Dealing with Anxiety Fueled by a Health Diagnosis

When my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer, his only initial symptom was a side ache. He had been complaining about his side hurting, and the doctors thought it was a pulled muscle, so they told him to take a week off work and rest it. If it still bothered him, he was supposed to go back in. Sure enough, it was still hurting after his time off work, so he ended up going back to the doctor, where they diagnosed him with walking pneumonia and gave him antibiotics. After his round of antibiotics, he was still hurting, and his pain was getting worse. At this point, it had been about 6 weeks, and they finally ran some tests, and the results came back as lung cancer. The doctors were never concerned about lung cancer before since he was not a smoker. By the time my dad was diagnosed and they figured out what was going on, he had started having bad leg pain. Come to find out, the cancer had already spread to his bones, and the cancer was eroding his femur. 

Because something as seemingly innocent as a side ache turned out to be a death sentence for my dad and my life as I knew it, I began having bad health anxiety and just anxiety in general. Every weird little thing I felt in my own body, I thought it was a symptom, and I was going to die. If my daughters felt sick, I would think I would never see them healthy again. If my husband had a headache, I was sure he was going to have a brain aneurysm or a brain tumor. It got to the point where I avoided going to the doctor. 

My anxiety got so bad that I truly stopped living. I stopped living because I became so afraid of dying. I avoided anything “fun” at all costs because I always went to the worst-case scenario. If I ride a rollercoaster, I might get whiplash, or the seatbelt might malfunction, and I fall to my death. If I swim in the lake, a brain-eating amoeba is going to swim up my nose, and I will die. If I go outside and do something active when it is warm outside, I might get heatstroke, or if it’s cold out, I might get frostbite. I didn’t want my kids to go sledding because I didn’t want them to break a bone or get a concussion. If I fly on an airplane, I might have a medical emergency, and no one will be able to help. The list goes on and on… 

Living life this way was extremely exhausting, even though I wasn’t physically doing anything to be exhausted at the end of the day (because I never did anything), but because my mind was constantly running in circles and playing all the worst-case-case scenarios on repeat in my mind. 

I lived like this for years before I started going to therapy, as I knew something needed to change. It was way too much work just to make it through one day that I knew I couldn’t keep going this way. It wasn’t fair to my husband or my daughters, or myself. Through therapy, I learned I had a lot of grief work to do, along with a lot of work on myself. But I was ready. It was a terrifying experience, but I am so grateful my husband was there to encourage me and to motivate me, and I am so thankful he stayed by my side during the lowest point in my life – so I could get help and stop being afraid of dying and get back to living. 

Therapy really helped me change my thinking patterns and my thought processes. Instead of thinking of all the worst-case scenarios, I now think of the best-case scenarios, which have really shifted my way of thinking, and it has helped me tremendously. When you have anxiety, you are living in the future in anticipation of something bad happening. I had to really focus on being present, accepting situations for what they are, and living in the moment. Going back to the rollercoaster example, if I ever start thinking about getting whiplash or falling out of the seat, I reframe my thinking and would say to myself, do you currently have whiplash? And I bring myself back to the present moment, and then I remind myself that if I do get a whiplash or fall out of my seat and tumble to my death, well, I will deal with that IF it happens. 

Because of this newfound way of thinking, in the last year and a half, I have done more exciting things than the previous 5 years combined, and man, it feels so good! I can say I am truly living my best life now, despite my grief and not having my dad here to enjoy life and make memories. I started traveling and saying yes to so many things that I would have never done before! 

I am so grateful that I have been able to conquer my anxiety and fears that were fueled by my dad’s diagnosis. And I am so glad that I was able to overcome my fear of living because I was so afraid of dying. I still have to work on it actively, as I do not think it will ever go away fully, but I am committed to working on it for the rest of my life so I can enjoy the time I have left on this Earth. 

Enjoying some time next to the lake when my family traveled to Michigan Summer ‘22. It was so nice to begin traveling again and making beautiful memories with my family!