feeling frumpy and overwhelmed by crybaby syndrome
just got a st. jude pm/defib on the 12th under the muscle. had a rough time at the hospital but managed to keep up a sense of humor. had a good couple days of recovery but today i just bonked. maybe the emotional piece just caught up with me? i feel so so sad. couldn't stop crying at the pacer clinic w/ the nurse and the st. jude rep during my appt today. usually have much more of a sense of humor but it hit me last night when i could feel the pacer--been having violent dreams and feel like i should apologize to my heart for making it work so hard by beating 20 more bpm than normal.
any one have good advice for staving off cry-baby syndrome? I feel like i want to melt into an electrified pile of tears.
14 Comments
and one day I will know to proofread
by COBradyBunch - 2010-05-17 07:05:42
I hate it when I to and too incorrectly...
Been there, done that, got the medi-alert dog tag
by COBradyBunch - 2010-05-17 07:05:51
I have been there. One thing I figured out is that, especially if you were (and will be again, trust me) an active individual who was otherwise considered healthy before being told you need one of these damn things is that you are going to go through the stages of grief just like if you lost a loved one (you did... you lost the idea you were immortal). Just go with it, let yourself get through it and understand you will need to deal with each step. Shock and Denial at first (this can't be happening to me, I really don't nee a PM), Pain and Guilt next (why did this happen to me, I did something wrong, I did this to myself)
Anger and Bargaining (pissed off at the world, your doc, yourself and then telling the doc he can take it out when your heart gets better), depression, reflection, loneliness (this was the hardest stage for me... I just felt alone and depressed, but it is also one that you have the most control over... get out and do things, anything and you will begin to get better), THE UPWARD TURN - you turn the corner... you see light at the end of the tunnel but you aren't quite out of it yet, reconstruction, working out your new life, getting your settings right, getting your medic alert bracelet or dog tags... rebuilding, acceptance and hope... You have a pacemaker, it will let you live your life and sometimes to the better (and in my case safer, no more unscheduled heart naps) and it is time to get on with life.
Hope this helps... it isn't easy, don't let anyone tell you it is... but you WILL get through it. Use us, your friends, your dog, the out of doors anything that makes you happy, makes you smile, lets you cry... lean on what you have to to get through this and you will come out the other side stronger, happier and in a lot of cases with a greater appreciation of what you have.
Hope This Helps......
by Pookie - 2010-05-17 08:05:51
Hi Crumbcake....I posted this over a year ago, but hopefully it might help:
Heart Disease & Depression
Posted by Pookie on 2009-04-16 23:12
If only my doctors at the beginng of my pacemaker journey would have taken the FEW minutes it would have taken to explain that SOME pacemaker and defib patients MIGHT experience stress, anxiety and depression, I would have felt a lot better during my first 2 years.
I went through the hardest time of my life ever and when looking back, it was pure hell. It was to the point that every night I prayed I wouldn't wake up the next morning. Every morning when I did wake up, then I was angry because I knew I had the entire day in front of me being in pain, scared, stressed to the max (even had panic attacks). It was just awful.
Please keep in mind though, that I had died twice (after pm implant) due to my heart bleeding into my heart sac, which eventually go so full, my heart stopped beating not once, but twice, so that ended up being an unexpected emergency surgery, all totalled I've had 5 surgeries for this one pacemaker and spent 10 days in the Cardiac Critical Care Unit.
Also, people with chronic pain....well, it's been documented, that depression goes hand in hand with pain. Pain to me can be either physical pain or mental pain. Pain is Pain.
What we have all gone thru being heart patients is a tremendous hurdle for many. So I guess my point is to just be aware and if you're feeling anxious, stressed or depressed, please let your doctor(s) know as there really is good help out there...plus this site is very informative and encouraging and supportive. The members on this site were always there for me and without them, quite honestly, I don't know where I'd be today. I thank my lucky stars every day that I stumbled across this awesome sight. The members here are SO understanding and helpful.
I found this article that might help:
Sept. 29, 2008 -- Heart disease and depression are so common that all heart patients should be routinely screened for depression and referred for professional help if necessary, according to new recommendations issued by the American Heart Association.
http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20080929/check-all-heart-patients-for-depression
Even if this helps only one person, I'll feel like I've accomplished something.
