define luxury...

It's tiring having a "job" to get up for and do every day. How do y'all do it? :)

I haven't had a schedule in so many years, getting used to going to the day program every day is tiring me out. It's also pretty heavy work, emotionally, so that also factors into it.

It's very interesting. I mean, this is it. This is what I've needed for many, many years. Almost all my life. It took a crisis to get here, but doesn't it usually happen that way? At least with trauma it does. I have tried other trauma therapies before, to a lesser or greater success, but this, what I am doing at the day center at the psych hospital, this is the road I need.

We are still in early stages, of course. We are deciding what and how to proceed. It has to be handled right. It's like needing a root canal on an infected tooth; you have to take down the infection carefully first, then proceed gently to do the root canal. This trauma that has been stuck inside me for most of my life wants to come out, but if it's not done right, if it's not unpacked properly, I'll be left with more of a mess in my soul then there was beforehand. I need to learn tools of how to deal with it. How to deal with the flashbacks I get very regularly these days, how to deal with the hard, hard feelings that surround the trauma, and basically I have to learn how to keep myself safe before we go unpacking anything. That process began when I went into the ward at the psych hospital over a month ago, just with figuring out what medicines will get me to sleep safely, and keep me from freaking out during the day (dealing with flashbacks is not for sissies).

I am now sleeping well every night, Thank The Good Lord!! It's truly amazing. The medicines I am on are not addictive, and I can take less or more according to timing, and how I feel. It is really a miracle for me to be sleeping well. For such a long time I didn't have that. And I have the hope that it won't be forever; that these medicines can be cut out of my life when I feel I'm ready. But I'm nowhere near ready now. It's good the way it is.

The psychiatrist at the day center wants to switch the type of Cannabis I have been using (which I haven't used much, because, miraculously, my migraines have *drastically* gone down). She wants me to be regulated with a different type, one that will calm the nervous system but not stone me. The one I have now stones me, but works for pain. This is part of the "laying the groundwork" for my work in CPTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress disorder). It is a safety measure of sorts. It will help me stay calm and continue living sanely in the world when I open up and dump out that Pandora's box which was sealed tight for so long. At the moment, I start tearing up immediately as soon as we approach anything to do with that trauma. So, it's all a process. I have to get the new type of Cannabis, try it out, go slowly with the therapy (which is twice a week).

I am still working with my counselor who I was working with before any of this started. He's the one who Robert & I started seeing last year in the middle of my abdominal pain crisis. With all the meetings we've done with him with various members of our family, or just Robert & I many times, at this point the work with him is pretty much just me & him, also twice a week. The day center isn't so happy that I have an outside psychotherapist, but I've told them I do not agree to cut him out of my life. I trust him completely, and have a good thing going together with him with the therapy. I can't be expected to automatically trust whoever they give me, and lay it all out there in a new setting. So for now, until I feel the need to change (if I'll feel that), he's still in the picture, too. The day program is only for three or four months, then I'll go on to either this organization called Inbal (free therapy for women sexual abuse survivors, but again, another new person), or just keep going with this counselor-psychotherapist- who I have known for quite some time and have excellent trust with.

Point is... it's getting worked on. It's a relief, even though I'm not even into the process yet, it's a relief that I am not suffering from keeping it all inside anymore. I really wonder if my migraines were attached to this trauma. Since I went into the psych hospital, I've had ONE (count them- one) semi-bad migraine. That's IT. Down from two to three a week. Of course, I've drastically changed my diet as well, so it could also have been the gluten, the dairy, or the night-shade vegetables that were giving me the migraines.

I finally feel like I am getting to a stage in my life where I'll move... out of health problems and...well... away from the inability to move on. Not that the health problems have disappeared, I still have some important decisions to make about the reconstruction surgery, and a few other issues, but I don't feel that I'm stuck anymore. I didn't even realize how stuck I felt, until I realize how *this* feels. And my chronic pain is way down. If you remember where I was at this time last year, I was a wreck, with the horrendous abdominal pain, and deep, deep depression. I also haven't written my book in about a year. Now, I feel ready to start up again. I think I was stuck with my writing the book because I was stuck with the trauma. It is integrally related to my NF experiences, I just couldn't write about it. Now, somehow, I feel I can start writing around the trauma from childhood, saying enough so readers will understand, but without unnecessary (and possibly triggering) details.

