March update on social anxiety

March has been a bad month as far as social anxiety goes. Judging from the lack of posts on the other social anxiety blogs, I wonder whether everybody is in the same bucket. Maybe it's spring-related or equinox related or something like that. Back in Romania they used to say there's a spring anemia.

I've been up and down, but mostly down. I forced myself to do a few things, I abandoned scores of other communications. As usual, for my failures, I blamed everybody around me, my life, the universe. I expected people around me to do specific things for me, but did not tell them what they had to do.

Now that spring is finally here, I hope to be able to get over this period and find my way again.

"No act of kindness ever goes unpunished"

This is a follow-up from my last post. My kid has been sick for the last two days... poor guy, I keep thinking it must have been a present from those nice kids he hugged.

LOL

Hugger baby

I need to share something wonderful with you: my 15 months old baby is a hugger. We met a group of about 5-6 kids yesterday and he went on and hugged each one of them. At the time when he should be at the peak of his stranger anxiety he's showing and demonstrating affection for others.

I was so scared that he will either inherit or learn the anxiety and shyness from me. I guess there's still time, but right now it looks like he's just fine, maybe even a bit more social than kids his age. I got the book on helping shy children and read it even before he was born, I watched his every interraction with everyone. and now I got to have a big sigh of relief. Hey, he can get all our other deffects, but if he won't be painfully shy, it will be so much better for him.

And I'm happy that he learned that hugging is nice. I can tell how he learned that: he's hugged and asked to hug a lot and he sees us hugging a lot too. In my family that didn't happen. I can count on my fingers the number of times I remember my mother hugging me. I guess some families are like that. I'm happy ours isn't!

Successfully shy

A great benefit to having statistics counter... I could find this nice blog from someone that liked and linked to my blog.

http://successfullyshy.com/

Thanks you for reading my blog. I like yours too. I will dig into it some more.

Why would you do something so stupid

Today I noticed something that my babysitter glued a page of a baby book back to the book with lots of pieces of scotch tape and I thought to myself: "Why would you do something that stupid?"

And while thinking about it, I realized that I am doing that a lot: when I see something that somebody (including me) does I notice right away what's stupid with it, actually I try to find something stupid in that. You can always find pros and cons to any action that anyone is doing... if somebody did something, it's done, so what's the point of labeling it?

I remember I heard that CEOs of big companies have 2 advisers: the yes person (that will tell him all the good stuff about a decision that he needs to make) and the no person (that will find all the bad parts of it). This way the CEO would be able to see both sides of the coin and make an informed decision. I would be great for a no person. I can find faults with anything.

I need to get back to zen.

Dealing with emotional people

I am reading If Disney Ran Your Hospital by Fred Lee. It is a wonderful book. I am surprised. I am surprised that such a great book on health care management exists and so many hospitals and medical offices seem to not use these simple, common sense ideas. I am surprised to see people criticising the book so harsh: that's exactly what we need, another health care administrator teaching us how to do our job or how can you compare Disney with a hospital. I think the book successfully demonstrates that health care (and actually any domain that deals with people) can use some of the techniques that Disney is using.

I guess I'm learning one more time that in health care just like in any other field some people will just not get it. And I am sure there are other great books out there that deal with all these issues.

I was amazed to understand why I loved the hospital where I had my first baby and loss, and wasn't impressed by the one where I got home healthy and with a healthy happy baby. The outcome doesn't matter, the people and empathy and caring does. I thought it was more a matter of people cutting us some slack because we were having a loss, vs. being the whiny, healthy woman in labor that is anxious and crazy. You would think that a good outcome should cause a good impression, and a bad outcome would cause anger and need to revenge... not necessarily.

I was happy to also find a useful idea on understanding my anxiety. The author was discussing how when dealing with an angry person, it is important to imagine what the person goes through and empathize with them rather than rationally demonstrating that they have no reason to be angry. This is so right...

I am very proud of being logical and using reason to resolve problems. It is tough on me to realize that when I am anxious and emotional I seem to lose this. Things that seem unresolvable now might seem clear in an hour if my anxiety subsides. I can convince myself how that person did something completely wrong and an hour later just realize that it was just an opinion. So when I talk to someone and I am all emotional and their rational response demonstrates that I am wrong, I feel very bad. I hate myself and get into a spiral of anxiety. If the other person understands that I am emotional and knows that I wouldn't say that under normal circumstances, if the other person lets me know that they get it and I am OK, I feel good, my anxiety dissipates and I can see the world for what it is.

