and baby makes 6! » Archives » Panic attack below the surface

I can feel it rising. It feels almost like I drank too much coffee. Okay, so I did drink too much coffee. Let’s try that again. I feel claustrophobic. Like I need to get out of a small space, but I am not closed in. I am in my home, watching my daughter play on the carpet in her room.

My mom has something called essential thrombocythemia. She has had it for years and years. I am too weary to go into great depth about it, but basically, she produces too many platelets, and they don’t work. So, it is a double edged sword. She can either hemorrhage, or the mass amounts of dysfunctional platelets can get into a roadblock in her arteries and form a clot.

This situation makes things VERY complicated in regards to correcting her blocked artery/ies, even if she only has to have angioplasty. I can’t even think of what it means on the open heart front. Hence the rising panic.

I lost my dad to cancer. That was tough. Horrible. Now this with my mom…….I feel so overwhelmed when my mind tries to wrap around the thought of losing my mother, which, folks, is a very real possibility given her platelet disorder. Honestly, I don’t know how the docs are going to pull this one off. I just don’t know. This is the worst possible thing that could happen to someone with ET.

So, I sit here and wait for next Wednesdays CT angiogram, and I try with all my might to push down the rising panic. It comes in waves, and I ride them out. Not exactly the kind of surfing I planned to do this summer.