This week a child had to have a blood test and they went an awful shade of white and the last time I saw someone that colour it was their father dying.
Cue: trauma response.
These are weird times when it happens, because, like when the original trauma happened, I'm generally required to deal with the situation at hand AND the response.
It's kinda like in the movies where people are moving but there's an overarching ringing noise and muffled voices for a few seconds until my brain kicks itself into gear.
At this least this time the lovely pathology lady did the heavy lifting - literally and figuratively - as we put the child in a laying down position and waited for some colour to return to her cheeks and lips and the clammy feeling on her skin to disappear.
She is fine. They had to take lots of blood.
As with most of this grief stuff, I often reflect about just how ignorant I was before all this began.
While I'm pretty sure I had some level of anxiety prior to Pete dying which didn't rear its head too often, largely because over 20 years of being together, he just knew how to handle me and my quirks. It just wasn't a thing.
But now? Now I need to handle myself.
Those are skills I actually just didn't develop because he was there from time I was 19 ... and honestly, before then, I have no idea!
The grief/trauma responses are so weird, scary, debilitating, exhausting ... I asked my psychologist when he thought they might stop.
"Maybe never ..."
Cool. Thanks.
"But, you can learn to manage them or find ways to ensure they aren't debilitating..."
*Note - this was said was every element of care and kindness. He's just bluntly honest with me. Which I appreciate. And then we talked about some stuff I can do to help myself.
In the early days, trauma triggers were obvious stuff. Everything about grief was big and obvious.
Now, they kind of sneak up and smack me in the back of the head as I find myself feeling sick in the stomach, woozy, a little bit teary, and with a deep sense of fear in the pit of my stomach.
Like driving to a cricket match in Melbourne in January - the last time we did that was with Pete and it was such a great family night out and we were replicating the exact same game with the exact same people, but 5 years later and without one person.
I was driving to Melbourne wanting to stop the car and vomit. My body convinced my brain the tightness I felt in my chest was obviously a heart attack. I couldn't swallow for the lump in my throat.
But I had a train to catch to make it in time for the game. I had kids in the car. I had to admit to the children I was struggling. It's not something I do easily. And it came out as some sort of apology, dismissal, teary drivel like: "I'm ok, I feel silly saying anything, and getting anxious isn't silly so you should tell me if you're not coping, but Mummy just feeling sick and I need to drive, and I just wish my ribs would reseparate and stop jamming all together on my sternum, and where the water bottle? a drink might help, and it's fine, I'll be fine ... "
I am definitely working on the mantra I have oft read on social media and in all the books I have which have various incarnations of the statement: You are not your thoughts.
Essentially my overactive imagination and passionate belief in things - which is wonderful for some things in life - also fully commits to the trauma response process also #annoying
The flipside of the sneaky trauma responses are the ones that still happen but don't sneak up - the ones I can see coming at me like a freight train that I know will create a physical response - but I know I'm going to have to have.
I'm procrastinating like nobody's business about hunting around in the tubs in the shed for Pete's autopsy report.
I know that's going to bring me unstuck and it's even worse because my filing system at the best of times is poor, and when it came to all that stuff, I'm pretty confident I shoved it all in one tub ... but maybe it's in one of two ... and both are filled with stuff related to Pete's death.
But if I don't do it, it brings on a whole lot of other issues.
See, the problem with Pete dying of a pulmonary embolism - caused by a blot clot in his leg letting go from the DVT we didn't know he had - is that now all the kids have to answer 'yes' to the question: Is there a history of blood clots in the family.
Which leads us to the blood tests and the autopsy report finding.
One child is travelling overseas this year so we need to know if she is at higher risk than usual of developing DVT.
Let's be honest though, my anxiety will probably mean I buy her every thing known to humankind to avoid it even if the tests come back fine... selfish me is all "I'm not going through this twice!"
Her blood test results will help with that. But so will the report, because the results of the blood tests as part of the autopsy will also help the Dr work out if Pete developed DVT simply through his inability to use his legs properly in the month leading up to him dying, or something inheritable.
* INSERT 3 DAY PAUSE IN HERE BETWEEN WRITING THE WORDS ABOVE TO THE WORDS BELOW *
So knowing the freight train was coming, and having watched enough Brene Brown and life experience to know I can do hard things, I have hunted out the autopsy report.
I've actually only ever opened it once.
And that was to scan and send the pages to Pete's family because they insisted upon it.
The only other time it's been opened is by the Dr when I took him up on the offer of interpreting the results so I could understand the reason for Pete dying.
It was buried in the folder inside a tub full of love and loss.
Cards of sympathy that spoke so highly of Pete and of such empathetic sorry for us. Paperwork from his death including a cremation certificate, super annuation and final tax return documents, Father's Day cards from 2018, the light box that used to sit in our bedroom that he had changed for the kids before he left on a work trip the week prior to him dying which says: Love U all 🖤 all the photos I found of him ... the balance of his actual ashes that didn't fit into the box I bought and that haven't been spread yet.
I saw the freight train coming. And I still stepped onto the tracks. And the hit still hurt. Maybe even more than I expected.
BUT
I have it now. I can give it to the Dr.
With it and the blood test results we can find a way forward to manage anything we need to.
And despite my procrastination suggesting I could absolutely leave it as long as possible, as the last 4 years have taught me - we can do hard things.
And today, the hot bothering trauma can be fixed with a cold beer.
And kids who looked at me walking in the back door and said: are you ok Mum?
And when I explained what I'd done they said: oooh ... that's hard ... but you've found it now. Well done.
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