I think that is a lesson for me too: do not argue with people that are obviously emotional, just try to understand where they come from and let them know that you do.

Welcome back, Ileana

I'm back! Where have I been? In my anxiety world. What did I do there? Not much: mostly bitched about everyone and everything, pushing everybody away. Not fun to be there for either me or anyone around me.

It was my birthday. Happy St. Patrick's day! I don't like birthdays, I don't like Christmas. The burden of putting a happy face for everyone is too much for me. I don't know why. Over the years I got to almost perfection in pushing everybody away. It is my leave me alone day. I can't understand why people like parties... It's not that I don't like attention on me... I love to teach or present to a conference.

The blog... I have statistics counter now and I can see that some of you faithfully came over to check what's new on the blog. I wanted to write something, but it wasn't nice and I felt guilty to burden you that are persistent in reading my blog. I know everybody has bad days, but this was so dark. I felt there's nothing to say anymore. All my dreams were gone, all the good stuff I could do was gone. I wanted to delete the whole blog, I wanted to run away and disappear in the dark.

Today I went for a long drive. I love driving. It helps me think things through. And life is so much better. There's inspiration for the blog, there are nice ways to say things I was critical about before. Openness is possible again. The impossible dream didn't die after all.

Thank you so much my friends for checking on me. I'll try to keep above the sea level from now on... at least until Christmas... and then, I'll plan a long drive the day after Christmas.

About perception - from another blog

My dear anxious friends, please don't miss Maria's post at intueri.

http://www.intueri.org/2007/03/12/perception-spectrum/

I love Maria's writing, but this post in particular is such a good reminder for us worriers.

Dependence and independence

There' s a great article in today's New York Times that discusses whether dependency is healthy or not. It suggests that a controlled dependency on a spouse can actually make for a happier marriage. I must admit that I agree with the statement.

When I started feeling better about myself, first it felt great that I don't need to run to my husband to help me get through this or the other crisis, but by the end of the month I realized that we missed on the quality time together. Readjusting our relationship to the new me and still keeping close together is maybe the most challenging part of this process. We spend quite a lot of time with our son though: eating dinner and bathing him, and playing with him and reading stories (Winnie the Pooh is our favorite - the jury is still out though if I am shy Piglet or wise Rabbit). And probably having a child would have been a challenge to our quality time anyway. I think we are adjusting well though.

We had a great relationship before and I am happy that nowadays the thinking is pretty much that a bit of dependency doesn't hurt. I wonder if when I'll get to the bottom of my social anxiety, I will discover that nothing was wrong to begin with.

I went shopping yesterday... first I noticed that when I'm outspoken people realize how strange I am. Then I got annoyed at their bad database design (you know, when they ask for your information even though they should have you because you already gave them identifying information). The service is bad and it takes a lot of time... So I guess I will continue to do Internet shopping not because I avoid it from social anxiety, but because I think it saves time.

The same with friends. I was very unhappy because I couldn't make friends. Now I don't want some of those friends because they have a dose of negativity that I don't need in my life right now. The friends I had before are still around and they seem closer now that they know about me.

It feels like the world is just the same, only my perception of it changed. Hmmm, nothing new under the sun.

Positive trends in anxiety

I feel funny about posting all these positive messages all the time, but I am doing better, I can see it from month to month. I am afraid that I will break the luck... we'll see, here comes another one.

I notice a difference in the way I am feeling and handling anxiety these days. I first noticed this in December and now it just happened again. When I have an event that is causing me big anxiety, I used to ignore it. When the event was close, I started being ballistic against anyone around. I would finally accept that I am anxious, not sleep for a night or two right before the event. When it finally happened, I was exhausted and tired.

Now, my anxiety starts way before the event: two weeks in advance I keep thinking about it, about all the bad things, how I'm not going to do the right thing, etc. It is really painful: I'm thinking about it all the time, I can't sleep well, I get IBS symptoms. This happened to me this last week. All of a sudden the world became unbearable. I was wondering what is going to happen if this will go on for another week.

And then, out of the blue, in the shower one morning, after two sleepless nights, I thought: if this is so painful, I'm resisting it. If I just let go and stop resisting, it will get better. My anxiety dissipated right there and then and now I can't even believe that my last week was so difficult. It felt like I lived so much anxiety that there was no more left to feel. I ran out of anxiety :D

My meeting is will be in a few days, but I am sleeping well, feeling great and having no problems. The same thing happened with a party back in December. I love this. It is getting so much better.

