Note: Comment I left on this video under Ducknoodle (a username that I have had since before Google bought out youtube).
"Congratulations! and Good Luck as you try to move forward!
Something that I picked up from "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" by Dale Carnegie ended up being really useful with dealing with anxiety about "what could happen" after having a mini stroke when I was 29. Paraphrasing a bit, "sit down and write out clearly what you are worried about, all the facets of it, so you are no longer anxious about some fuzzy/vague thing. Then go about improving on the worst. Ask, Is there anything I can do about it? If the answer is no, sit with the realization until you can at least accept it, then think about how to handle it rationally if and or when it does happen." If I remember right it was a story from an American who was doing business in China in 1937 when Japan invaded.
The mini stroke ended up worsening some chronic health problems to the point where any one of them would have been severe enough to be disabling all on their own. (Note: the chronic health problems and how they impacted my ability to earn a living were responsible for the majority of my anxiety before the mini stroke).
I have learned along the way that managing the process of medical care when your regular doctor visits now include monitoring your state of remission with a specialist and ensuring communication between doctors. Improving this skill dramatically reduces the stress and anxiety that the process can induce. The checklist in the article on HBR.org "The Secret to Ensuring Follow-Through" by Peter Bregman (link below) was extremely helpful with communicating with my doctor, I just altered a few based on the appointment, usually needing to ask only one or two relevant to the current context (I actually have had my doctor read the checklist from the article because I am still dealing with aphasia and word searching problems, and saved me from having to struggle to form the questions I needed to ask because he just said "oh, ok, well this is the process, and no you don't need to come back in before seeing the specialist unless something else comes up.")
Some other books:
- "Care of the Soul" by Thomas Moore
- "The One Thing Holding You Back: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Connection" by Raphael Cushnir (this also helped with learning how to process emotions again because of the damage incurred to my brain, I have heard chemo can cause brain damage as well)
- "The Checklist Manifesto" by Atul Gawande (the section where he interviewed an architect, and communicating as an equal)
- https://hbr.org/2011/01/the-secret-to-ensuring-follow - Based on the Checklist Manifesto, refer to the "Handoff Checklist" about midway down the page starting with "What do you understand the priorities to be?" Doctors who aren't lazy recognize questions like these as worth answering and won't be as likely to rush out of the exam room before you get your questions answered, and also helps reduce my anxiety if all I am facing is more tests."
