anxiety returns

I haven’t felt this level of anxiety in years. It’s that sickening elevator drop feeling. Day and night. it won’t shut off. An adrenal rush that won’t quit. I pee every five minutes. The vibration of a text on the iPhone makes me tense up, startle and feel like a lion just jumped out of the bushes. Fight or flight. I’m in no shape for a fight, though a flight sounds good. To a Swiss clinic for the 48 hour "sleep cure" — a medically induced coma that just resets everything.
Chronic pain and clinical depression go hand in hand. And while I’ve got an 80% chance, supposedly, of being just fine I put it more at 40%. I’m not a doctor. I just spend a lot of time on Web MD. There are all kind of statistics. 95% of people with disc herniations don’t need surgery. They get better in a few months. Then there’s the 5% who need surgery. Then there’s the 5% who reherniate after surgery. Where does that put me? What’s 5% of 5%? I got a D in Algebra so don’t expect me to know how to tabulate that shit.
Right now thee are tears streaming down my face. I kind of can’t stop crying. Not really. I’ve spent the last two weeks in doctor’s offices hoping that there was some way I could avoid a second surgery. last night I read about lumbar fusion. I’ll be in a wheelchair by 60. And again, no one’s talking about fusion for me — yet. They’re just doing a second microdiscectomy. I’m the one jumping five moves ahead on the all black chess board here.
How did I reherniate? Sneezing I think. But this time I’ll be even more likely to reherniate. What the fuck does that mean for the rest of my life? I feel like I’ll have this spine made of glass. Of course being clinically depressed right now does not help my chances of recovery. I may need to postpone surgery until I can get my head together. But I can’t get my head together laying in bed staring at the ceiling all day. The last time I was clinically depressed I got out of through exercise. I went bike riding, a lot. I can’t do that. I can barely go for a walk. I can stand for about 30 minutes tops. I can sit for about ten.
I keep having the darkest thoughts and they’re hard to shut out. I’ve called the therapist. I hope she can do some phone consultations. I’m going to have to discuss this depression with my doctor. Maybe he has some ideas — though you know– they’re not really multidisciplinains. Sometimes the parent in me coms out and says, "Okay, you’ve got to get a hold of yourself. You’re not making anything better torturing yoruself. This will just be a bad memory in a few years." I think I’ve lost about 50% of my disc material. That’s really not good at all. My herniations are huge — All the statistics keep piling up in my head. Yeah, they get this 80% average but that means that there’s this 20% that never get better. The rest of my life in 8, 9, 10 out of ten pain. I’d be useless. I wouldn’t be able to work. I’d have to go on Medicare and live in my mom’s house in Tampa, and when she died I’d go into a nursing home. This is the only future I can see for myself. 
Last time I had the surgery I was so optimistic. I pictured getting my life back. Being pain free. Being able to enjoy my life instead of always limping. Sitting at my desk to write rather than propped up on pilows, straining my neck. (which you know, I’ll probably fucking herniate that, too.) And then I woke up after that cold and suddenly I felt like my back was all twisted and blam. There I was — worse than when i started. 
Here’s my attempt at a positive scenario: I have the surgery, again. I’m very, very careful. In a few months sufficient scar tissue forms on the disc to prevent an easy herniation. I have little or no pain. I’m able to work. I’m able to think without distraction. I make dinner like I used to and sit down at the table with my husband. We make plans — long term plans that I can believe in. I’m careful and i don’t reherniate. My life will have other challenges, but this one will be behind me.