Extract from Singuratate (Solitude) - Mihai Eminescu

Mihai Eminescu is the best-known romanian poet... more details in the wiki.

...
Ah! De cate ori voit-am
Ca sa spanzur lira-n cui
Si un capat poeziei
Si pustiului sa pui;

Dar atuncea greieri soareci,
Cu usor-maruntul mers,
Readuc melancolia-mi,
Iara ea se face vers.
...
(March 1, 1878)

...
Oft I thought, the lyre forsaking
To depart and change my mood,
And to leave off writing verses
In this wasting solitude.

But then mice with tripping noises,
Chirping crickets bring and nurse
My old thoughts, my melancholy,
And this soon becomes a verse.
...
(Translated by Petre Grimm)

2 months - highs and lows

Paul Levy gave up his Blackberry two months ago... This was the first post I read on his blog. So what did I do these last two months?

• Started the blog and shared it with my close friends
• Emailed Paul to visit the blog
• Accepted his suggestion to post a link to my blog on his
• I got nuts when he posted the link and advertised it
• I got over it and lived with it
• I started commenting on Paul's and other blogs with a link to my blog - first I forced myself to do it, but now if I have something to say, I say it
• Paul added my blog as the first on his personal stories link and advertised it again - I was ok with it this time (I felt a bit uncomfortable, but definitely didn't have the strong reaction I had the first time)
• Saw my profile count increase every day and did not blink about it

...I wrote this last week. This week I was a bit down. I need to have constant approval and confirmation that I am not writing anything stupid. Two of my consistent approvers were gone and couldn't comment. As it happens, nobody chimed in with any comments. And on Paul's blog there were some really negative comments. Hey, if anyone posts comments like those on my blog, they're gone! I'm no CEO (other than in my house) and I won't publish c... Plus work was not as good as usual last week. I think part of what keeps me floating is the fact that I am so good at my job, and any issue becomes a big problem and drags me down.

It's pretty neat that I discovered this though... so if you guys are interested in reading new stuff, keep the positive comments coming. Having two readers that I can always get feedback from and an occasional comment will keep me going. It's amazing how everything changes meaning depending on my emotional status. I'm still not great, but at least I am on an ascending trend.

While I was reading to my kid this evening, I found a great poem that works so well with how I'm feeling about writing or not on the blog... I will post it separately along with the English translation...

Cognitive Behavior Therapy

I imagine that the first advice I will get will be to try Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) because research proved that it is the most efficient for anxiety in general and social anxiety in particular. All my books on social anxiety are unanimous about this (mind you, I just read three or so).

So I dutifully looked for a CBT specialist. I found someone that teaches CBT at a large New York University... I was sure it's going to be a winner. I was wrong. Five sessions later he declared victory and I declared stupor at the idea that we actually resolved anything other than me buying a sandwich and asking for help in the bookstore. It was a great start that I did those things, but it definitely was only the start. He declared that maybe I have some issues with my conception about life and that maybe another kind of therapy is right for me... I just think another therapist was right for me. I think part of his indifference had to do with the ridiculous amount that my insurance company was reimbursing him, but if that was an issue, wasn't it more fair to say so rather than make me feel bad?

Before that I wanted to help with research. I felt it was my duty to help other understand this condition. I went to get screened at an Anxiety Institute, and they were ready to enroll me in a study. Unfortunately, the only study they were having involved using drugs (Paxil) and therapy vs. drugs alone (anyone guess where the funds for this research comes from?). The researcher doubted that my doctor would agree with that because I was planning a pregnancy. I didn't even try to find out my doctor's opinion - the idea that I would end up with six months of being drugged didn't sound compelling. Oh, yeah, I asked whether I can read self help books during that time LOL - the answer was: what a good question, I think not... I guess their study subjects didn't have this issue before.

I am sure there might be a CBT therapist out there that could help me, I heard of one in Phoenix, and others in St. Louis. It doesn't help that there seem to be a therapist at each street corner and they all can treat it and are busy all the time. Very difficult to find someone : look for the needle in the haystack.

That was my state of mind when I read: Health and Suffering in America - The Context and Content of Mental Health Care - Robert T. Fancher. It presents each therapy method with its advantages and disadvantages. CBT might be the latest trend, but it has issues as well. The book also describes how valuable research in mental health is excluded because it is not studied in a randomized double-blind manner. The conclusion of the book is that the therapist's personality and the way (s)he relates to the patient is more important than the method, and that likely a combination of methods would work better.

