Grief in that your body is not, and will never again be, like it was before you either discovered you had a heart condition that would require surgery or the heart condition you were born with has deteriorated to the point where surgery will be neccesary for your survival.
I think that form of greif comes up because there is a loss, a loss in what and who we are in that we are healthy, and now well not be as so. Like losing a limb or one's hearing. It's a systemic, life-altering change that can never be undone.
You are experiencing some wierd chest pains or maybe feinting spells and after ruling out obvious causes you are refered to a heart specialist who tells you you've had a bicuspid aortic valve since birth and it's going to have to be replaced very soon or you will die.
A WHO?
WHAT?
Since I was born?
How come I never heard of this before?
It can be a VERY hard pill to swallow. You've been reasonably healthy all of your life and you've never suspected anything could be wrong with your heart then, all of the sudden, there it is, a date marked on the calender when near strangers will cut into your chest and remove a part of you, replacing it with a piece of plastic and metal.
If you DON'T have a negative reaction to that thought, you need some SERIOUS professional help.
Many of us are born with the conditions we have. I've lived my whole life knwoing my heart was "different" from other people's and that there was a chance that at some point, I'd be needing more surgery. I wasn't happy about it when my heart started going downhill, but I know where I stood, know what was going on, and in some sense, I've been preparing for it for over 20 years.
However, in the two months leading up to my surgery, I was definitely in a very bad depressive state. My body was betraying me in every sense of the word. I couldn't do what I wanted to. My mind said, "stand up" and my body said, "NO." and that was extremely frustrating.
My darkest moments were sitting on the toilet in the bathroom, just sitting there, almost unable and unwilling to move, to get up. Just there, focused on breathing lightly so that I didn't get into another coughing fit. Hunched over with my elbows on my knees and just breathing, labored, eyes closed.
I did this a lot in the kitchen too, though I usually had a little more motivation to get up and move around.
I was in a very bad state for nearly a month and I don't even think my wife and my father who were with me the whole time realize just how bad I was mentally.
I didn't want to fight, but I didn't want to die either, I wasn't quite ready to give up on that yet. Maybe a little bit stubborn.
I think having been through all of that plus the protracted recovery and hospital stay afterwards is a key in how I "avoided" the kind of depression many people here have talked about AFTER surgery...
My surgery was in March, the dead of winter. A massive snow storm was moving through the area the night I was wheeled into the OR, my father and then fiance were caught in it, trying to get back to the hospital after finding out I was literally dying. I spent the next two months in the hospital first struggling to survive then slowly making steps towards recovery. Nine weeks later I was discharged. Spring was just starting up, the air was warmer and "sweeter" and flowers were just starting to come out. Within a week, everything was fresh and new and bright and warm and it just seemed to match how I felt. My body was getting stronger by the day. I could go outside and walk around the neighborhood in warm air, with a warm breeze and the sun on my face.
It's interesting to note that I think the best two summers I've had in recent memory is the one right after I had surgery and one two years before, the summer of 2001, before our world changed in New York City and Washington DC...
If you're feeling depressed, for any reason, talk to people. Talk to people who've been there personally, talk to nurses or doctors or other people who work with people who've been there. Talking to family is nice if you can do it, but it invites complications when those family members are also trying to find ways to deal with your condition. Of course professional counseling is another option to consider, but it's hard for most of us to take that step without all of the "baggage" that occassionally comes with it.