And I am talking with my therapists about my horn playing too. That's also been stuck. My hope is that it won't stay stuck. I have to work on my perfectionism with the horn playing, and to go easier on myself, and maybe, just maybe, me & my horn can reach a compromise. I'm dying to play again. They are so supportive at the day clinic, I think I will get there. I am amazed at how life feels with this level of support; it's really kind of a luxury. For me it came from a hard crisis, and it's necessary, but from a sideline point-of-view, it's a luxury that I have this much support to work on these issues finally.

The Hebrew prayer for someone to have their health restored to them includes blessing them with healing for their body, and healing for their soul. The two components are on the same level. I've had tremendous challenges for my body to be healthy for the past 11 years, and now, by some miracle (and well-placed steroid shots) those challenges are quite a bit fewer, thank G-d. Now it's time to work on my soul healing. And I'm so grateful for this time. I'm grateful to be given the open opportunity to heal my old wounds, old traumas, which are still very much alive in me. The people in my group at the hospital are all dealing with PTSD from different things. I'm connecting with a few of the girls. I'm the second to oldest person in the group, most are quite a bit younger, unmarried. A soldier with very hard PTSD from his army time, other men who I haven't spoken to yet, but I mostly stick with the girls.

We are doing art therapy, yoga & movement, nutrition, music therapy, and a few others.
It's a very special program with some very caring people. I pray I'm off to a good start. Where this will lead me, only G-d knows. But it's a gift. A precious gift, born out of desperation and much hardship.

I don't know when the tide will turn, when I start doing the real work on the CPTSD and the traumas themselves, if I'll still feel so grateful, but hopefully that will be fleeting and dealt with properly, and I will come out healthier than I ever was before. Please G-d.

troubling times

I'm still here.

Not writing much because I have no new news, which can sometimes be OK, but in the middle of a PTSD relapse (which started about two weeks ago, I wrote about it in my last blog entry) it's not so OK. I have been externally mostly functioning, but internally not. That can only go on for so long... especially when I'm not sleeping much. The sleeping problems are a direct reflection of the PTSD.

It's actually come to my attention recently that I probably fall under the category of "complex PTSD", or C-PTSD.
I am seeking help for it. It may be another three weeks before I get an appointment with who I feel can help me the best, but that is 'the system'. Three weeks is good, actually. I spoke to that therapist today, after not receiving an answer to my email I sent about 5 days ago. So I need to go through the process of getting the referral and payment from the HMO, sending it to the therapist's office, etc. But just know I'm not just sitting around letting it eat me away.

I've started the four MRI's that have been ordered-- two by the NY surgeon who may be doing the reconstruction surgery (if I choose to do it), and two by the pain doctor here in Israel to try to diagnose why I was in such pain in my abdomen most of last year. I had the first of the series a few nights ago-- yeah, night. Didn't get into bed finally until almost 1am. It was a very loud, very long one. Loud because they only gave me one set of ear phones, not the foam ones to go under those. It wasn't enough (especially when you're already suffering PTSD). It was like I was in the car with the alarm going off constantly, and a jack-hammer at the sidewalk next to me, and an alien abduction all at the same time. And it was long-- longer than usual (remember, I must have already had at least 30 MRI's in my life, maybe more). It was for neck & spine. In the middle of the test, the machinery stopped, I thought (hoped) we were done. But no, the technician came in to tell me that he's sorry, he needs a small break for a technicality, he'll be back soon. I don't know if he needed the bathroom, or whatever, he said it was a technical problem. All I know is that was at least 10 minutes of me not being able to move my body into any comfortable position without the test going on. I was stuck in the white tube. He came back and all the noise started up again... he said he had to redo the test from the beginning, he's sorry. Annoying. But at least it was without the contrast dye, so I didn't feel sick to my stomach and headachey afterward.

Waiting on results from that.