I cannot agree more with this. I have been in therapy for about 8 months with a new therapist and I see the light at the end of the tunnel. No, I saw the light months ago, now I see the walls of the tunnel :o) And I wouldn't change my therapist for the world.

If you read testimonials about this or the other method: tapes, self help books, meditation, CBT, etc., there are always people that succeeded with that particular method. I think we succeed when we are ready and ripe to succeed. The rest: "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear"

Blog housecleaning

I would like to specify that I welcome any opinion, comment or advice. Hey I am willing to try anything that sound at least a bit rational and I definitely welcome challenging ideas...

I enabled comments moderation. I noticed that I have no control over current comments, I wasn't even able to delete them when the owners requested it... so now they are moderated.

If you wish to leave a private comment, please specify that at the bottom of your text and I will not publish it. I reserve the right to delete any messages that I am uncomfortable with.

It worked

It worked! It worked! The babysitter came back... on time, called me at work, picked up the phone when I called, did lots of stuff around the house. And I talked to her too. She tried to tell me something and I interrupted. I realized afterwards and I was sorry about it... so two days later I asked her about it. I think she felt heard, it's never too late to be nice and acknowledge your mistakes.

I decided that I don't need a big discussion, just small things every day, just don't forget to communicate. And I will use the advice they give for dieting: if one day things are not going well, not everything is gone, just start over the day after.

I wish I had a God that I can pray to to give me power to keep this going, but I'm afraid I will have to go through this alone and carry all the burden LOL.

Good news on the SA front

Hey, I have good news for my cheerleading squad: I think that the blog is working, I am seeing progress! It's amazing. Thank you for the wonderful notes to all my old and new friends!

First you will need to bear with me and read about my theory on why it is working... In my last post I quoted a book: The Gift of Therapy - by Irvin Yalom, MD. If you ever consider going into therapy, read this book first. This is the way it is supposed to be like. My therapist recommended it and I could hardly put it down when I started reading it. It is a wonderful book that I strongly recommend. Did you ever feel that even when you have no idea about the details in a certain area of knowledge when someone knows their stuff it's all logical and you can understand it? This is one of those books.

One of the cool ideas in the book is that there is no need to start investigating deep into the patient's relationships because sooner or later any dysfunctional patterns will emerge in the patient-therapist relationship and can be explored "here and now". The feelings and events can then be analyzed in a lab-like environment.

I think that the blog helped me to further extend this idea. The virtual environment and off-line mode allowed me to breathe and reason between interactions. This helped me to analyze my feelings and gave me the opportunity to take my time in responding. Pretty much everything that happens to me in real life happened while interacting here, but it happened in slow motion: the overly emotional response, the fear of rejection and the need to run away, the pain of not getting any feedback almost as bad as getting feedback that could be interpreted as neutral or negative. I didn't have anything to lose though so I plunged into it and occasionally forced myself into doing more. I am going to take each of these issues separately and discuss them (it helps me clear my mind in the process) in the next week or so.

But today I had a real-life success. I am trying to talk to the babysitter for months and months. Short successful discussions always ended pretty bad. She's very shy and very scared of me. I am confused how can someone be scared of me, when I am scared of my own shadow... But it is not uncommon, I am a scary person. Anyway this girl is really nice: very good to the baby, keeps my house spotless, and tries to do what I ask her to do if she can hear me through her fear. She is however getting sick or missing days quite often and unexpected.

So I finally think that I got to talk to her and tried to express my feelings and tried to encourage to think about her needs. I left the discussion open-ended, but told her that we both need to get over our fear and anxiety and start communicating. I hope that I was gentle enough: we'll see if she makes it tomorrow.

Oh, yes, did anyone see the irony in here? I am talking to the CEO of one of the largest hospitals in Boston, but have trouble talking to the babysitter.

About openness

Quote from Gift of Therapy - Irvin D. Yalom, MD (Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry - Stanford University School of Medicine )

[In therapy] we try to help the public cell grow larger at the expense of the
other three [blind, secret, unconscious] and the secret self to shrink, as
patients, through the process of self-disclosure, share more of
themselves-at first to the therapist and then judiciously to other
appropriate figures in their lives.

