Awakening Through the Tears - Catherine M. Simone

Awakening Through the Tears (eBook)

Interstitial Cystitis and the Mind/Body/Spirit Connection

Catherine M. Simone (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2002 | 1. Auflage
192 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-0-9667750-5-1 (ISBN)

The first book about IC and the mind/body/spirit connection, Awakening through the Tears is another groundbreaking book for Interstitial Cystitis (IC) patients worldwide. It is not only about the mind/body/spirit connection and how to use that connection to help heal from IC, it is also a discussion of physical connections with IC that have not been previously addressed elsewhere. Simone explains the connections between various possible causes of IC that the medical community still ignores. Like To Wake In Tears and Along the Healing Path, Awakening Through The Tears is a discussion of IC from a holistic perspective. She again is offering hope, practical advice, and helpful information to help heal from IC. If you experience anxiety and/or feel there is a hormone connection with your IC, this book is especially for you. Actually, this book is for anyone who has IC and has ever wondered why they have it, for anyone who has ever asked, 'Why me?'.

As I sit here drying the tears and trying to breathe, I am astounded at the fears I still feel. It has been 4 months since To Wake In Tears was published. And here I sit, with pen in hand, trying to expel the fears through the ink and these words. My husband Charlie left for the Cayman Islands just minutes ago. It’s a trip for work, but spouses were allowed to go. A week on the beach, alone with the love of my life…a dream I’ve been praying for…and yet, here I sit. I couldn’t go. I’m still not ready. It breaks my heart. And Charlie, well, he loves me too much to let it show.

“Go in there and write,” he said to me in the driveway as we said our last goodbyes. “Write how you feel because I’m sure others feel the same way.” He gave me one last hug and got in the car. He waved goodbye yelling out the car window “Spoil yourself!”, as he always tells me to do when he leaves for an extended period of time. Spoil myself. Hmmm…I’m still learning what that means.

So here I sit, writing down my feelings as the tears stream down my face. Well…I’m not sure if anyone else feels this way or not, but I can tell you that right now, I feel like a total idiot. I feel stupid and weak for feeling so afraid. I feel silly for sitting here crying and for being scared of what might happen while I’m here alone these next eight days and nights.

It’s not the being alone that bothers me. I’ve spent countless hours alone since I was diagnosed with severe interstitial cystitis (IC). Like others with more severe cases of IC, I was often housebound and sometimes bedridden with IC and the effects of IC. I missed out on a lot of the things of life. I missed family gatherings, hanging out with friends, going to concerts, playing tennis, going out to dinner…you know, normal things that people do. There were times this made me very angry and times I felt very alone. I was in my early 30’s and this was NOT the way it was supposed to be. This was not at all what I had in mind.

But right now, it’s not the spending time alone that’s bothering me. I’ve actually gotten kind of used to that. In fact, in some ways, it’s been a strange blessing of sorts. I ended up learning a lot about myself, about my own spirituality, and about life, by spending so much time alone. (Much of what I’m about to share with you in this book was born out of my IC enforced isolation.) In some ways, I feel like I can relate to those in solitary confinement and how they tend to grow spiritually through their time of solitude. No…it’s not the being alone that’s bothering me right now. It’s the “not knowing what might happen to me physically” while Charlie is away. That, I know, is what I’m really afraid of.

Even though physically I am so much better than I was, there are still some symptoms that remain. Some people were under the misimpression that I was all finished healing five minutes after To Wake In Tears was published. This was simply not the case. Healing from IC (and the multitude of IC related symptoms and illnesses that can come with it) is no easy feat and it definitely takes time. At this point, I am still cleansing, still rebuilding, still waiting patiently (and not so patiently) to finish healing.

But that’s not really why I’m sitting here. It’s not why I didn’t go. There are probably a lot of people out there traveling right this minute who are sicker than I am right now. Hell…I traveled when I was much more sick than I am right now. The truth is…I didn’t go because I was too scared to go. I was afraid of getting really sick, being in pain, and needing, or at least wanting, to get back home right away. Home was where I had things that could help and home was where at least I could be a little more comfortable. I was afraid of being in some strange bathroom with a severe IBS attack (which at this point is still one of my remaining IC related symptoms). I was afraid of getting those poison rush feelings, covered in a cold sweat, my heart pounding in my chest, severe pain in my gut, and that “going far away” feeling in my head like when you’re about to pass out. But I wasn’t just afraid of getting sick like that away from home, I was also afraid of getting sick like that AT home. And even more afraid when this happened during times when I was all by myself. If something went seriously wrong, if my throat closed up and I couldn’t breathe from some strange allergic reaction, if my bladder started to spasm and stopped working, if the IBS got horrible and I was having trouble keeping from passing out, if I had some other weird allergic reaction to God knows what, who was I going to call? Who was going to know how to help me?

