A little about me

[justmes]

Hi,
I've been online for a while looking for stories or personal accounts of people actually in therapy for different reasons. Specifically for medical/surgical trauma and I really haven't found any. So I kind of thought that I couldn't possibly be the only person who has experienced major surgical trauma and needed to seek treatment for that trauma...so I decided to join the forum. I had 3 major surgeries within a very short time frame without anestesia, completely awake, totally not by choice. After the first time I needed to force myself to have the second surgery exactly one month later and I found that I couldn't make myself do it. I was referred to a trauma therapist and think I went for a brief time before my second surgery. The third surgery was horrific, I cannot even begin to describe, but I came through it. In the past few months I thought that I had "gotten over it", and then this past week I had one of the worst flashbacks that i have ever experienced (wound up curled up in a ball and sobbing on the floor in my office) and continue with nightmares. So I decided that I need to re-enter treatment. I'm big into privacy and pay cash for my treatment so as not to have a record of it with my insurance company, which is a little excessive, I know, but I would like to heal privately. I think that my last treatment episode included EMDR and I'm pretty sure that it was successful.
looking forward to hearing from others with similar experiences

 

[Andy]

Welcome to Psychlinks Justmes:2thumbs:

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Welcome to Psychlinks, justmes.

Why on earth did you need to have major surgery without anesthesia?

 

[justmes]

I had to have surgery on my heart and it was necessary to do so with it beating 'normally' and without anything that might prevent my heart from reacting as it had been. What was explained to me was that with my condition (which is apparently rare) using anesthesia, or any significant amounts of anti anxiety meds slow the heart rhythm and would prevent the surgeon from fixing my heart. They didn't crack my sternum, thankfully, but went through my ribs from the side, under my breast and through the femoral arteries from my legs. It sounds a bit convoluted, I know. Most people that go through these surgeries are sedated, either with general anesthesia or with conscious sedation, but mostly sleeping, but because of what needed to be fixed and where it was located the surgeon just kept apologizing and saying that there was no other way to do it.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Yikes! No wonder you have anxieties...