4 ms·
Not quite illness, but I'm still here, after surviving a 500Lbs SVBIED blast in Afghanistan. ~300 surgeries/10yrs later, I'm sitting here trying to become a pro
by devteambravo 6y ago
Not quite illness, but I'm still here, after surviving a 500Lbs SVBIED blast in Afghanistan. ~300 surgeries/10yrs later, I'm sitting here trying to become a product engineer while dealing what could be construed as hurdles:
-Massive insomnia. I try to meditate, read tech news and listen to Javascript lectures. I can't reliably schedule meetings in the morning due to sometimes not falling asleep until 6-7am. Hack your environment to remove blue light.
-Pain. Basically, my only available option is narcotics, which I refuse to take for obvious reasons. Meditation, acupuncture helps.
The stress comes from how others react to me. They don't see the behind the scenes, so I'm just some young, rather unprofessional-looking guy, making halfway attempts. I chose to ignore that completely, because at the end of the day, none of these people are helping the situation in any way.
It surely helps to have a never-ending will to go forward, on step at a time.
One piece of advice I would give is to focus on positive stuff. It's all too often very easy to find the negatives. Don't take the easy route.
- shrimp_emoji 6y agohttps://youtu.be/0iLD9uAdq4M https://youtu.be/0iLD9uAdq4M
- devteambravo 6y ago"There's been times where I could have folded". Hah.
- notamy 6y ago> ~300 surgeries Oh my god, I can't even imagine.
- lma21 6y agoGood for you for never giving up, never showing the pain you go through, and for ignoring other people's reactions. That shows resilience.
- specialist 6y agoHi. Thank you for posting. Dayum. re Insomnia & anxiety: Have you ruled out nerve related causes? Maybe injury or impingement? I ask because my insomnia and anxiety was largely resolved after spinal surgery. A lumbar fusion eliminated maybe 80% of symptoms. Removing cervical (upper spine) bone spurs another 10%. Prior to that, my doctors had me try all sorts of pharmacological and cognitive treatments. As my symptoms got progressively worse. No one considered a physical cause. That my surgeries helped, necessary for other problems, was just a lucky side effect. None of my reading about anxiety even hints that feeled emotion can have a physical cause, that the physical sensations of anxiety can induce emotional anxiety. Both a mind blow and facepalm obvious at the same time. I'm now using gabapentin to manage remaining nerve pain symptoms. (Don't know if I'm up for another surgery.) Works pretty good, but robs me of my "executive function", so caveat emptor. Good luck. I hope you find some relief.
- devteambravo 6y agoThank you for your insight. I have fairly substantial nerve damage, all over the place. Unfortunately, I didn't have much success with that path