Fighting another migraine today.... they are happening frequently, but not at the strength that they used to be when Robert would take me to the hospital, vomiting, and nearly blinded. But it's so frequent, it gets me down. I went to a wedding the other night... my first public party in over two years because of being in the years of mourning, first for my mom, then my dad. The wedding was fun, but I had a budding migraine beforehand. I had to decide whether to drug myself up and try to go, or slip into bed and do stronger medications and call it a day. I compromised-- I did mildly strong medications (I was driving), and got gussied up (even put on make-up!) and went. It was a good decision.

But it's hard to get back into the public world after over two years of mourning. I have such mixed feelings about it. I miss my daddy tremendously. Tremendously. This time last year we were sitting shiva for him, in the house I grew up in, which no longer is in the family. Thanksgiving came and went last year, even though I was technically in America, there was nothing to celebrate.

Lately I'm just not feeling well, in general. It's physical as much as emotional. We're experiencing some very trying times with one of our children, and that weighs heavily on me as well. I pray our counselor can help navigate us through what is for me very murky waters. That, together with my physical limitations and constant pain, well, sometimes it all comes together in a not very elegant picture.

Oh, I'll end with this thing that has been sticking in my head this past week, although really not at all contributing to my PTSD thankfully. Just a heavy thing that is on my mind.
Most of you know about the bandage-ripping-off trauma I suffered at the hands of my plastic surgeon when I had the skin graft surgery for NF, right? I'll reprint here for you the CaringBridge post Robert wrote about that immediately after it happened:


Sunday, May 20, 2007 4:04:00 PM


Today's news is very positive, though there's much to talk about. But first just this: Sarah is coming home tomorrow!!! We are so excited and thankful, and also a bit apprehensive. But mostly, we're just thankful: thankful to HaShem, to the Soroka medical staff, and to all the family members and friends who have supported us throughout this ordeal. With that thanks given, I do want to share the ordeal we had just this morning, if only to underscore how even with great progress there is still a lot of hard work and pain ahead. The day started with two instances of classic hospital insensitivity to patient pain, a topic which in my opinion deserves appropriate legislation vis a vis patient rights. This morning the doctors woke Sarah up and removed her donor leg bandages and the debridement wound bandage in order to inspect the progress and teach interns. Unfortunately, they were quite callous, not administering any pain killers after a night of sleeping, and not warning her of the impending intense pain. Just afterwards, Sarah called me in pain and in a desperate mood, and I got out as fast as one can with a toddler and baby to feed and dress (and bathe after a diaper blowout!) and drop off at their respective child carers. When I got there, Sarah was still in a lot of discomfort, but after about half an hour, she was ready to eat a little, take her antibiotics, and then shower before having her staples (used to reinforce the grafted skin) removed. We were worried about that procedure, but the attending nurse did an excellent job, patiently and caringly extracting some 89 staples in about 15 minutes. Only a handful caused pain (Sarah is mostly numb there as most of the nerves have been cut), and even that pain, though strong, passed within 10 seconds. Now it was time to put on the new dressings. Unfortunately, the aforementioned callous doctors left the donor leg with the bandages strewn across the wound, and so they got stuck, making it impossible for Sarah to stand up without acute pain from the pull of the dangling bandages. She eventually managed to get up briefly and transfer to a wheelchair, and thusly was she showered. That went OK. But then nobody warned her that the first dressing change for the donor leg burns for about 30 minutes like "a blow torch being waved up and down" the length of the wound, as Sarah described it. Narcotics take about that long to kick in, so the Percocet she then received on request couldn't rescue her from the intense suffering she had to endure. Why isn't there a standard procedure in the plastic surgery ward to administer a narcotic 30 minutes before bandage changes, just like in Surgical Ward A at the same hospital?? I posed this question, perhaps a bit more diplomatically, to Sarah's surgeon, and he shrugged in a "hmmm, that's not a half-bad idea" kind of way. Hopefully they'll institute that policy in the future. Anyway, Sarah's is doing much better now, and after a visit from an acquaintance who also got necrotizing fasciitis after a hernia surgery at Soroka (in 1994/different surgeon), has overcome her apprehension about coping at home. The 1994 NF victim lost all of his lower stomach muscles and part of his lower chest, was hospitalized for a longer period, and then on top of all that contracted bacterial meningitis, damaging his right hemisphere and leaving him with left-side paralysis. After 3 months in Soroka, and 6 months in the Loewenstein Rehabilitation Hospital in Raanana, he recovered full use of his left side, and is active and healthy today. Sarah learned a lot from this story, and especially that she's fortunate to have not had more damage, and that she should mimimize her risk of infection by coming home tomorrow, even if it means not having nurses and doctors on-call around the clock. And then there's Hilary, Sarah's midwife-nurse friend, who'll be helping us with checking and dressing the wounds. So we'll be fine. G-d willing, tomorrow I'll post a description of Sarah's homecoming!!! L'hitra'ot, Robert