We are all human beings trying to get thru life the best we can, but sometimes, we must reach out for support.
thanks
Pookie
advice
by LS - 2010-05-17 09:05:54
For the cry baby syndrome? Yes, I had it too. It sucks! Especially if you're like me, and that just wasn't me! But know this, IT DOES get better & pass!!! Week after week you'll feel better & stronger. I don't know why they don't tell us there is a huge emotional part to get over after the "routine" surgery. @@
{{{}}} to you.
Liz
The Blues also
by donb - 2010-05-17 11:05:13
Good support, one can always pick up on the best ways to fight the blues. I had a tough 2009 with 4 surgeries PM related with no depression. Ended up with C-Diff that took forever to clear up.
Well I started 2010 just great by fracturing 2 upper vertabra, T2 & T7. Well, it's been 4 months of Pain, Pain and not being able to get out or do hardly anything. Depression got to me also lately but remembering all the good advice found on this site I have managed to shake it pretty well and getting rest, eating better and pain is finally easing up. IN all the 17 years a PM changes, big lower back surgery, have never endured as much pain as this last as no surgery was in order, time will heal it I was told leaving the hospital. Ya and the funny part was I used to get all bent about having a PM changed, never was that bad. Good days just around the corner!!! donb
Let it out
by Genie - 2010-05-18 07:05:24
I've been there too, and still am most of the time. 7 weeks on and still stressed was the title of my post last week! I've had panic attacks, general anxiety, and I have cried a lot! Things for me didn't go to plan, and everything was overwhelming.
Post on this site. Tell us how you feel and know that you can be honest. It's helped me so much to talk to people who understand. If you need to cry, cry. What all these posts tell you is that how you feel happens to a lot of us. Don't pressure yourself to feel better, or pretend you are happy if you are not. It's ok to feel how you feel.
And if you have a sympathetic doctor, tell them. This was a real breakthrough for me. I expected her to tell me I was crazy. But she didn't. She said it was entirely normal to feel stressed and anxious after what I'd been through. It made me realise I don't have to be embarassed about feeling like this. And once I asked for help (especially on this site) I gradually got better. No magic transformation: one step at a time.
Go out for a walk. Go shopping (really helped me!). Focus on the good moments. If you have one good day, and then a bad one (or a bad few) remind yourself that the good days are going to get more and more frequent. And the bad days are going to get less.
Genie
Sorry you're feeling under the weather
by Angelie - 2010-05-20 12:05:23
Let those cumulonimbus clouds fade away and have a good cry. Pretty soon the sun will start shining and there might even be a rainbow. Who doesn't like rainbows? We all got clouds that roll our way, but storm the weather as it comes. It can't be sunny every day, and we're here for support if the clouds want to linger for too long.
I know it's cliche, but I always try to look on the sunny side. If I didn't, after my 10 year very trying history of heart problems, at 35 I'd officially be insane. I go to the doctor so much that the offices know me by first name. I hate it, but one thing's for sure- I never leave any doctor's office without letting me see me smile, and hear my laugh. If you're bright and sunny others around you will be too. It's contagious.....
Just out of curiosity....what does frumpy mean? Is that a combination of funky and grumpy?
hope you're already feeling sunny-
Angelie
sorry you are feeling bad
by jessie - 2010-05-21 11:05:40
i did too and for the first three months i cried every day. i could not believe that i had to have this issue. i was so sad and confused and then i found the group that has saved me. there is always someone here to talk to. it is such a good support.it seemed to that i was sick so much this last year that i thought i would never feel better. It seemed like i lived at the doctor's office. from time to time i feel very sad but now it is because of another person's bad health and the fact that i may lose him sooner than later. i try to keep a sense of humour tho and deal each day with waht i can or don't want to deal with. hope by now you are starting to feel a bit better jessie
break time
by crumbcake - 2010-05-22 02:05:28
Thank you everyone for your thoughtful responses. Reading all of your own experiences has been so encouraging. TraceE, in the end i am taking your advice. I'm going back to work tomorrow. For a while everything was feeling like doors slamming shut in my face and me just feeling like complete crap, wondering if I brought this on myself--is it my attitude? fate? luck? ...My refrigerator broke, they came to turn my gas off, I can't walk my dog so she has been terrorizing everyone, i got pink-eye, i'm broke, all of my crap is sitting around in boxes still, etc. I've been so out of it and overwhelmed i didn't know where to start and i didn't care. But on Thursday a magical thing happened. I went to the DMV to renew my plates (of course they had expired...i was too busy dying and being resuscitated and going to dr's appts to worry about THAT). Last year i failed emissions THREE times. $1000 later, i passed. now that i'm broke and broken, i was so afraid of taking on another expensive, time consuming, stressful endeavor. I went through emissions. I was nearly crying as i got out of the car for them to do the test in anticipation of my poor cars fate. I whimpered something about having pink-eye to the technician and to make sure and wash his hands after touching the wheel. he handed me a piece of paper. I PASSED! how it's possible i have no idea, but i don't care! And somehow feeling the burden lifted of all the time and money and stress that failing would have brought on, took with it the other burdens I couldn't muster the energy to deal with. I went straight home and started to carry on.
