Doctor's Visit

I rarely feel sorry for myself, but every three months I give in to a good cry - right after a visit to the doctor. The heart doc and the onc are on about the same schedule, so I walk around all teary and blubbery for about two, three weeks. I can't seem to help myself. This is one of those times.
Visiting the doctor reminds me that I'm sick. I'm not sick-sick, I'm more towards healthy than sick, but still...I start to relive "stuff". I am reminded what I went through, and, like most patients used to good health and independence, I realize all over again how I have become dependent on an electrical device in my chest and on drugs to stay well. I can't go without tikosyn; when the pharmacy screws it up - and I have to travel 22 miles to the pharmacy that will carry it - it becomes a major issue, a major hassle. I get anxious.
I'm reminded of my losses; my plan to teach or provide medical care in the African bush or the slums of Mumbai are history. Feelings return...confusion, fear, incredulity. How did this happen?
My health, something I've been able to put back on the shelf, comes front and center again. I like to believe in between that things have "gone back to the way they were" but they never will, and I'm reluctant to embrace this "new normal". I don't know if I ever will.
It's not unlike getting divorced, moving away, and shuttling kids back and forth. I make an uneasy peace with this every time I do it - it feels disjointed and out - of - kilter, but what are you going to do? Just live your life, these feelings bookending stretches of "normal".
That's how it is.