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It’s Just Anxiety, Darling · Relatively Stable

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  [music]
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's just anxiety, darling.
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  SPEAKER_00: For
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  SPEAKER_00: three years, I explained to my primary care physician that my hands were going numb.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: By the time I was brave enough to bring this up in a visit,
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: I had already diagnosed myself with heart failure, diabetes, and MS.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: I really like my family dog.
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  SPEAKER_00: He's short and Greek and funny.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've seen him for almost 30 years, almost as long as I've worked with horses as an adult.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Know what he says every time I brought up the decreasing sensation in my fingertips?
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  SPEAKER_00: He said it was just anxiety.
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  SPEAKER_00: So by the time he actually ordered a nerve conduction study in the early part
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  SPEAKER_00: of this year, I had lost muscle use in my thumbs.
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  SPEAKER_00: No one mentioned cortisone shots or wearing splints.
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  SPEAKER_00: No one debated scheduling surgery.
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  SPEAKER_00: There was simply an immediate order,
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  SPEAKER_00: I should book surgery as soon as possible,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I might have more time left in my left hand than in my right,
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  SPEAKER_00: but both would need to be done.
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  SPEAKER_00: Carpal tunnel constriction has been relegated to a weird place in our cultural memory.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's the thing that happens to office workers.
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  SPEAKER_00: Much like chronic fatigue syndrome becoming yuppie flu in the 1980s,
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  SPEAKER_00: repetitive strain injuries fled the field of manual workers handling heavy machinery
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  SPEAKER_00: and landed in the cozy, affluent culture of the office.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: A published analysis of news coverage from 1987 through 2013 found that one
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  SPEAKER_00: in five headlines trivialized chronic fatigue.
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  SPEAKER_00: The CDC even acknowledged that the disorder's name was belittling and misleading.
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  SPEAKER_00: A broader historical pattern is also at work here.
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  SPEAKER_00: Illnesses associated with women's experiences,
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  SPEAKER_00: invisible symptoms,
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  SPEAKER_00: or contested workplace conditions are super vulnerable to dismissal.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's just anxiety, my doctor said.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Why are we so much more willing to believe suffering when it leaves something visible behind?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've ordered shavings from the same family for a very long time.
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  SPEAKER_00: And by shavings, I mean the wood chips that we use for bedding in our horses' stalls.
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  SPEAKER_00: There aren't many people remaining who will load up a truck with pine shavings at
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  SPEAKER_00: the sawmill and deliver them to farms in bulk.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now there's a whole industry of bag shavings.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you've seen them at Tractor Supply or various feed and pet stores.
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  SPEAKER_00: It takes four to five bags to minimally bed a stall.
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  SPEAKER_00: It galls me when we're in between deliveries and I open the trash can
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  SPEAKER_00: to find it packed with the plastic remains of bagged shavings.
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  SPEAKER_00: I have a thing about products being bagged within products.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I trust the shavings delivery dudes and they've taken care of me in so many ways
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  SPEAKER_00: over the years.
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  SPEAKER_00: Just this week,
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  SPEAKER_00: Christopher seeded all the fields with annual ryegrass seed using a broadcaster
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  SPEAKER_00: the shavings guy loaned us indefinitely.
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  SPEAKER_00: They've always had my back.
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  SPEAKER_00: The shavings guys and I have been together for so long
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  SPEAKER_00: that we've witnessed each other's surgeries, infirmities, and troubles.
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  SPEAKER_00: I explained to them that I plan to have both hands operated on in early October.
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  SPEAKER_00: I did that carpal tunnel thing in one hand, and it has been worse since it happened.
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  SPEAKER_00: I wish I hadn't had that surgery.
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  SPEAKER_00: The pain was awful, one brother said.
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  SPEAKER_00: The other brother called me one day and said,
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  SPEAKER_00: Carlos says you're having the surgery in both hands.
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  SPEAKER_00: Why would you do this?
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  SPEAKER_00: The doctor wanted to operate on my back, but I won't let him.
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  SPEAKER_00: They messed up Carlos's neck.
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  SPEAKER_00: I ignored them.
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  SPEAKER_00: Is October too late for planting rye seed?
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  SPEAKER_00: I asked.
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  SPEAKER_00: The extension office says it's a good time.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you have that surgery,
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  SPEAKER_00: you can point at other people to get the job done while you're recovering, he said.