To me (and at least for me), when you have IC, there is no 911. I felt I had no one to call in an emergency situation. There was no one who was going to understand that IC is more than just a bladder disease or that my body was very toxic and therefore extremely sensitive. There was no one who was going to understand that my edema/swelling wasn’t just fat and that it was painful to have someone touch me let alone press all over me to examine me. How would I be able to explain all my symptoms and what I was allergic to, etc., in the middle of an emergency situation? And who was going to listen to me, believe me, and understand me enough to help? Having no one to call in an emergency situation is a very scary place to live when emergency situations come on a fairly regular basis.

Some people who don’t have IC or maybe even those with mild IC might be thinking, geez, it’s just a bladder disease, what is this girl talking about fearing for her life for. And some people might think maybe I shouldn’t say these things because maybe I’m scaring people with the truth. But for those of us with more severe IC, those of us with all the other symptoms and illnesses that can come with IC, know that I am not exaggerating in the least when I say that it seems as if our bodies are falling apart and that no one knows what to do to help. It’s a scary place to be, I can tell you that. A very scary place. And a very lonely place.

You see…the loneliness of IC is not really defined by the amount of time many of us end up having to spend alone because we are too sick to go places and do things. It is not the amount of time alone that is as hard as the loneliness of no one understanding how we feel, the loneliness of no one understanding IC. There is a deep aloneness in the physical pain of IC. There is a deep aloneness in the incredibly uncomfortable, never-ending urgency. And there is an extra deep aloneness in the fact that often, for IC patients, no one is really showing much concern over our pain and symptoms. For many of us, there is a gigantic lack of compassion, sympathy and understanding from family, friends, and doctors. And that HUGE lack of compassion, sympathy, and understanding can have a tremendously huge impact on our emotional well-being, our physical healing, and how incredibly alone we feel in our fears and in our pain.

I know so many IC patients who have said things like “it would have been much easier to have cancer than to have IC”. I even know IC patients who have had cancer AND IC and they have all said that IC is worse. Every single one of them has said that. And why? Because it’s worse to have a disease that no one has ever heard of, that no one understands, and that no one cares all that much about it. It’s worse because when you have IC, most people don’t understand how much you are suffering physically. They show you very little compassion or concern and in some cases, they just plain don’t even believe that you have anything physically wrong with you. I know parents who don’t believe their child or teenager really has a physical disease and therefore the child or teenager’s suffering is not only shown no regard, but they are treated as if they are “doing this on purpose” or as if it’s “in their head”. Obviously this doesn’t just happen to children and teenagers, which is tragic enough. There are plenty of adults whose spouses and family act as if IC is the person’s fault, like the person wants to be sick or isn’t even sick. At the least, they act as if it’s no big deal. Sometimes family members refuse to read about it, hear about it, or make any attempt at understanding it. And if the IC patient tries to get them to understand, they are often met with coldness. When you are diagnosed with something like cancer, it is highly unlikely that you will get this type of response.

For me, the whole “no one understanding IC” was a HUGE thing. It was very difficult for me to get over it on an emotional level. Realizing that people who I thought cared about me really didn’t care was very hard. Realizing that people who had known me my whole entire life to be a reasonable, intelligent, levelheaded person now thought I was crazy or that it was “all in my head” was very upsetting to me. I was very hurt by the people in my life that I thought would “be there for me”, because they definitely weren’t. However, I was extremely fortunate to have Charlie, my sister-in-law Sue, and my mom who were there for me the whole way through. I know some IC patients who don’t even have one person who is there for them through their IC nightmare. This makes me so very sad because I...

Erscheint lt. Verlag	12.12.2002
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Medizin / Pharmazie ► Naturheilkunde
ISBN-10	0-9667750-5-8 / 0966775058
ISBN-13	978-0-9667750-5-1 / 9780966775051

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