Will anxiety haunt me my entire life?
Over a year ago I found out I was loosing my job. I have a wife and two kids so I was worried about out family. The feeling of anxiety was overwhelming! It is the first time in my life I've ever felt like that. It has such a tight grip on me, 24/7. It was terrible.
I just got diagnosed with diverticulitis. It's a condition where you've developed small out-pockets in your intestines. If one of them get infected i can be trouble. Most people recover with a round of antibiotics. I got antibiotics and got better, but then got worse. They switched my antibiotics and I did "ok", but then got even worse and was admitted to the hospital. In the hospital they told me if I didn't get better this time they would have to operate. Operating means cutting out a section of my colon. HELLO ANXIETY! Every morning I could feel the anxiety surge though me as I wrestled with thought about what might happen
I made it out of the hospital for a week and have been on oral antibiotics. Over all I'm doing better, but every couple of days I feel like I have the flu and get worse, only to improve the next day. Today I feel like crap. I've been battling this for a month and lost 20 lbs (weight I can't afford to loose). I can hardly eat anything. I still have some pain in my lower left side (where the infection was) which tells me I'm not fully healed. I have one more day on antibiotics and then I'm done. The doc doesn't want to renew the antibiotics, which means if its not fully healed it could likely get infected again and I'd go under the knife.
I'm sick of feeling like this. I feel like crap. I worry I won't get better. I worry that I might need surgery, and I won't be in the best of shape for it. I will be underweight with malnutrition because all I've been able to eat on a good day is bread, rice, and maybe some eggs. On a bad day it's just clear liquids, so no nutrition at all. Also, if they do surgery I'll have an active infection. If it didn't heal up before, how well will it heal up after they do major surgery.
I hate the anxiety. I thought I was through with this. Will it haunt me the rest of my life? Will it drown me every time there is a crisis in my life?