Stuck Headfirst in the Rabbit Hole (an entirely inelegant position)

I’m familiar with this feeling of unreality, which is oxymoronic if you bother to think about it. If you’re familiar with something, then it shouldn’t be unreal. Yet here I am, bisected by a Looking Glass that neither allows me full admittance to Wonderland nor releases me and lets me return to normalcy. (In this case, Wonderland is more the Johnny Depp version than the animated Walt Disney variety.)

First and foremost, I’m doing fine. I feel exactly the way I did last Friday, the day before my metaphorical electron made the quantum leap to the next shell without bothering to alert me beforehand. In some ways I’m finding it hard to believe the last seven days really happened, when all I have to show for it is about a dozen puncture marks accompanied by some Technicolor bruises on my arms.

Being released from the hospital after a few days of lock-down has always given me jitters because I lose what I quickly come to regard as my support network. It’s easy to get used to having a button to push if something goes wrong and it’s unnerving to lose that button and re-enter a normal, self-dependent environment. Historically, after being home a few days I realize that the universe has not come to a halt and start to feel comfortable in my own skin again. Every time before this time, when I was released the odds of recurrence were minute to nonexistent. This time comes with no such statistical comfort zone.

This time I wasn’t abducted by metaphorical spacemen – I was hit by a metaphorical car.** This was no random, one in tens-of-thousands event. This wasn’t something that gets fixed and leaves nothing behind except some meds or a really cool scar. This isn’t even something that I can be held blameless for; heart attacks are caused by factors an individual has some control over. This time the bullet I ducked can be shaped like a boomerang.

Budd-Chiari syndrome (liver): 1/1,000,000 cases annually
Myocarditis: 1-10/100,000 cases annually
Cardiovascular Disease: 790,000/323.1 million or 1/409 cases annually

Now every belch, fart and borborygmus has the ability to freeze me into momentary inaction. I linger over the residual pains in my arms from all the puncture wounds inflicted by nurses and phlebotomists; is that twinge normal or is it something bigger? When I take my walks, am I a little winded because I let myself turn into an overcooked noodle or is it the Return of the MI? I yawn agape and my jaw twinges; is it happening again? I couldn’t tell the first time; how the hell can I be sure I’ll recognize a recurrence?

I know this is a passing obsession. I’ll return to work Tuesday with no restrictions (doctor approved, before anyone yells at me – I could have gone back to work the day I was released from the hospital). Resuming my schedule will put things in perspective. It won’t be returning to normal; the old normal is gone and a new normal will take its place. But, when I get perspective, I’ll realize that every day brings a new normal, and I’ll adjust, just like I always have. If I make the proper tweaks, I may even thrive. I might be stuck in the rabbit hole at the moment, but I’ll get dislodged soon enough.

**Edited 9/3/2017 @8:16 per SWAM’s comment