If the mentally healthy human is an open human why is openness such a big deal? Of course it is a big deal, but it is something to be admired and praised rather than criticized and presented as the sensation du jour.

In a couple of newsletter I received, there was a title: "Paul Levy did it again". Big sensation, he posted the results of the central line infection rates for the last year for his hospital.

Why does it feel like so few people get it? It is better for a person to be open. A relationship is better when it's open, based on trust and mutual respect. Each of us carries the burden of family secrets that were never shared with us. Is anyone doubting that an open person or relationship is better?

So why not generalize this and accept that organizations that are open and transparent are more successful, that hospitals that publish their data will be trusted more. This feels so obvious to me that I don't even imagine how can anyone doubt it is a good idea.

Between two doctors that have the same knowledge, I would choose the one that is able to honestly accept that (s)he doesn't know when (s)he doesn't. On a flippant note, with preeclampsia this is a great selecting doctors test cause I would never go twice to a doctor that acts as if (s)he knows everything about it.

It feels though like so few people get it. In the organization I volunteer for I keep asking for better communication and more transparency and I get polite thank yous for expressing my opinion. It does make me feel like a freak...

I am so happy that Paul's hospital is having such great results and I have the proof that openness works and that I can keep thinking like this.

Personally, I started this blog in an attempt to open up and I never regretted it. None of my good friends went away, most of them are closer to me now. In addition I now communicate with more people and I find it much easier to talk. It also feels like now everyone knows the worst of me, so there's nothing else to lose. Openness works: for me, my family and my world.

What I would do now if I had my impossible dream

This post is an answer to Paul Levy's invitation to throw out ideas about what can be done to improve safety and quality in hospitals.

Maybe 10 years ago I attended a course in implementing the quality standards ISO 9000. It was a big surprise to me that the course did not seem to teach us methodologies, forms, etc., but was more about finding common sense solutions to enterprise functioning. The most important idea that I learned and kept haunting me ever since that course was: ask the people that do the work to tell you how can their work be easier, how can things work better: they know, just listen to them. It's that simple.

So my answer to Paul is that I have no clue what can they do better, but I know who does: their patients, nurses, doctors and other staff. If someone digs into this collective knowledge and interprets it intelligently, you can find out what you need to do.

I would send a smart analyst (no need of medical knowledge) in the trenches and talk to the patients in the waiting room: ask them what should be changed, what is good, what is bad. Ask the inpatients, ask the nurses, ask the doctors. Don't send a kid with a prewritten questionnaire or survey, the person that does this needs to know what question comes next, needs to know how to interpret the findings. The analyst needs to bought by what he's doing: understand it's importance and believe that he can make a difference.

I would first screen the people I interview by selecting the ones that are good patients, are literate, and that can give reliable feedback.

If you care about patient safety, I would send someone to gently talk to persons that had something bad happen to them. Talk to them even years after the fact. There are some of us that keep searching for answers and would know exactly what doctor/nurse did what mistake and how it can be avoided in the future. They would tell you what hurt them and what helped them heal.
____________

The other day I was reading a pharmacist blog. He was complaining about the old patient that was yelling at him about a problem with the voicemail system. I could understand how he just wanted to do his job - fill in prescriptions. And I felt guilty for all the silly little things, non-medical related that I was telling the nurses and doctors... they don't care about these things, they shouldn't care about these things, but there is nobody else that I see that cares... If I tell the receptionist, she is trained to be nice to me and mind her own business.

Maybe I am a dreamer, but in my ideal world I see an office manager being in the waiting room a lot asking what can be done to improve the patients experience. I think this non-medical oriented person that is empowered to resolve issues that she finds can ease both the patients lives and allow the nurses and doctors to do their job.

There are a lot of patient satisfaction surveys these days... I never found out that I can really give a good feedback in the rigid structure or that my comments had a positive effect on the institution. I personally was seen by more senior doctors and I was treated better because I complained, but that was it. Pretty much like what Paul is describing: if the board only sees green the Board is bored and loses interest. If the only survey result is that we are treating the most critical respondents better, it doesn't make us better overall.
_________

And my conclusion with a sigh: oh, how I'd love to be that analyst!

Monique

Monique left a wonderful message on my post Now I'm public. I think I know who Monique is. I think she survived breast cancer and wrote a funny book about it.

