Promoted -- GH

During my last physical, my doctor ordered up some tests for me this week... follow ups necessitated by events occurring years ago -- an ICU stay from October through December, a stay precipitated by perintonitus and included 8 emergency surgeries, several blood transfusions and countless procedures. Since these new tests would take place in settings similar to my "ordeal," my doctor warned me to be prepared for some PTSD episodes.

As most of us know, PTSD:

...is precipitated by a terrifying event or situation—war, a car accident, rape, planes crashing into the World Trade Center—and is characterized by nightmares, flashbacks, and intrusive and uncontrollable thoughts, as well as by emotional detachment, numbness, jumpiness, anger, and avoidance.1

My doctor didn't actually need to remind me. I have had extreme flashes before. The first time I went to visit a doctor (after a ten-year moratorium) whose offices were in a hospital medical center, the staff almost wheeled me into emergency because my blood pressure reading was off the charts and I exhibited all the symptoms of a stroke or heart attack. And when I had a minor surgery, performed in a hospital, to remove a melanoma in my scalp, conducted with only local anethesia, I became hysterical as soon as the blood started dripping down my forehead.