Bye Bye Bella Flora: The Dysautonomia Dementors and POTS Patronus:
Sunday, February 12, 2012
The Dysautonomia Dementors and POTS Patronus
My life right now is pretty consumed by POTS and Dysautonomia, so I find myself making comparisons and analogies everywhere I look. Which is actually not many places, considering I am home bound at this point - but does involve lots of movies, online stuff (no porn of course- I swear!), and books.
Times like these, I usually have "overdone" it the day before, or even a few hours before - and it all catches up with me and my body shuts down. Literally just stops working. And overdoing it (in my current state) involves playing on the floor with my son for 20 minutes, or wheeling into the kitchen and standing up enough to make coffee, or rocking the baby for 30 minutes while in bed when she's fussy. Showering is the real "Dementor's kiss" of death for me - warm (no hot allowed!) water causing vasodilation (veins dilating) coupled with arms raised above heart level to wash hair making my heart rate faster equals total body shut down. I have to plan my showing carefully.
This body shut down - or the lifeless I've-been-attacked-by-a-Dementor feeling is pretty unreal. I've never had it this intensely before, even after all these years of dealing with POTS. I will literally feel it coming on, know I need to be laying down, and then my muscles stop responding and working. Then I start shaking. Its an internal shaking feeling as well, similar to adrenal surges, all wrapped up in a nice ball of pain. All I can think of is how I must close my eyes, must sleep, and hope I wake up with a body that responds again. I then pass out and sleep for a few hours, or lay in a semi-conscious state. Just like Harry. Except I think he woke up faster, and chocolate helps you recover from Dementors. Oh, how I wish chocolate would fix this with me!
This ties in with the whole Spoon Theory; having to delegate your energy to avoid this horrible crash. My (and other "spoonies") life revolves around picking and choosing what activities to do for that day - and everyone has a different tolerance level. I used to be able to work 16 hour days, or push through making flowers for 5 days straight over Valentine's, but would get very sick and need to recover for days after. Now it's only one to two activities a day keeps the dysautonomia Dementor away.
My POTS Patronus (the spell that creates an animal Harry and the others use to defend against the Dementors) is currently an Octopus. No particular reason except that octopi are super cool, and I'm a marine bio geek. They are the smartest of the cephalapods (squid, cuddlefish, octopus, etc...) and mimic their surroundings to avoid prey animals. They have 8 legs to get things done - so I'm assuming they are multitasking type-A non-stop workers like me. I want that back - the ability to act physically the way I feel mentally - and get up and move again to get things done.
---Claire
This is by far the best analogy for POTS that I have ever heard. I'm a fellow potterhead and have found refuge in getting lost at hogwarts recently. (Although sometimes I have read a chapter and completely checked out so I didn't retain any info... Luckily, this isn't my first time reading them so I still know what's going on)
ReplyDeleteI just want to say that there is nothing worse than, as you said, the dementors kiss. Laying there and watching your life go by is the most frustrating thing to me.
I know this is an old post but I was just officially diagnosed a week ago and stumbled upon this so I thought I would let you know that I feel for you and you aren't alone in dealing with the dementors! I'm not sure what my patronus would be... Maybe a lion. I have long curly hair about the color of a lions mane (naturally that's what my friends use to call my hair). But I also use to be full of life and intimidating to other people. Now I'm a slug so I would love to get back to my lion days. Hopefully there will soon be a cute for POTS and dysautonomia so us muggles don't have to deal with dementors anymore!