This got to me on two levels. The personal one is that she is saying that losing a baby is the most painful experience that a woman can have. It is very painful indeed, but beating cancer is not a walk in the park either. You get hit like that and then people admire you and say that they couldn't have the courage to go through that... courage? what courage? I didn't choose to have a dead baby or get cancer... Once you get it you either go through it or you don't. Did I try to make good out of it? I did, but I didn't feel brave or courageous.

When we were a month or two out of our ordeal, my husband's friend just got diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. I never met him before and you can imagine that I was quite anxious. We got along very well... we seemed to be in the same emotional spot: me after my baby's death and him after finding out that he had cancer. We visited him again a few months later... after a couple of series of chemotherapy he was much deepened in the pain and really hard to get to. That's when I realized that I am doing better: I was going back towards life. Cancer eventually beat him.

The other reason why finding Monique's story and book pleased me is that someone I work with is going through breast cancer right now. Breast cancer seems to get closer and closer: a good friend's mother, my own scare a few years back that got me reading about it, my mother's cancer found and resolved in a very early stage... I am not so close to this woman, but I admire her trying to keep working through this and I wanted to find something nice for her. I have problems expressing my feelings (duh), so I need a nice something. A funny book about going through cancer seems like the perfect something.

Thank you, Monique for writing the book and touching my life!

Anniversary blues

I am feeling a bit overwhelmed right now. I have a million things to write and I am too tired by the end of the day to do anything other than crawl into bed.

I just realized that our baby loss anniversary is now less than 10 days away. It is ironic that I got into the hospital on Valentine's day. Everybody is celebrating and we are mourning. I thought I'll have no problems with it this year, but I learned in time that we all say we are OK and then we realize that we should not have forgotten the anniversary.

I had 2 difficult interactions yesterday and they both ended up bitter-sweet, just as expected. Somebody got upset and someone else blew me off completely, but both of them were done gently enough that I realized it's outside circumstances that caused the responses, rather than rejecting me. But the roller coaster of emotions to go through this killed me and I was in tears by the end of the day.

I think the traffic on my blog decreased significantly and I am glad. Maybe in two weeks, when I'll be over this, I'll start inviting more people over. For now, I'll just be good to myself.

I found more blogs of socially anxious people and sent little messages: an email, a few comments. I never heard anything from them... I guess I must be the only one that feels comfortable in this environment.

Why all the preeclampsia talk on a social anxiety blog

I'd first like to thank everybody that sent comments. I wanted to email you all personally and thank you for your kind notes, but most of you logged on anonymously. I got one or more comments each day and they all kept my day going. Thank you so much! It means a lot to me.

So why all the talk about preeclampsia? Because I've trying to talk about this for a long time, and it always seems inappropriate, the wrong time, the wrong person, or there's always someone that knows better, is smarter or can talk better than I do. I'm taking the spotlight here... and maybe this will be a good rehearsal and some day I will be able to say these things to other people.

I will linger for a while on preeclampsia and see how it feels. I might move it later to their website in a more professional format.

And a disclaimer: any opinions expressed on this blog are my own and do not represent the view of the Preeclampsia Foundation.

On preeclampsia

I'd like to share a few ideas on preeclampsia. It is a disease that affects pregnant women. It affects about 10% of all pregnancies, being as common as breast cancer. It usually happens toward the end of the pregnancy and can cause emergency delivery, but sometimes it happens in the second trimester and it can cause severely premature babies or stillborn babies. It can get dangerous enough that the mother can remain disabled or even die.

Paul Levy reminded me of an excellent article on preeclampsia written by someone at his hospital. It appeared in the New Yorker this last summer and it is worth checking out

For a great summary on preeclampsia and the research done at the Beth Israel Deaconess MC, check http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060724fa_fact

If you want to read more and preeclampsia stories, check the Preeclampsia Foundation's website

If you want to chat with other people that had preeclampsia, the Foundation's Forum is a wonderful resource. I basically learned everything I know about preeclampsia from there and it was a tremendous support while preparing for my second pregnancy after a loss.

I think there are two ideas that I'd love you to remember:

• It can happen to any pregnant woman, so if any family member or friend is pregnant, send them to check the signs and symptoms. If they have any of those symptoms after 20w, send them to their doctor or take them to L&D. This is no joke.


• If you had it once bad, there is still hope that you will succeed in a future pregnancy.

We lost our first son at 24w gestational age. He was very small, less than a pound. We took 3 years to prepare for another pregnancy. We got medical textbooks, we read all that we could get our hands on about preeclampsia, I got fit and got as healthy as I could, I selected the best doctors I could get, I got a second opinion from a specialist in hypertension in pregnancy... we did all we could to help it.