Your support is invaluable. Thank you for reading friends.
me too
by amberjava - 2010-05-22 02:05:38
Thank you all for your comments and to crumbcake for starting the thread. I just found this club and I'm so glad I did! I just had my pm changed out last week after 5 years and I've got the blues more than I did the first time. Or I'm not remembering very well! I imagine its because after having it there for so long and feeling fine that its easy to forget about it. That surgery just brought it right back up again and all the fun emotions that go with it.
I know from experience that these feeling will pass and you and I both will be feeling like ourselves again. Give yourself time to mourn, adjust and accept. Then go enjoy life again. This little baby just added years to it! ^.^
frumpy: adj
by crumbcake - 2010-05-22 03:05:08
frumpy:
frustrated, frazzled, friendless, fearful, dumpy, rumpled and crumpled, dull, listless, slumped over (slumpy), and awkward.
Kiddo - New here also suffering from crybaby syndrome!
by Anita Sword - 2010-07-12 10:07:08
I'm new here...a 22 year old female from New Zealand who's lower heart stopped for 4 times (8 seconds is my record!).
In 2008 I started to get tired more easily, I occasionally felt dizzy and felt my heart racing and fainted twice. I went to my local doctor who diagnosed me with Asthma, a few months later I went back telling him I didn't think it was asthma because the ventolin inhaler didn't help. I was referred to a cardiologist who did a whole range of tests - all of which were perfectly normal. I was young (20years old) don't smoke or drink alcohol, very fit (I played two sports (1 at national level) as well as doing a degree in Outdoor Education). I was told to ring back if I fainted or felt my heart racing; there was no explanation for me fainting...its probably dehydration, hormones, fatigue.
In January 2009 I collapsed at home walking down the hallway - for no reason. I was taken to hospital. I had a reveal device (implanted loop recorder) implanted in March 2009 to track my heart. Every 3 months I had to go to the hospital so they could download (interrogate) the info from my heart monitor. They never found anything of significance for 15 months.
Three weeks ago I felt dizzy a few times then felt my heart racing. I didn't do anything about it because I knew I had my 3 month appointment at the hospital in a few days time, there was heaps of reasons for me to feel dizzy I had just moved out of home into a flat, just finished leading a 12 day camp with some youth at risk....
It turns out that those 4 times I felt dizzy was my ventricles not beating. When they decide to beat again they beat super fast (which is what I felt and why the doctors thought I had tachycardia). I was in hospital for 11 days (I had my 22nd birthday in the coronary care unit), they removed my reveal device, did a cardiac MRI (which was normal) then implanted a St Jude Medical Microny Pacemaker.
It's been 6 days since I got my pacemaker; everyone else in the cardiac unit is at least 25 years older than me and, like some of you, I'm also suffering from crybaby syndrome, ...the nurse said its coz I've been so brave for so long now its all catching up with me....reading all your stories makes me feel a little better to know that its sort of normal to cry it all out...
I hope we all get better soon!
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this too shall pass
by Tracey_E - 2010-05-17 07:05:09
Cry it out, vent with us, then tomorrow (or whenever you're ready) pull up your bootstraps and get back to your sense of humor. We all have down times, cut yourself some slack until it passes. Going from active and healthy to suddenly needing a hunk of titanium to keep your heart beating fast enough is a blow, it takes time to adjust. Emotional healing can be as hard as the physical for some people. This is all completely normal.
Don't apologize to your heart, it should be apologizing to you for being so lazy and beating too slowly for so long. ;o)
Some things that help me...
volunteer- there's always someone worse off than me. Thinking about them for a while takes my mind off my own problems and helps me put things in perspective
exercise- even if it's just a short walk, get moving! It gets the endorphins going which helps our mood, and fresh air and sunshine never hurt either.
chocolate, wine, lunch with my girlfriends... you get the picture. Indulge yourself a bit.
{{{hugs}}} Hoping this passes quickly.