I’ve long believed the universe sends us messages, with its messengers taking on many forms — a bird, a breeze, a dream, or even the mystical arrangement of numbers found in the time on a clock. Sometimes they’re simple “I am here” notes sent by loved ones, visiting from the intangible dimension. Other times the messages are profound cosmic wake-up calls, meant to keep us from living our lives in a perpetual snooze. Either way, these messages have personal meaning, and sometimes they surprise and catch us off guard. Such was the case for me one recent evening.
You’ll first need a bit of a back story since this practice of writing is new to me here. For the past few months, I’ve been dealing with health anxieties. (I’ll leave the details of that struggle for another time.) Knock on wood, my health’s generally good, but realizing all that could change at any moment can make that fear real and at times immense, at least to my anxious brain.
So, back to our evening … My husband and I were out with our beloved canine companion for an evening walk. As we approached a house where new neighbors had just moved in, I noticed the wife out front but heading to the door. I promptly stepped up the pace. I was participating in a community challenge, and that day’s task was, “Smile and say hello to at least 10 people today.” Here I was, once again, running behind.
Thankfully, both she and her husband were out. (Yay! Two more hellos to check off!) The four of us proceeded to chat about our love for dogs and the neighborhood deer. The conversation soon split, with the wives sharing deer tales and the husbands discussing whatever it is men discuss.
In the midst of sharing my favorite story about this year’s fawns, I experienced a sudden focus whiplash when ears sent the brain a breaking news alert: her husband just said, “quadruple bypass.” Two years after my own husband’s double bypass, and still the mental scars can cause me some degree of mental anguish. A quadruple bypass was almost inconceivable.
The exchange that followed took “inconceivable” to new heights with a message that was, without doubt, intended for me, all rolled up and tied with an eye-popping bow.
Quadruple bypass was only the tip of the tale. Here was a man just months older than me who had — not once, but twice — been treated for colon cancer, with his colon eventually removed. As if that wasn’t enough, he’d had at least one heart attack, resulting in three blockages at 100% and a fourth at 96%, leaving a mere 4% blood flow.
After bypass surgery, he should have felt much better, more energized, and yet he did not. This led to further testing, which revealed a rare liver condition that left him in need of a transplant. The challenge here was that, in order to be a viable donor recipient, he had to be five years cancer-free. Over time his liver deteriorated, moving him to the #1 slot on the country-wide transplant list. Nearing the five-year mark, the transplant was finally done.
This deluge of health challenges seemed insurmountable, and yet he continued to recite his list: a shattered leg, broken hip, hip replacement, and most recently, adult-onset diabetes. Given his various treatments, this last challenge would likely leave him eventually needing a kidney transplant.
Hearing this recount had me in near-panic mode; I just could not wrap my health-anxious brain around the fact that he stood there full of life, all smiles, and quite optimistic. When asked how it was that he seemed without worry at all he had faced, his response was simply, “Does it help?”
Those three words were like a finger snap, awakening me from a trance. Countless times I’d been told, “You just need to stop worrying, girl,” and countless times my unspoken response had been, “Yeah, that’s easy for you to say.” But this approach of instead asking oneself, “Does it help?” made it all look and feel different.
Does it help? No, I knew the anxiety, the stress, the hours of lost sleep only serve to further compromise the immune system and mental health. The relationships, the work focus, my connection with the world all dim under that cloud of concern.
Does it help … Those three words have become my anxiety mantra. I still have anxious moments, but when my thoughts threaten to lead me down that darkening path, I turn my focus upward and inward, recalling there’s a healthier perspective to help show me a less anxious way.
© 2019 HSE
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