Snippet of a memoir: Waiting rooms

Part of this post was first published on this blog on Feb. 15, 2012. My post on Monday about OCD and health stirred up some memories that I wanted to share, and what I had written over a year ago was a starting point.

When I was a child and teenager, I spent a lot of time waiting.

Some of this waiting happened in actual waiting rooms, places of calm in the midst of the sadness and fear of hospitals.

I was surrounded by sickness growing up. I’m the youngest of three, with two older brothers. My oldest brother is 11 years older than me. My next oldest brother is two years older.

My next oldest brother was born with spina bifada and clubfeet. As a result, he had to have multiple surgeries as a child and spent a lot of time in the hospital.

My father had a major stroke when he was 54. I was 12 at the time. His speech and movement were badly affected, and he had to retire from his job as a rural letter carrier for the post office. Later that same year, he suffered a blood clot in one of his kidneys and almost died before the kidney was removed.

My mother also had her share of illnesses and hospital visits.

So the waiting rooms in the hospitals in the nearby city were very familiar to me.

The nicest one was a large room that had real furniture, like you’d find in a private home. Chair railings ran along the wall. Paintings covered the walls.

There were volunteers stationed at a counter, and they helped visitors find their way around the hospital and answered general questions. They were usually women who wore pink-jacket “uniforms.” They were called “Pink Ladies.”

Though people came and went, there was a hush over the room. No one spoke loudly or laughed or cried where you could hear. It was like being in a church.

When I was 7 or 8 years old, when my brother was ill quite a bit, my parents would leave me in the waiting room while they went up to be with him. In those days, at that hospital, children under 12 were not allowed to visit patients.

I always had a book with me, and I would sit in one of the nice green armchairs, my always-present purse tucked up against me, and read. Sometimes I would look up and stare at the paintings or the signs on the wall and on the swinging doors that went back into the main part of the hospital.

One night, I wasn’t kept waiting downstairs. I was allowed to go up to my brother’s hospital room.

My mother came down to the waiting room and led me back through the swinging doors into the part of the hospital that was usually forbidden to me.

I don’t remember what she told me at the time, if anything. But I had heard enough talk to know that my brother was very sick.

I remember walking into my brother’s room. He was lying in bed. He was very pale. He lay as if exhausted. He didn’t look at me.

My mother lightly pushed me towards the bed.

I stared at my brother. But I didn’t know what to say. So I didn’t say anything.

I stood there for probably just a couple of minutes, and then my mother took me back downstairs.

Years later, my mother told me that the doctors were afraid that my brother wouldn’t live through surgery scheduled for the next day. So permission was granted for me to go to his room to see him. As my mother put it, the nurses “looked the other way” as she led me to his room.

My brother made it through the surgery fine.

Remember the concerns I expressed in my post about OCD and self-doubts about health?

It has become clear to me that I have a difficult time believing I’m sick “enough,” injured “enough,” because I’ve seen a lot of illness in others, especially family members.

I was the lucky child. I didn’t have physical disabilities. I didn’t have serious illnesses. I was the one fortunate enough to be waiting in the waiting room.

It’s not an earth-shattering realization, and I don’t want to start complaining about my every pain. I’m grateful for my overall good health.

Of course, for all my good physical health, even as a child I was beginning to show signs of mental illnesses: OCD and depression.

Those illnesses were more hidden, though. Less talked about.

Perhaps some of us who have dealt with low self-esteem, perhaps as a part of depression, have this way of thinking: other people are worth concern. We’re not.

That’s not a healthy way of thinking. All of us are worthy of concern from others and ourselves. It’s OK to ask for help from others. It’s OK to express our pain and sadness.

And what a blessing it is to know that someone is listening. Thank you, my dear blogging friends, for listening.

More on values: Taking care of physical health

Do you ever feel like you’re falling apart? Not mentally, but physically? In small ways, but ways that affect how you feel each day?

I’m feeling like that. And I’m also thinking about values.

First, the falling apart part:

*My right foot is hurting. For weeks—actually, months—it’s been hurting on the side of the foot. I don’t remember injuring it. I just noticed it hurting when I was walking at the Y before Christmas.

I figured it would just get better. Then it got a little worse, and I thought I might have a stress fracture, which I’ve had before.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I twisted the foot sideways as I was trying to move fast while wearing clogs, and since then, I’ve been in a lot of pain.

*My allergies have been kicking up lately. My eyes itch, I alternate between being stopped up and having a runny nose. My sinuses get tight. The dry winter air doesn’t help.

*I’ve had some bouts of trouble with irritable bowel syndrome.

*I’ve started with a bad cough.

Nothing life threatening, nothing serious. But enough wrong that I feel run down.

I haven’t been able to walk for exercise because of my foot. I’ve been sleeping more (too much) and lying around too much. I’ve been accomplishing less.

But I have some confessions:

*I still haven’t gone to the doctor about my foot. I keep thinking it will feel better “soon.” But soon has come and gone. It probably needs a doctor’s exam.

