Anxiety is:

Knowing the worst can happen…and expecting it to.

Anxiety is:

Feeling your chest tighten with each and every story you read about another person lost to Sepsis.

Anxiety is:

Buying a blood pressure monitor and checking it every hour while you have a fever.

Anxiety is:

Buying a child size cuff for that same monitor when your child gets sick.

Anxiety is:

Remembering the crackling in your chest, the gasping for air, the confusion, the fear, the drowning in your own body- every time you get congested with a cold.

Anxiety is:

Checking on your children multiple times a night to make sure they are breathing.

Anxiety is:

Having your husband ask you to text him in the morning when you’re sick and he’s away so that he will know that you actually woke up.

Anxiety is:

Annoying your friends with a million questions about their symptoms, heart rate, and blood pressure every time they or their children get sick and the doctor tells them, “it’s a virus.”

Anxiety is:

Wondering if everyone else thinks you’re as crazy as you feel.

Anxiety is:

Worrying that all of the antibiotics you have taken will make you resistant.

Anxiety is:

Having difficulty making any decision because they all feel too big.

Anxiety is:

Taking supplements to increase your milk supply so you can continue to nurse throughout this flu season- even though you feel ready to be done.

Anxiety is:

Breathing. In and out. Longer on the exhale. Balancing the chakras. Laying on the biomat. Praying. Doing the yoga. Reading the books. Drinking the ketones. Use the oils. But finally admitting that you need to ask for a prescription as well.

Anxiety is:

An invisible scar.

Reality is:

Knowing that even almost three years later, even though life has mostly returned to normal, you are forever changed.

*For information on Post Sepsis Syndrome click here.