nirbhao

It's time for the quarterly review. Can you believe it's been fifteen months since my heart surgery to repair the patent foramen ovale?

In some ways, it feels like I've made no progress at all. I'm still living with my parents. I'm sill working on rehab. I'm still struggling to hold a job. It's draining.

In other ways, the progress that I've made is immeasurable. First off, of course, I actually sleep at night. I have warm hands and feet and pink lips, and I can ride a bike up a hill-- all that jazz. I've only had one seizure in the past year, and I had been off my Topamax for a few days (for reasons beyond my control).

I do have to get yearly echocardiograms, and although my next one is scheduled for late October, my heart is healthier than it ever has been. My blood pressure is consistently a strong low, but I can become anemic when I menstruate due to the IUD/ Aspirin therapy combo. I can't use hormonal birth control because of the high dose of Topamax I take.

Intellectually, my brain actually works pretty fantastically. I am, according to the neuropsychological evaluation I underwent, a pretty smart cookie. Unfortunately, typical of any stroke survivor, the harder I try to get anything inside my head out, the more difficult it is to do it. It's kind of like I'm balancing on a spider web, and I have to be very careful about not getting tangled. Moments that I thought were memory issues (e.g.: forgetting how to get to my grandma's house) were actually times when I just got overwhelmed, all stickied up in the web, and my brain said, "fuck it! I'm done!" and allowed the spider to grab me.

I have appointments all the time. I see a million doctors. It doesn't help that on top of the PFO which caused the TIAs that lead to the seizure disorder and the other miscellaneous brain damage that I also have Bipolar type I, and, apparently, a cranky body in general.

For example, I am severely allergic to tree nuts and managed twice, in two weeks, to accidentally eat things that have tree nuts in them.

And then, on top of the internal conflict, I have had some "fun" external conflicts: My primary care physician was booted from my insurance company and so I currently don't actually have a PCP, and my insurance company seems to believe I don't actually need antidepressants and so is currently refusing to pay for them.

One thing that I'm finally coming to terms with, and it's actually really disheartening for me, is that my mom is actually planning on me living with her for quite some time. It was a huge blow to me to have to give up my independence after living on my own for five years before my heart surgery, and when I moved back in I saw it purely as temporary. Planning on living with my parents for the long haul is something I'm really struggling with.

I often feel that my parents are disappointed in me for the same reasons that I'm disappointed in me; I would be starting my third year of law school. They went with me when I got my neuropsychological evaluation, and after my doctor had spent a good amount of time explaining how I will need a work environment where I can take my time doing my work with little or no distraction, my mom asked if I would still be able to go into law. My natural reaction was to feel hurt over expectations that are too high, but it's much better than if she had given up on me. She still has hopes that I will be able to succeed, and she supports my recovery.

And one improvement in my mental health is that I'm able to look at it that way.

I think, though, that for the most part my life is pretty normal for someone my age. I go to work 40+ hours a week, and I hang with friends sometimes and my boyfriend a lot. I have a dog, and I like to go out to movies or go out to eat. I'm thinking about going back to school. For the most part, unless you got to know me, you probably wouldn't think I was any different than any other twenty-three year-old girl.