*I haven’t been eating the best of diets. I eat foods that know will have a good chance of bothering my digestive system and my energy level.

*I haven’t been diligent about using my long-acting asthma inhaler.

I’ve made vows before to take better care of myself. I have set goals that I never accomplished. But I’m not trying to go on a guilt trip in public by telling you these things. I’m leading up to my point about values.

I’ve been thinking about my values and how I use my time. I even wrote a post about it called “What do happy people do?”

There’s a connection between my feeling of physically falling apart and my values.

When I don’t properly take care of my physical health, I don’t feel like doing the things and giving my full attention to the things that matter the most to me.

Feeling as good as possible physically will help me give myself more fully to that which is most important.

And these are the things that matter the most to me:

*My husband

*My cats

*Writing

*My relationship with God

I don’t need to have reasons to exercise like, “I want to lose weight” or “I want to be fit enough to run a 5K.” Those reasons are great, and it’s helpful to set goals.

But all the reason I really need to exercise is to know that it will help me feel physically (and mentally) better and I’ll be better able to pay attention to what matters the most.

Likewise, I don’t need to have a reason like, “I want to lose weight” to eat better. All the reason I need to eat better is to, again, know that it will help me feel more like paying attention to what matters the most.

And the same for tending to any injuries and illnesses.

I now have my reason—my value—for taking better care of myself physically. All I need to do is follow through.

What are your reasons for taking good care of yourself physically? What’s your method for following through?

A day at home and thoughts on health

Today I stayed home from work, sick with sinus problems, including a bad headache. I took medicine and slept much of the day away.

But I also thought about the way I think about my physical health and my mental health.

I was inspired by a post Madison of My Meddling Mind wrote about the importance of taking care of both our physical health and our mental health, and how they affect each other. I hope you’ll take time to read it.

I am vigilant about taking my medication for my OCD, depression and anxiety. I make sure I don’t run out before getting a refill.

I see a psychiatrist and a therapist. And I take steps to work on my mental health issues on my own.

I’m not perfect with taking care of my mental health, but I am much more proactive with it than I am with my physical health.

I worry much less about running out of my blood pressure medicine. I’ve been known to go a couple of days without it because I’ve delayed picking up a refill.

I eat pretty healthy, but I eat too many sweets and processed foods, and just too much food period.

I don’t move around enough. I need to have an exercise plan and stick to it.

  What does my blood pressure medicine and my diet and exercise habits have to do with sinus problems?

Maybe nothing. But my time off today gave me time to think about my physical health and how I need to do a better job with it.

Just one day of lying around has left me feeling a bit dull and a little depressed.

The physical affects the mental.

And that’s not to forget my spiritual health because that’s important too. When I get too busy with “stuff” and don’t take time to do my spiritual reading and meditation, I can tell.

It can seem overwhelming to have to think about so many “parts” of our health. But all the parts roll into one and represent how we live.

How can we do our best for our health?

Sick and down: How physical illness can affect mental health

I’ve been sick since last week. Not seriously ill, just a cold with a bad cough, but it makes me feel miserable.

What made it worse was that I took a couple of days of vacation to go along with the 4^th of July holiday, so I was off work last Wednesday through Sunday, and felt bad for most of that time.

I woke up Thursday morning with a sore throat and it was down hill from there.

My sinuses were stopped up, then runny, then stopped up, then half and half. I sneezed. I coughed. My throat continued to hurt.

I self-treated the best I could with Tylenol, antihistamines, hot tea, lots of other fluids and as much rest as I could get.

I’m telling you this to illustrate my next point: I also felt down.

Being physically sick usually means my mood goes down.

At least part of the reason lies in what I feel like doing when I’m sick: nothing.

I have been so miserable that I haven’t felt like doing much reading, writing, drawing, exercising, cross-stitch, crocheting—many of the things I depend on to make me feel better.

I don’t feel like doing any of the things I listed as self-care measures in a post last week.

I don’t even feel like watching TV or playing games on my phone.

I did exercise last Thursday, but I haven’t since.

My sleep patterns have been messed up. Friday morning at 4 a.m., I was wide-awake. Saturday afternoon, I was dead to the world. The rest of the nights have been spent battling a cough.

I’ve learned two things. One is that my physical health has a direct impact on my mental health. The better I feel physically, the better able I am to help myself with my mental health.

And how I spend my time and my activity level are very important to my mental health. It’s important for me to read, to write, to think, to write some more. It’s important for me to move around, to use my body as well as my brain.

In his book Depression: A Guide for the Newly Diagnosed (which I reviewed here), Lee H. Coleman Ph.D., ABPP writes about the importance of daily self-care in depression recovery: “When you’re recovering from depression, it’s especially important for you to have some routine in you life. This doesn’t mean having a boring, predictable lifestyle, but it does mean taking care of yourself by having a regular bedtime; consistent, healthy meals; and, ideally, a program of exercise” (p. 135).

I would agree.

How about you? When you are physically ill, does it adversely affect how you feel mentally?