This past week has been a difficult one because my mother had a severe anxiety attack last weekend. As a family, we have dealt with the fact that she has suffered from depression and anxiety disorder for over thirty years. We are not ashamed of talking about it whatsoever because it is an illness just like any other illness and she has no control over it. As far as we know, it began right after my birth when my mother was eighteen years old. She suffered from postpartum depression after giving birth but was able to recover from it after a few weeks. Unfortunately, four years later after giving birth to my brother, she again sank into a depression but was not able to feel better on her own. This is the way that depression and anxiety presents itself in the lives of many people. It is brought on or awakened by a traumatic or stressful experience in a person's life. In my mother's case, the stress of giving birth to three children in four years, at such a young age, … [Read more...]
The Dreaded Mammogram Callback
As many of you know, I went in to have my first mammogram last week after I was advised to do so by my gynecologist due to my paternal great grandmother having had breast cancer. It was supposed to be just a screening and, although the technician warned me that many women get callbacks after their first exam, I didn't really expect that it would be anything but normal. Unfortunately, nothing is ever that easy so I received a letter from the imaging place over Labor Day weekend asking me to return for a follow-up mammogram. The letter said that there was a "finding" that they wanted take further images of. It was terrifying and I couldn't help feeling that I was part of a cruel joke. You see, I'm only 36 so I was expecting everything to be alright because most women don't even have to have a mammogram until they turn 40. Also, I'm already living with Leukemia so the thought of having to deal with a secondary cancer is just too much to even have to wrap my head around. … [Read more...]
