@annie1 You've got about 3 weeks which isn't a lot of time, but here are some thoughts. Think back in your life to events that caused fear as you were growing up so you can figure out where your fear comes from. None of us are born with fear, and it is something we learn along the way as we try to remain safe. You might find some similarities in a pattern you can recognize. Surgery brings up the unknown, and you may not have a frame of reference to accept and embrace it as a positive change, just yet. Were there experiences with other medical providers that caused anxiety, and afterward, you thought, well that wasn't so bad and I did OK? Give yourself credit for every small victory you've had over fears no matter how small.

These are patterns we learn in early life, and we react with fear just because something feels a bit similar. Your brain takes a shortcut by recognizing this pattern it has learned, and jumps right to the response in an attempt to get you out of perceived danger sooner. Ask yourself how much more you know now than when you were a kid and how does having the control of choices now in making decisions about your care change this completely? I realized that I was still thinking like a 6 year old when it came to having to face something that was going to cause pain and I told myself it was time to think like an adult. Stress increases the amount of pain you feel a lot. There are also people who can use their mind to not feel pain when we know what they are doing would cause pain. This means that pain does NOT always have total control of the situation. I also know that if someone else feels pain, I can feel it too. For example, when I give my husband an allergy shot, if he reacts, I can feel the pain of the needle in myself and I know my brain is supplying the feeling of pain because it is what I expect, but there wasn't a physical reason for it.

I often listened to music I loved and was doing deep slow relaxed breathing in time to the music. I measured my blood pressure before and after and I was able to drop it by 15 points. Anytime, I felt anxiety, I would turn to this tactic to control the anxiety because I knew that I could do this. Then I started pairing an mage with the music and breathing. I had always been afraid of any medical provider who would do something to me that was painful, and I didn't want to have that reaction to a surgeon who I knew would help me. I started using a photo of the surgeon during this exercise so I could be familiar with his face and think of him in a positive way.

I wanted to focus more on the positive aspect of surgery than fear the pain caused by surgery. I knew the pain after surgery would be healing pain that would come because I was in control of the decision to have surgery, and this makes a difference because before pain had always been something I wanted to run from, and now I had a choice and could trade that fear of the unknown for healing pain. I had also had a very painful experience during an epidural spinal injection that was done as a diagnostic test. It was so painful, I was convulsing in pain. This was much more extreme than what I thought extreme pain was. I was well on my way to passing out, and I started my deep breathing, and I played my favorite music in my head and visualized an eagle flying free in the sky and high above this office, and I imagined I was that eagle. I did pull myself back from passing out, and even though I was in this extreme pain, I learned that I could handle it. I now had a new frame of reference to compare to other things because I now had in my tool box my new skill in relaxation therapy.

The first time I had surgery was for carpal tunnel, and I was scared and didn't know how to handle it. What I did was to see a psychologist who did clinical hypnosis. That really worked. I was able to go through the surgery and stay calm even though I could feel the butterflies in my stomach. If you don't have enough time to work through deprogramming your fears, clinical hypnosis would be a good option.

There are lots of Ted Talks about facing fear, and I watched as many as I could find. I also learned everything I could about spine surgery and procedures because for me, understanding the medical side of it took away the unknown. For some people, that might induce anxiety, but I had studied science in college and earned a biology degree, so I could understand medical literature. It was actually in reading medical literature, that I found a case like mine and figured out what a bunch of surgeons had missed in my diagnosis. In that way, I redirected my journey into getting help instead of a wild goose chase. I was loosing the ability to control my arms, and because I trained many years to become an artist, I didn't want to loose that ability. I eventually found the right surgeon who gave me back what I was loosing and that is a very good thing.

What do you think could be helpful in facing or moderating your fear? How can you make friends with your fear and understand it?

Jennifer