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  SPEAKER_00: Poor Christopher.
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  SPEAKER_00: The shavings guys are hardened dudes.
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  SPEAKER_00: They've worked with their bodies all their lives.
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  SPEAKER_00: They are aching and broken and sore.
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  SPEAKER_00: They've had surgeries and they're still aching and broken and sore.
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  SPEAKER_00: We waited a month for the next load of shavings because one brother was suffering
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  SPEAKER_00: from migraines.
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  SPEAKER_00: You're crazy to get both hands done, he said, as I held up my wraps after the surgery.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
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  SPEAKER_00: I have a bidet, I said.
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  SPEAKER_00: And Christopher planted all the seed.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the broadcaster.
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  SPEAKER_00: There is a debate about what type of activities carpal tunnel syndrome stems from.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's no longer seen as simply a side effect of unvaried typing and awkward wrist angles.
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  SPEAKER_00: Research now centers on grip, gender, metabolic function, and other repetitive tasks.
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  SPEAKER_00: I type, I dump water buckets, I hold lead ropes.
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  SPEAKER_00: I first noticed numbness in my hands in my late 30s, driving back and forth to the barn.
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  SPEAKER_00: I drop my fist from the steering wheel and shake them out.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then in the summer of 2024,
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  SPEAKER_00: I ended up in the hospital,
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  SPEAKER_00: followed by months of rehab from an unspecified illness in the aftermath
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  SPEAKER_00: of Hurricane Helene.
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  SPEAKER_00: For nine months,
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  SPEAKER_00: the duration of a human gestation and a time of deep reinvention for me,
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  SPEAKER_00: I went to neurologist and specialist.
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  SPEAKER_00: I tried every potential herbal or alternative therapy.
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  SPEAKER_00: I purchased in-home IVs administered by nervous nurses and attached TENS units to my earlobes.
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  SPEAKER_00: Throughout all of this, what I remember most is how knife-like pain zoomed through my hands.
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  SPEAKER_00: My body and my mind slowly adapted to the symptoms and therapies of
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  SPEAKER_00: the months prior, but my hands never got the memo.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's just anxiety, my doctor said.
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  SPEAKER_00: I think you're wrong, I said.
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  SPEAKER_00: Anxiety and I are old friends.
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  SPEAKER_00: I know what anxiety feels like.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is physical.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's different.
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  SPEAKER_00: With a sigh, he ordered a nerve conduction study.
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  SPEAKER_00: I waited six months to be hooked up to even more electrodes and
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  SPEAKER_00: to have needles pressed into my muscles.
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  SPEAKER_00: The referral to a hand specialist came immediately.
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  SPEAKER_00: The findings were absolute.
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  SPEAKER_00: I was losing muscle function in my thumbs and needed to have surgery ASAP.
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  SPEAKER_00: They didn't mention physical therapy or corrective splints.
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  SPEAKER_00: I was secretly happy to have escaped steroid injections.
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  SPEAKER_00: At the June visit at the hand clinic,
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  SPEAKER_00: I booked a procedure for what felt like a far out time when I could take advantage
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  SPEAKER_00: of my insurance deductible being met for the year and when I guessed
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  SPEAKER_00: the heaviest landscaping and seeding work at the farm would be over.
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  SPEAKER_00: Except I was guessing timelines based on my long-held belief that we get first frost
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  SPEAKER_00: in October.
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  SPEAKER_00: Seasonal timing and the environment have changed a lot.
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  SPEAKER_00: Our growing season is longer in our little corner of the southeast,
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  SPEAKER_00: and we were all sweating through barn chores the week before I was due for my hands
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  SPEAKER_00: to be out of commission for a while.
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  SPEAKER_00: Days before my surgery,
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  SPEAKER_00: I discovered that I was scheduled for the OR instead of the in-office procedure
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  SPEAKER_00: that I had agreed on with the doctor.
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  SPEAKER_00: The nurse at the clinic was super apologetic.
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  SPEAKER_00: She thought she had written down the wrong notes because they,
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  SPEAKER_00: and she said this, never schedule an awake procedure for two hands at once.
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  SPEAKER_00: Should I be worried?