When I got pregnant, I took my blood pressure twice a day, logged it and graphed it. When things started to be interesting (after 33w gestation), I was the one that told my doctors that things are going downhill. Here are my charts and graphs

After all this graphing and charting... here's the result: 5lbs, 13oz born at 36 weeks gestation, healthy mother, healthy baby, 13 months later still healthy baby. This is the perfect outcome for any pregnancy, the rest doesn't matter!!!!

Now I'm public... maybe

Paul Levy made me public. And if you wonder how I feel about it, I feel pretty bad. The kind of bad that makes you talk to yourself in the parking lot and laugh out loud all alone. I felt very embarassed. And the only reason I am out here is that the online environment is allowing me to cool down before saying anything. I am frightened and excited, and maybe this is my blog's moment of glory.

Paul just publicly announced his salary yesterday, a figure that left me breathless for a couple of minutes. I was feeling comfortable knowing that a guy that earns that much wouldn't think twice about a too shy person... oh well, in his blog he asked people to visit mine... and asked me to install my statistics counter. I am not going to install the statistics counter, not tonight. I will be in the comfort of the fact that there are no comments and maybe there are too many interesting things on the web for anyone to pay attention to me.

[ETA: Just to be clear, Paul offered to put a link to my blog and I took his offer. I am very grateful for his outreaching out to me. It is the nature of social anxiety that the emotional responses to any kind of exposure are very strong. I think it was important to acknowledge and face my emotions. At a rational level, I fully understand that creating this blog, having a link to it from another place or even having the whole world see it is a big thing only for me.]

Now enough about my embarasment, I am going to use the free publicity to talk about a subject dear to my heart: preeclampsia. It's almost 4 years since we lost our first son to this disease and the weeks to follow will be quite difficult for us. They are much less difficult now that we have a happy and healthy baby then they were 2 and 3 years ago, but we will always remember our Angel.

About communication and friends

As I wrote a few messages ago, I emailed 3 authors asking them to look at my blog. I read their books and loved them and felt very connected to them. I am putting my sole in these pages and so I figured that if I invite them here, we will instantly become good friends.

I got short answers from two of them and I understood a few things: first is that love at first sight does not work with ideas: no one will fall in love with me by reading 2 sentences... it might be interesting, amusing, whatever, but we will not become friends.

The other thing I understood is that I always think "if only I could talk to people I would have much more friends"... and because I am not a big talker, I can't have friends. I guess friends come over time, when you spend time with them, and, talky or not, I could have friends if I spent more time with them. And I am valuing too high the ability to talk a lot or express everything I am thinking.

And with my work and household load, it is not easy to find time for friends. When family and all your college and childhood friends are far away, I would not be too surprised if anyone would be just like me if they walked in my shoes. That's why family and college and childhood friends are there forever: because we had time to share with each other at the time.

What works and what doesn't in hospitals - a patient's perspective

Paul, thank you so much for answering my email and your suggestions on how to play with the blog.

My dream started when I was a patient in a hospital and I kept thinking that something can be done to make these people's life better. Here's the story:

My baby was 9 days old and his pediatrician was afraid that he's not gaining enough weight (diagnostic: failure to thrive). He sent us to the hospital to get some blood tests done. If the tests were not good, my baby could have been admitted back in the hospital and be fed through IV.

At the hopital, I ended up in a big waiting room with maybe 50 other (sick) people waiting to go through the admission paperwork. I was told that I will have to wait at least 1 hour to get the paperwork done. I asked if they had a room where I can breastfeed my (hungry) baby. I was told that there isn't one and the person at the desk suggested the restroom.

This is a very nice hospital where I delivered, I was encouraged and helped to breastfeed and I was really satisfiedw with their services while I was in. Their L&D (Labor and Delivery) admission was very friendly: they just sent me to L&D, gave me a bed, and after all the medical stuff was cleared, someone came in with a laptop and got my paperwork. I thought this was very thoughtful and cool.

I imagined that maybe the restrooms are like hotel restrooms, where there would be a quiet, clean room with comfortable chairs. No chance of that... The baby was becoming fussy and I got over my embarasment and everything and started feeding him. (When babies are that small, they need to learn how to feed and you are encouraged to not give them bottles) I imagine that this offended them, because I was called to register within 5 minutes, just 30 minutes after I got in.

