Dear ICU Suvivor

Dear ICU Survivor,

It is unlikely we will ever meet but I know what you are going through because I am an ICU survivor too. I know you are stronger than you think and even know right now, you have overcome something that nearly killed you. Your strength and determination brought you through with the help of an excellent ICU team. In the beginning, everything will seem like it is too difficult to achieve and it will be a struggle but you will overcome these hurdles.

The ICU team and the teams on your step down out of hospital are all trying to get you better as quickly as possible and I know at times the physios, doctors, and nurse seem like the enemy pushing you to do things you are too tired or too frustrated to do but there are reasons why they are getting you to do them even if you don't see them. The rehabilitation seems hard but you have overcome so much already. You might not be able to see your progress because it is small steps on a daily basis but your friend and family, as well as the staff, will. When you look back at what you are now able to do that you couldn't do a week or a month ago you will see how far you have come.

I will not lie to you, it will not be an easy or quick path to recovery but it will come. On your recovery journey, things might no longer be able for you to do but I can assure you other things will become available to you. Before ICU I would have been terrified to talk in front of a group of people but I tell my ICU story to healthcare professionals and have spoken to a conference of 300 people. Surviving will take some things away from you but it will gift things to you. You will hopefully realize how strong you are because you are so very strong to overcome what you have.

We are family because we are both ICU survivors, we are many because others are survivors too. You are never alone, we all have gone through similar things you are a #Rehablegend and you prove it with every step you take and every hurdle you overcome. Being an ICU survivor is not a badge of shame but one of strength and determination, you are part of the #RehabLegend family too. We support each other because we all know what it is like to be in that bed we all know what we all have overcome, never forget your greatness and strength.

Your Fellow Survivor

Mark

My Anxiety and Me:

We are not friend’s anxiety and me but we are inseparable these days, I can’t go anywhere without it. It is like an abusive troll on your shoulder whispering in your ear telling you you’re not good enough, no one likes you, that venturing outside will just mean a hospital visit for you. Anxiety is a cruel mistress who seeks to tear you down especially at the moments when you need to be strong. Anxiety has made a coward out of me and it shames me to say it, it makes talking in public feel like dying in that ICU bed again. It says to me when I share my story that it was a waste of everyone’s -time and that it was useless to them. It makes me feel like I am worthless, but I know that I am not. I know that when I speak I am giving you a part of my soul, showing the worst times in my life so that you can glean insight or wisdom from my trauma. I know in the balance the feeling I feel leading up to speaking is worth suffering so that someone who finds themselves in my position in the future they get the best care possible.

To me anxiety comes in two ‘acute’ forms the first when I do something extremely outside my safety zone like going to speak at the EDA conference (Honest I will finish part three blog) this one feels like someone has shoved a hand through my stomach and up into my heart and is squeezing it. Without people like Prof MacLullich and Margaret Farquhar being there as people I knew even if only from the internet and the lovely Dr Miller, I doubt I would have been much use the rest of the time. This is the worst time and really makes me feel like garbage for doing things. The second is when things are not going to plan, or something springs up that knocks me back and have trouble coping this one is like someone is choking me with their hand on my throat. I have trouble breathing but it is not as severe as a panic attack (I had them back in my early recovery time from ICU ~a year post ICU) but similar in its way of affecting me. This is when a test is coming up or when I wake up and my stomach hurts or a delivery is late. These little things quickly snowball with me and really impair my ability to live a somewhat normal life.

But whatever form it comes in it still sucks, it still makes me feel like garbage. Before ICU I’d take everything in my stride nothing would really get to me even with my long term issues. I’d have a bad time with an illness get admitted o hospital feel back mentally for a few days then get back to the struggle without any real issues. Since ICU my baseline anxiety is much higher, before ICU I was maybe a 2/100 as a norm, not really anything new I’d say I am a 20/100 baseline but anything can knock me up real high real fast. I try my best to put my situation in a way that I have a net around me to catch me when I start to spiral, twitter has supplied me with some world-class people who I can sound ideas off like Dr Dale Needham, Dr Segun Olusanya, Dr Heidi Lindroth, MarcLittlemore, and the wonderful Kate Tantam. More importantly, it has given me friends and confidants people I can go to when I am having trouble and say this is going on and not feel like I will be judged or put down for it: Dr Heidi Lindroth, Kate Tantam, Louise Galle and the one and only Mitochondrial Eve. I have been absolutely blessed to have so many great people on team Mark and it has really helped me in a lot of bad times to know I have people.

But to close out, the effects of ICU don’t stop at the time the patient leaves the front door, they don’t even finish after your ICU clinic visits as an outpatient but in my thoughts, the effects on a person are life long but not just the person but everyone around them. It takes a village to help a person recover but ICU effects a village's worth of people for each ICU patient. As patients, we often forget that our families went through it too and often Health care professionals often focus so much on saving the patients life that the family are forgotten. We can all do better, we can all think more but most importantly we can all care a bit more. We are all on the boat together lets try and make it the best we can.