocker back in 2007, one of the first things I noticed was that I was no longer getting woken up in the middle of the night from tachycardia.

More recently, my doctor prescribed for me the synthetic marijuana drug Cesamet for my fibromyalgia pain. Unfortunately, I was only able to take one dose because of one major side effect: my old nemesis, tachycardia. The drug really helped my muscles relax and made me sleepy, but after what seemed like a few minutes of sleep I awoke with shortness of breath and then realized my heart was pounding.

You see, when your heart is racing, it gets kind of hard to breath. I learned all about this heart rate/shortness of breath connection in the hospital at the end of my failed attempt at Hepatitis C treatment in September, 2007. They actually thought I had had a heart attack because of these symptoms. That hospitalization lead to my doctors starting to treat my dysautonomia symptoms with a beta-blocker.

Granted, I tried Cesamet a few weeks ago, but I guess I needed that time to percolate this insight:

• Dysautonomia > since 1988 > a late effect from my cancer treatment (my chronic Hepatitis C infection may also be a co-contributor) = tachycardia at any time or place

• Tachycardia (especially when it is bad) = shortness of breath

• Fibromyalgia > since 2004 > makes my dysautonomia symptoms worse
  (interesting factiod: one of the first things my rheumatologist did was send me for a test that definitively diagnosed my dysautonomia, but then he left it unaddressed & untreated)

• Sleep apnea > diagnosed in 2006 > an associated condition with fibromyalgia
  
  so now I am forgetting to breath at night = tachycardia

• So tachycardia since 1988 and sleep apnea starting in 2004 = disrupts sleep, wakes me up, makes me feeling shaky = I panic & I think I am dying = the prefect recipe for creating a death phobia

But then here is the missing puzzle piece: dysautonomia, et al. can cause this chain reaction WHILE I AM FALLING ASLEEP.

I don't know how I missed this last little piece, but it fits with the "death realization" episodes I've been having since my cancer experience. The fibromyalgia and sleep apnea are just making everything worse since 2004, which is only reinforcing the whole death phobia thing even more. Oh, and add in that another medication I tried a few months back for my fibromyalgia, Topomax, that actually gave me full blown panic attacks as a side effect, and now I am being reduced to neurotic mess.

Fabulous!

I cannot say this enough: you can't be diagnosed with mental health problems without ruling out all physical problems first. If there are physical problems, the association between the physical and the mental needs to be emphasized: panic symptoms secondary to dysautonomia. In a prefect world, everyone would realize that dismissing real, physical symptoms and labeling them "depression" or "anxiety" ignores my true health problems.

I'm not crazy, I'm sick. For me, knowing this is an instant sanity check. Sure, I might still be afraid of dying, but thanks to finally getting treatment for my dysautonomia and sleep apnea, I won't actually be dying in bed anytime soon.

I bet my husband is glad to hear that!

The Best Insight I Had As a Kid

Image by hyperboreal via Flickr

Did you miss me yesterday? I needed the time to recover from my MRI experience on Tuesday. For some reason, I felt way more exhausted Wednesday, perhaps from the combination of the stress of the procedure, the added pain in my left arm from the contrast material being injected into the wrong place and the mild sedative I took to calm myself down before the procedure. But I got good news today, so in the end everything worked out and I am glad the experience is over.

Now for today's post:

I'm not sure what got me thinking about this lately, but I admit this memory from my childhood brings both a smile to my face and a feeling in my heart akin to amazement mixed with appreciation.

As I kid I attended Catholic school. Using class time to study religion is part of going to a religion-affiliated school. My husband, who is a proud graduate from the public school system, initially was unaware of this fact. After informing him of this fact, he often comments when I don't know something he does that, "It is because you went to Catholic school and were studying religion when you should have been studying _____."

There might be some truth to that comment, but I am getting sidetracked here...

I remember when my class was preparing for First Communion back when we were in 2nd grade. We used a book called a catechism, a collection of all the prayers and other information we needed to learn before we could receive First Communion. After learning my three options for the afterlife, Heaven, Hell and Purgatory, I decided at age 7 that I wanted to to go to purgatory. To this day I am not sure why or how I came to this conclusion, but at age 7 I knew that the older I got, the more sins I would commit. I knew I could not be perfect in this life, so purgatory seemed like the reasonable goal for my afterlife.

Perhaps I should stop here an provide the official definition of purgatory (from The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church):

What is purgatory?

Purgatory is the state of those who die in God’s friendship, assured of their eternal salvation, but who still have need of purification to enter into the happiness of heaven.

How can we help the souls being purified in purgatory?

Because of the communion of saints, the faithful who are still pilgrims on earth are able to help the souls in purgatory by offering prayers in suffrage for them, especially the Eucharistic sacrifice. They also help them by almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance.

One of the things I also noticed in parentheses after each prayer in the catechism was how many years you would get off your stay in purgatory by saying each prayer. So guess what I did during my whole year in the second grade? I said as many prayers as I could so I could get out of purgatory early. I didn't just rattle them off in my head as fast I could. No, I remember distinctly concentrating and really meaning every word of each prayer I said.

Now I am not sure if modern catechisms still have the same format. In fact I am pretty sure they do not. After all, when I attended Catholic school purgatory still existed. According to Pope Benedict the XVI in a communique back in 2007, purgatory and limbo no longer exist.

I guess it's now Heaven or Hell for me, no in between. Which is too bad, because as an adult I learned that life can be very complicated. In this modern world it is not always so clear what is right and wrong, black and white, good or sinful like the catechism and Catholic school taught me. The older I get, the more and more I realize that purgatory really is the most practical goal for the afterlife.

I am grateful to my 7 year old self for establishing this fact early on in my life.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Pope Tells Priests: Go Forth and Blog (minx.cc)
• Some Catholic stats and surprises... Fr. Z rants (wdtprs.com)
• 'We are never alone,' Pope exclaims on All Saints Day (catholicnewsagency.com)
• Holy Communion (catholicsview.wordpress.com)