It turned into a huge trauma that I had to work on (Shuli, you helped me through that with EMDR! Do you remember?). Having that bandage ripped off, the whole scene and details around it were very, very traumatic. I hated the plastic surgeon for that.

So, this weekend, my friend Hedva told me something very shocking that happened in July with him, and I hadn't heard of it. Here that is: https://www.timesofisrael.com/senior-plastic-surgeon-kills-himself-in-soroka-operating-room/

That was my surgeon... so, maybe he wasn't playing with a full deck the whole time?
I feel bad for his wife and two kids.

There but for the grace of G-d go I.

The present, the past, and the passed (away)...

I don't want to tempt the evil eye here, but it's looking like I may be over the hardest part of this weaning process. I did have to go back to the hospital on Saturday night, with a killer migraine, though. That was the last migraine I've had (but it's only Tuesday). I had to go to the ER because I had no medicines to help with the migraine. It got really, really bad again Saturday night. This time, there was a neurologist on duty in the ER, and he made a plan about how to "break the cycle" of migraines and rebound headaches. They gave me a choice to be hospitalized again, but I didn't need that, they gave me what I needed to stop the pain. More importantly, I have some meds to deal with it if it happens again. They aren't great medicines for me, but it'll get the pain down without putting the medicines into my body that I just got off of. We still have a lot to do to figure out if there is a known cause of the migraines, but whether or not we figure that out, the fact remains that I have to manage them when they happen. I'll see my neurologist next week, and probably have an MRI... which could take a while in this country.

Currently, we're counting two and a half days with no headache.

To make matters a little more (but not terribly more) complicated, the company which is supposed to deliver my medicinal Cannabis messed up my order, and I am now completely out of CBD until next week, if I want it delivered to my house. I can get it earlier if I want to travel into Tel Aviv to get it, but of course, that could very well cause a migraine (especially in the present heat wave- high yesterday hit 111F!!). So, now I get to see if I have a withdrawal from *that*. So far, I haven't. Interesting, right? I just had to stop taking it, cold turkey since Sunday, and no withdrawal symptoms. I don't know where I stand on the whole issue of the Cannabis.... it never helped my headaches, and I felt that I am just needlessly putting another medicine into my body which I have to keep up with and spend money on. And my body is so clearly telling me to get off everything, I have allergies to a ton of medicines. I actually need two red bracelets when I am in the hospital because one doesn't have enough space for all my allergies. I feel that I need to try to clear my system of it all. It's NINE years now since I had NF. Now is the anniversary. I've been on and off many, many medicines over these years. I feel that it would be not just a physical freedom to be off of them, but an emotional one, also. In a big way. That is, at least as many of them that are wise to get off of. So do I need the Cannabis? I haven't gotten off sleeping pills yet, that is my next hurdle (but not at least for a few months. I am hardly stable yet from the migraines). Maybe it'd be good to have the Cannabis to help that weaning, but then, well... then I am on Cannabis. But maybe Cannabis can be the absolute last thing I'll go off of? Question is, how much is it helping me? It's the first time I've ever gone off a medicine cold-turkey and not had a withdrawal. I was on it for about a month. Well, I'll get the delivery on Monday. I'll take it for the next month. One thing at a time. It does help me sleep, actually.

Thanks for thinking this all out with me. I'm getting there.

I'm getting there.

Next Thursday is the anniversary of when I woke up from the coma. It's the holiday of “Lag b'Omer”, traditionally for me a day mixed with gratitude, sorrow, pain, and yes, trauma. All I have to do is picture me back there, and picture how it felt when I first saw my body after NF ravaged it, and hundreds of different flashbacks come flooding in. I choose not to dwell on them, and am grateful that I have that choice now. One cannot always choose when to open the gate to trauma and when to keep it closed. I worked hard for that choice.

