I have a problem with recurring anxiety attacks. Before kids, I'd get them once in a blue moon, never with any discernable cause. Usually they involve the fight-or-flight response going into overdrive, and generally there isn't any particular trigger. They were horrible right after Grant was born because of post-partum depression, but pretty much went away with anti-depressants and time. I hadn't had one in over a year and a half, and now lately I've been getting them again.
I'm not a fan of psychotropic drugs; I took the anti-depressants for the PPD and as soon as my hormones were regulated enough for the PPD to go away, I stopped taking them. I'm a big believer in trying to solve my problems on my own first. So, I'm not going to be taking any medication for the anxiety attacks unless they become debilitating. Still, they're frustrating to deal with. They make you feel pretty bad; I managed to fall asleep last night, but usually I have insomnia from them on top of everything else.
I'm thinking it's just general stress bringing them on. I've got all of the usual stuff that comes from working a full-time job and also trying to be a mom and a wife (oh, and attempting to keep the house sanitary and enough clean laundry around to go out in public), plus this lawsuit against Lennar, plus my reflux surgery. It's a lot of stress right now, so I guess my body is handling that by randomly giving me shots of adrenaline.
The lawsuit with Lennar is finally starting to move forward. They were officially sued in our county of residence, and have until tomorrow (9/13) at 10:00am to respond. We'll see exactly what this process is going to entail pretty soon. I'm guessing it will involve a lot of legal stalling and attempts at harassment in an effort to make us shut up and go away. I'm not particularly looking forward to all of it, but we really don't have a choice other than to move forward. If we don't, we'll never be able to sell this house. If we don't manage to get Lennar to either buy the house back or completely repair the foundation, we're going to be royally screwed. The only way we'd ever be able to recover from this house in that event would be to walk away and let the bank take it, and then rent for the 5-7 years it would take to get the foreclosure off of our credit. That is obviously not an option that we like. The frustrating thing is that we really have no control over this process at all. It's all up to our lawyers and God.
My reflux surgery is scheduled for 10/18. I'm going to be losing out on 3 weeks of work. I'm hoping that won't mean a huge loss of income for me since I have short-term disability insurance, but that only pays out 66% of my salary. We'll have to come up with a hospital co-pay which isn't a huge amount, but still high enough that our finances are going to be pretty tight for a while. Aside from all of the financial worries about it, I'm scared to death about the surgery itself. It needs to be done, but the recovery looks like it will be no picnic. I'll be on a liquid diet for a week or so, and then gradually increase the thickness of my food over a month to 6 weeks until I'm eating normally again. Since they'll be wrapping the upper part of my stomach around the esophagus in this surgery, my stomach will effectively be made smaller. This might not sound like a bad thing to worry about, but I just intentionally lost 25 pounds. The doctor said that I could expect to lose another 5% of my body weight after surgery. I really don't need to lose any more weight, and I can't afford to have to go buy another work wardrobe in a smaller size. Then, there are the small side-effects like the possibility I will lose my ability to vomit. Nice.
Yep. A bit of stress. Just a little bit. It explains why I'm having the anxiety attacks, but having an explanation doesn't do much to make them go away. I think I need an on-call massage therapist, or maybe a vacation of undetermined length to a place with sand and fruity umbrella drinks.
I'm not a fan of psychotropic drugs; I took the anti-depressants for the PPD and as soon as my hormones were regulated enough for the PPD to go away, I stopped taking them. I'm a big believer in trying to solve my problems on my own first. So, I'm not going to be taking any medication for the anxiety attacks unless they become debilitating. Still, they're frustrating to deal with. They make you feel pretty bad; I managed to fall asleep last night, but usually I have insomnia from them on top of everything else.
I'm thinking it's just general stress bringing them on. I've got all of the usual stuff that comes from working a full-time job and also trying to be a mom and a wife (oh, and attempting to keep the house sanitary and enough clean laundry around to go out in public), plus this lawsuit against Lennar, plus my reflux surgery. It's a lot of stress right now, so I guess my body is handling that by randomly giving me shots of adrenaline.
The lawsuit with Lennar is finally starting to move forward. They were officially sued in our county of residence, and have until tomorrow (9/13) at 10:00am to respond. We'll see exactly what this process is going to entail pretty soon. I'm guessing it will involve a lot of legal stalling and attempts at harassment in an effort to make us shut up and go away. I'm not particularly looking forward to all of it, but we really don't have a choice other than to move forward. If we don't, we'll never be able to sell this house. If we don't manage to get Lennar to either buy the house back or completely repair the foundation, we're going to be royally screwed. The only way we'd ever be able to recover from this house in that event would be to walk away and let the bank take it, and then rent for the 5-7 years it would take to get the foreclosure off of our credit. That is obviously not an option that we like. The frustrating thing is that we really have no control over this process at all. It's all up to our lawyers and God.
My reflux surgery is scheduled for 10/18. I'm going to be losing out on 3 weeks of work. I'm hoping that won't mean a huge loss of income for me since I have short-term disability insurance, but that only pays out 66% of my salary. We'll have to come up with a hospital co-pay which isn't a huge amount, but still high enough that our finances are going to be pretty tight for a while. Aside from all of the financial worries about it, I'm scared to death about the surgery itself. It needs to be done, but the recovery looks like it will be no picnic. I'll be on a liquid diet for a week or so, and then gradually increase the thickness of my food over a month to 6 weeks until I'm eating normally again. Since they'll be wrapping the upper part of my stomach around the esophagus in this surgery, my stomach will effectively be made smaller. This might not sound like a bad thing to worry about, but I just intentionally lost 25 pounds. The doctor said that I could expect to lose another 5% of my body weight after surgery. I really don't need to lose any more weight, and I can't afford to have to go buy another work wardrobe in a smaller size. Then, there are the small side-effects like the possibility I will lose my ability to vomit. Nice.
Yep. A bit of stress. Just a little bit. It explains why I'm having the anxiety attacks, but having an explanation doesn't do much to make them go away. I think I need an on-call massage therapist, or maybe a vacation of undetermined length to a place with sand and fruity umbrella drinks.
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