The Ministry of Happiness

But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ said Alice. ‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the cat. ‘We’re all mad here. ~ Lewis Carroll

Rev Kane’s Wild Ride: The Mental Side

I’m a long distance hiker, or at least I am when I can be. If you’re new to this blog you can go back and read about a lot of my hikes in Scotland, the Himalayas and the Appalachian Trail, even wrote a book about the last one, Appalachian Trail Happiness. When I was first prepping for my Appalachian Trail hike one of the things I read about was how the one thing people underestimate about a long thru-hike are the mental aspects of the hike. You’re about to walk over 2,000 miles, everyone gets that it will be physically grueling but people don’t consider how hard it will be mentally. One of the reasons I developed the Three Questions concept that I post on each night was to personally help me address the mental challenge of the hike.

So I’m no stranger to big challenges, and my upcoming heart surgery is certainly that. I think everyone understands the physical challenge. A five hour surgery where they stop your heart, splitting your breast bone in half and putting it back together, spreading your ribs wide apart for hours, lots of soft tissue damage and cutting. I fully expect for at least the first couple weeks to feel like I got into a fight with a rhino and lost. And every time I have that thought, I think about when I did a fight club at burning man, and fought a man the size of a rhino who eventually spiked me to the ground and broke several of my ribs and this is gonna feel way worse than that did. As I’ve written about, I’ll have help and honestly there’s not a lot you can do beyond rest, eat well, exercise as appropriate and give your body time to heal. Oh and when necessary get real fucking high on pain meds.

So the physical side is understood, expected and prepared for as best as I can. Of course theoretical preparation and the actual event are seldom completely in line, but I’m as ready as I can be. But like preparing for and doing a long distance hike, the mental side plays heavier games with you and is harder to be ready for. The simple fact is, albeit happily small, there is a chance I’ll die during this procedure or if there are complications afterward. But even a small chance of death fucks with your head. So I’ve been working on preparing the best I can. I’ve done the first step, I’ve read every damn thing I could get my hands on about the procedure, my hospital, my team. I’ve talked to doctors, nurses and folks who have been through the procedure. I’ve talked about my fears, hopes and expectations with people I trust and respect. But man it ain’t easy. And where mental issues hit me are squarely in my sleep patterns. It’s far too easy for my mind to get wound up at night and not allow me to sleep, that happened last night.

There’s a secondary issue that faces me in this scenario, I’m that guy. You know, I’m the guy people go to for advice, to solve problems, to think things through. I’m the guy you want around when there is an emergency, I’m the one who stays calm and works the procedures we were trained for just in case. I don’t get flustered easily, I rarely ask for or need help. Hell, I’ve had knives pulled on me, a pistol stuck in my face and was even shot at by the cops once, I’m that guy. But when you’re that guy people have a tendency to forget your human. They take it for granted that you’re fine, you can’t be shook up, you’re not afraid of anything. And when you’re dealing with something significant like I am, that has a risk of death attached to it, people have their own fears that they are not willing to face and don’t won’t brought up.

So last night, in a text exchange with a friend, a truly kind and wonderful person, upon hearing my surgery was delayed, referred to the delay as a stay of execution. I responded, a really bad choice of words and their response was, with your sense of humor I thought you could take it, and I can, but… And the but is, that the comment was all it took, while I’m in a more delicate than normal state, to derail my train last night, get the wheels spinning and keep me awake. One of those nights when you lay down to go to sleep and your brain says, “dude, really, c’mon, you don’t think I’m going to let that happen do you?” So I got back up and watched some television, then I read until 3AM when the rest of my body finally said to my brain, “we don’t care what you want we’re sleeping.” And no sleep throws off everything for the next couple of days. It didn’t help that the conversation happened on the original scheduled date of my surgery.

The wild ride continues, 21 days to surgery…