This year I have a special event that will help change the face of the holiday for me... the Elton John concert! The gift from so many of my friends who have seen me through all this, through thick and thin... it is no coincidence that it is on Lag B'omer. It's another “tikun”... a repair for the damage done in the past.

(did I tell you that my friends also collected enough for a pre-concert dinner? I am sooooo excited!!!)

And also no coincidence, the concert is after my neurologist appointment, on the same day. Please Gd, my brain nerves will cooperate with my plans for the day.

It's all good. It's all about repair.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Update, on Wednesday:

Headache.

First major-ish one since Saturday night. I took the steroids that hopefully will help soon, and I have another line of pain management as well, but not ideal for me.

I had the beginnings of this headache yesterday, but it didn't grow bigger... I didn't take anything for it, and used my meditation recording to go to sleep. Tonight it grew bigger. :(

Not at epic levels, but it makes me so nervous, which of course makes pain higher.

This update also includes some very sad news: Robert's aunt, who was really an aunt to us all, passed away this morning. She had been sick, and we expected it was going to happen, and she went quietly in her sleep, at the ripe old age of one-month-short-of-her-90th-birthday. We were planning a trip to NY to celebrate her 90th birthday with her next month.

Now Robert is on his way to the US for her funeral. His aunt Ahuvah (his mother's sister) was a very major part of the family. In many ways a matriarch, although she never had kids of her own. My kids are very sad about her passing, and that they hadn't seen her for over two years (except Shifra & I, who saw her when we were in America in August). She is the last one of her immediate family.

Tonight, as we were walking the dog, Azriel asked me "what if, Gd forbid, you get sick while abba is gone?" It was a poignant question. Just last week I was in the hospital. My unspoken words were that I am nervous of that, too. They depend on Robert for the backbone of the family. I can very much be that, also, but things are much more fragile with me. Let's hope things will be stable. I am strengthened knowing I have a tremendous loving, caring community, and many friends surrounding me. Everything's going to be OK. Whatever OK means at any given moment.

Sweet potato salad, with a side of relapse

It took a long time before my dear friend Miriam and I could find a time to have a "date" together. Life is so busy, it's a rare opportunity when it comes around.

We went to a cafe in a mall. It was *packed*... something we didn't expect. It was the day before the fast of Esther (two days before Purim), and all the high school kids were dressed up in costumes, as is the custom for Purim, and that mall was apparently the place to be seen. And what a scene it was... cupids, zombies (complete with fake blood), pirates, prisoners, an eerie fellow wearing a mask of "The Scream" (by Edvard Munch), Goldilocks, and yes, even street walkers (how do their mothers let them out of the house like that??!!). I'm telling you, it was strange, mostly because, even though Miriam and I both are raising teenagers, we didn't know that this is the thing to do. Our kids didn't do the "hang out in costume at the mall" thing. It caught us off-guard. And it was so *loud*! But since our time together is so limited, we decided to take a table at the cafe anyway (instead of relocating), and order our lunch. At one point I got a call from Robert, and I actually had to go into the elevator corridor so I could hear him, it was that loud.

Near the end of our meal, we suddenly see and hear costumed teens at the top of the nearby escalator running and screaming. We had no idea what was going on. I thought it was some sort of Purim prank (weird things happen all over this country around Purim, expect the unexpected). But, like an ink spill, people all over the mall were also beginning to panic and head for the exits. Rumors using the word "terrorist" could be heard, yet nobody around us knew what was going on. We obviously got up and headed for an exit as well. I instinctively reached out for Miriam's hand, I was getting a bit freaked out. Holding hands, we decided to wait for the elevator (where minutes before I was calmly talking to Robert on the phone), because everyone was crowding the escalator.

As we waited for the elevator, people were scattering all over; some panicked, some bewildered, most were worried. The absolute strangest thing? That these were also all sizes and forms of people in costumes... there were teens running around with fake blood on them, a guy dressed all in black holding a long knife/sword thing, and girl/hookers. The only word to describe it is SURREAL.
Was there a knifing? Is the terrorist running free? Is anyone hurt? Nobody knew anything.
While waiting for the elevator, we heard what, to me, sounded like a gun shot. I lived in Manhattan on the edge of Harlem in 1991, I knew what gun shots sounded like.