Imagine that the waiting room was full of sick people. My drama might have been the least dramatic in that room.

Why can't hospitals do something about this? Why don't they create an electronic check-in like the airlines do? Why don't they have a room for breastfeeding and have that kid with a laptop do our paperwork? If this process works so smoothly for L&D why can't it be made to work for the general admission?

I'm feeling that I can help this somehow and the more I read about the status of helthcare the more I realize that this is one place where I can help, where a difference might help, where something needs to be done.

What is that impossible dream

The impossible dream is getting a job... in a field that I have no qualifications or experience. I would like to work as a hospital administrator... Paul Levy, President and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston is my hero. I don't want to be CEO or President, but I'd love to help someone like Paul. And I think I have the talent to do it.

This is reaching as high as the sky. This is all so new to me. I am a software developer with no training in medicine or management. I am managing large software projects and I am very good at it. I imagine that the job is the same, but rather than dealing with software, you deal with sick people and people that care for them. I know I need to learn a lot, and this doesn't scare me. I can read, research and learn. What scares me is the interview... oh, no, not the interview.

I'm just starting to see what's under the covers and it is scary. I thought it's all about patients and caring for them, but there's so much else going on: uninsured and universal health plan and HIPPA, and pharma companies, and unions, etc.

But when I was in Romania, working for a leading US software consulting company seemed like reaching for the sky... and I did it. It seems easy now, but it wasn't, and I know I can do it again.

Thank you for hanging out with me while I dig through all this and prepare for THE INTERVIEW.

Random thoughts in the middle of the night

I did not go away, I just had a very long day yesterday. We went and saw a show in NYC - A Chorus Line. We loved it!

Going to NY is exhausting and of course I need to make out of it more than it really is, so it's also emotionally exhausting. It was cold and traveling with a 13 months old in the train and then subway its an adventure in itself, but for me, the adventure started the night before with thinking about all the disastrous scenarios: what if I will get lost, the baby will lose his hat, I will need to ask for help, I will need to call my husband and admit that I am lost, I will need to ask strangers to help with the stroller, how do you get a stroller through the subway doors anyway, and how should I behave with these people that I'm seeing once a year and know nothing about. They are all nice and I'd like to be nice to them, but what is there to talk?

It all went smoothly, and yes I asked that stranger for help, and he helped, and I asked for help in Penn station and I was guided the wrong way, and I think I did ok with "these people that I only meet once a year" even though I didn't say much, nor shared intimacies.

That being said, I am back to waking up every night at 3 AM or 3:30 AM, but I am not exhausted yet.

And I told 3 more people, getting the total count of people that know about this website to 5. I am now annoyed that nobody is having any comments. I added anonymous comments, so please comment. I have a plan to add some outside players: people that don't know me, but write about social anxiety. I'm curious where this will go.

And just to let you know, I have a draft of "what my dream is" in work, I will likely post it one of these days...

First night as a blogger

Last night while being awake and checking my email and the website every 5 minutes, my husband and I wondered whether this is going to cause more anxiety than it resolves. Keep in mind that only 2 people knew about the blog and one of them was in bed with me. LOL What will happen when I will have 20 or 200 people knowing about it?... oh well, I went through sleepless nights before, I'll go through them again.

The Impossible Dream

from MAN OF LA MANCHA (1972)
music by Mitch Leigh and lyrics by Joe Darion

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far

To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star


... or, if you prefer French:

http://apo.cmaisonneuve.qc.ca/villanova/emilie/Quete.html

Not so glorious start, but dealt with AAA

I was dreaming to start this blog with a glorious introduction on why I started it or a poem or something... instead I ran into a situation that I feared for a long time: I had a flat tire.

Nothing happened that was really exciting: it was daylight and I got to a Burger King parking lot. But it was cold and snowy and I was about half an hour from home, and even though I technically know what I have to do to change the tire, I did not feel like getting all cold and dirty doing it... and having the kids from BK laugh at me. So now the question: what would have caused me more anxiety: do it myself or ask for help?

Anyway, I called AAA, they came, changed the tire, I went home... What was it that I was anxious about?

That's me: any human interaction makes me cringe: I'm dreading talking on the phone, having anyone do anything for me, saying hello to a neighbour, and the list can go on forever.

Why did I start this blog? Because I think that I need to face my anxiety and this can be facing a lot of it if I will keep writing and I will let more and more people know about it.

So far 2 people know about my blog.