We were all alarmed. Well, Miriam was pretty calm. I wouldn't let go of her hand, though.

Eventually, within 10 minutes, the entire contents of the crowded mall spilled out into the parking lot. On the way out I asked the security guard if he had any information, and he also didn't.
People (teens mostly) were crying, shocked, and traumatized out there waiting around in the parking lot. And all the costumes and elaborately made-up faces.... it was like out of a Fellini movie. I, personally wondered if a terrorist with a knife was going to run out in our direction at any moment.

Miriam asked me if I'm OK. I said yeah.
A few minutes later I said "...actually, Mir? I'm not so OK".

We made our way to the car amidst the sounds sirens, police on their way. We didn't see an ambulance, so we hoped that was a good sign.

We got into my car, and I kept pressing the code pad on the dashboard with the code I was sure was right. I have driven that car for four years, I *know* the code. But in my shock, I didn't remember it. I called Robert to ask him the code. He was surprised, but I didn't want to startle him and tell him what was going on (and we still didn't really know what was going on). He told me the code, and we weaved our way past police cars to get out of the overloaded parking lot, to the exit.

As we exited, we heard two huge booms.
Me to Miriam: "did you hear that"?
Miriam: "yes. Let's not jump to conclusions..."

At home, I told Robert about it all via texting with him (he was at work), but we still didn't know what, if anything happened. There were no news reports yet. I talked about it a lot in those next hours. I told my kids what had happened, I was definitely in a state of high alert, possibly a little shock in there, too.

A while later, Robert texted me to ask if I am OK, if I felt that I am over it. I wrote "yup", with no hesitation. By that time we pretty much knew that the gun shot sound was a firecracker that someone set off in the mall (very common on Purim), and that also two teens were having some sort of an altercation, maybe a knife was pulled, maybe not. The news reports were contradictory. What was clear was that nobody was hurt, and there was no terrorist, thank Gd.

I was over it.

The next day, I started feeling that cotton-heady feeling, dizzy, and like my limbs were all heavy. Incredible fatigue. It was a fast day, but after about one in the afternoon, it was clear to me that I had to break my fast. I did so, and I had hoped it would make me feel better, but it really didn't help much.

We went to the synagogue for the night of Purim. I felt awful, physically, but I got there. It was the first time I didn't go in costume... I had no energy for that.

The next day, the big, busy day of Purim, my limbs felt like anvils. I was so weak, I felt faint just walking to and from the bathroom. I didn't leave my bedroom all day, even though there was Purim going on. That was the day I wrote my last post- the one called "I'm getting lost". I didn't get to any Purim festivities, including our traditional community feast, which I have *never* missed. It was truly sad for me, and for my family to have to separate. I just could not move. Oh, and I had a migraine come for five hours, then go, in the middle of the day, as well. It 'went' because I used some heavy medicines to take myself out of my misery.

Friday was the same. A tremendously busy day, but I couldn't do anything. I did get out of my bedroom, but again, my limbs felt heavy, and I was so weak that my joints actually hurt coming down the stairs. That *never* happens. It was so uncharacteristic. I was convinced that something big and bad was wrong.
Thankfully for us that our guests for Shabbat actually canceled, and we (Robert) had less cooking to do.

Shabbat came, and by afternoon I was feeling much better. I went out on a walk with the kids, actually, which felt awesome, like I was breathing for the first time in three days. And just like that, I was feeling normal again.

So, what is the explanation of all this?

We'll never be sure, but, on Friday I had a conversation with my wise and intuitive sister-in-law, Rivka. She already knew the story of what had happened in the mall (as did anyone else who read my Facebook update that day). She suggested that it was a relapse of the PTSD, triggered by the mall incident. Even though, intellectually, I knew that there was no terrorist attack, for a long while there it felt like it, and that is all your parasympathetic nervous system needs to "know". PTSD is like an instinct, once a person has had it, it comes back when the primitive part of the brain stem gets activated by trauma.

What strengthens this hypothesis more is that the day after my conversation with Rivka was when I started to feel the fog lift. What I know from physical responses to emotional triggers (a whole book in and of itself) is that once the person names the emotional problem that triggered the physical response, the physical response no longer has the need to be there. In my history, I have had a certain chronic back pain, and I know that it happens when a certain type of stress and trauma enters my world. When I feel it, I "tell" myself the message like this: "I know what you are, back pain, I don't need to pay attention to you. I get what is going on here, this [subject] is an issue these days". And, it always goes away within a few days. If you want to learn more about this issue of physical pain being a manifestation of emotional triggers, I highly recommend the book "Mind Over Back Pain" by Dr. John Sarno. I read it in 1990, and it changed my life.

In 2007, about six months after I had NF, is when I got hit hard with PTSD. I spent three weeks in the Be'er Sheva psychiatric hospital because of it... it was *that* bad.

So it is quite possible that what happened last week after the mall incident was a relapse of the PTSD. All the symptoms lined up, hit me over the head, and then went away.

I am constantly taken aback when I learn more about the delicate and intricate network which is me, in the aftermath of being plunged into that crazy disease, Necrotizing Fasciitis. We know a lot about the revealed complications and ramifications, which this eight-year blog discusses regularly. The psychological, more hidden repercussions, however, are much more subtle because they disguise themselves as a physical malady to be grappled with. I feel as if I have been enlightened tremendously by this episode. I hope that, if it happens again, I will be able to recognize it and talk to my body, telling it that we don't need to act out emotional triggers. We can just recognize them, and let them go. And move on into health.

sexism in hospital treatment, and 10-day update

I rarely reproduce other articles here. Usually if something strikes me as interesting, or a point of reference, I'll add a link to my writing, but directing readers to an entirely different article is not a common practice for me. Having said that, *this* one deserves this space. I can so totally relate to so many aspects of it. So interesting to me to think about pain in men being seen differently than pain in women.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/emergency-room-wait-times-sexism/410515/

There is a [fairly minor] part where the author talks about retelling the traumatic story. All the people around you have heard it, possibly many times, in it's different aspects, but for you it's not over. You know you can't keep talking about it with the same people, but it still needs to be talked out and heard. That is why I started writing this blog eight years ago, actually.

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I wasn't going to write anything else for this blog entry, but as I said, the story just needs to be told. Not that there is a huge story coming or anything, but just that today is the first real downer-day (anyone remember Debbie downer? Just popped into my head. Google it if you don't know. Funny stuff!) since the surgery 10 days ago. I have been seeing very steady improvement from day to day. Today is actually the day I am going back to Tel Aviv to get the stitches out and have the first post-op check with the surgeon. And for some unknown reason, today has been awful. I am in so much pain, I even took Advil for it. I haven't taken pain meds at all with this, really. A few Advils the first few days, that's it.

Every time I get chilled (the weather is very slowly getting incrementally less hot... I hesitate to say cooler) I think a fever is coming on. It's not, but I still have the infection fear so deeply embedded in my conscience. I am past the time of post-op infections, so intellectually I know it's a pretty good guess that I am OK. But I always- I mean ALWAYS- have that lurking thing in the back of my head that wonders if This Is It. That "do I have another infection" ghost. It is my constant companion, all the more magnified after surgeries.

The pain I am having is normal, I am sure. My glute muscle is extremely sore, as is the whole length of my thigh muscle, as well as the raw-feeling joint. I know that things were cut and lots of work was done in that joint, and it's going to hurt as it heals. Until now I had been feeling improvement every day. That, to me, was extraordinary. I'm just disappointed to be in so much pain today. You can imagine. 

Another complint, if you could indulge me? It is hard to stay asleep at night- I am a side sleeper... usually right side because for eight years now the left side has been the bearer of surgeries, and is sore and off-limits to lean on. Now after surgery (as well as before to a certain extent) the right side hurts and does not let me roll onto it. I hate back sleeping, so I wake up after having turned myself over and caused myself pain- either side. I wake up tired and not wanting to get out of bed. Today I just didn't want to deal with the pain. I came back to bed after I ate. I'll get up soon to get ready to go to Tel Aviv.

It'll be OK. I know. I am just so sick of hurting, though. So. So. Sick. Of. It.

Thanks for being here for me. I don't say that often enough.