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  SPEAKER_00: I asked.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'd chosen both hands at once because I didn't want to stretch recovery out over months.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'd chosen to have the procedure completed without full anesthesia because
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  SPEAKER_00: While I love the sinking into the forced vacation of totally being out,
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  SPEAKER_00: it takes so long for the drugs to work their way out of my system.
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  SPEAKER_00: It messes with my moods and complicates recovery for me.
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  SPEAKER_00: I arrived for the procedure with relaxing music cued into my tightly inserted earbuds.
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  SPEAKER_00: The doc administered the shots to numb my right hand, and then he moved on to my left.
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  SPEAKER_00: As I stared at the ceiling waiting for the numbing to take effect,
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  SPEAKER_00: my heart raced and my torso flushed.
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  SPEAKER_00: It feels really weird in my body, I said.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's just anxiety, the doctor said as he got to work.
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  SPEAKER_00: The feeling passed and the procedure finished quickly.
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  SPEAKER_00: I wish I had brought a playlist of louder music because
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  SPEAKER_00: the soothing sounds dipped just when I wanted to drown out a snip.
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  SPEAKER_00: The doctor was marvelous, but the nurse sucked at bandaging.
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  SPEAKER_00: She needs to spend a day or two at a barn.
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  SPEAKER_00: Horses have refined my bandaging ability.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's got to be easier working on humans than a moving horse.
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  SPEAKER_00: As I sat up from the table, I mentioned the weird heart racing flushing to my doctor again.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's just your nerves, he said.
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  SPEAKER_00: My nerves in general, or do you mean anxiety?
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  SPEAKER_00: The procedure makes people anxious, he said.
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  SPEAKER_00: Listen, anxiety and I are old friends.
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  SPEAKER_00: What I felt was really different.
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  SPEAKER_00: Later, I looked up the medications used for awake hand surgery.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's called the Wallent procedure because it's done without a tourniquet,
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  SPEAKER_00: hands can be bleeding, and it uses epinephrine, To keep the blood in check.
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  SPEAKER_00: Epinephrine.
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  SPEAKER_00: They'd never administered the block to two hands in an office before.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I do know the difference between anxiety and my body's natural reaction to
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  SPEAKER_00: a stimulus or a chemical.
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  SPEAKER_00: A few years ago,
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  SPEAKER_00: a very nervous medical student came into my hospital room to check my vitals after
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  SPEAKER_00: a hysterectomy.
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  SPEAKER_00: He mentioned how high my heart rate was the day before.
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  SPEAKER_00: He told me that it was so high because I have a history of anxiety.
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  SPEAKER_00: You need to do a vet med rotation, I told him.
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  SPEAKER_00: With horses, we use heart rate to gauge pain.
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  SPEAKER_00: We, and by we I mean the powers that be,
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  SPEAKER_00: have a habit of congratulating people for how well they tolerate pressure.
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  SPEAKER_00: We like to call these kinds of people resilient.
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  SPEAKER_00: We admire the horse who never complains and the woman who never asks for help and
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  SPEAKER_00: the employee who never says no.
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  SPEAKER_00: But we fail to notice that the qualities we're praising are the accommodations
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  SPEAKER_00: a creature makes to circumstances that have become unbearable.
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  SPEAKER_00: I wonder how often we assume that the absence of protest means nothing is wrong.
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  SPEAKER_00: I wonder how much easier it is to say a sensation is anxiety instead of having
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  SPEAKER_00: to figure out what is truly happening.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: As with all things, this brings me back to the horses.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Each week,
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: I share a little piece of our life at Lavender Hill Farm and a video
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: for paid subscribers of Stable Roots.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: There are never enough words to capture the unspoken beauty of daily life
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: on this old farm or the life of the herd.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll bring you along through the camera until I figure out how to buy everyone
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: a plane ticket.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Your paid subscription helps care for our herd of 15 horses
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  SPEAKER_00: who have found their forever home at our farm and helps preserve
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: the 200-year-old sanctuary they call home.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lovely way to be a part of this place even from far away.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'd be delighted to have you join us.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've spent most of my adult life listening to humans tell horses what they're feeling.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I mean that both ways.
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  SPEAKER_00: The humans tell the horse how the human is feeling
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  SPEAKER_00: in every single action they take both in and against the horse's best interest.
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  SPEAKER_00: And humans are very good at inferring and implying what they think the horse feels.
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  SPEAKER_00: Humans are very good at interpreting sensations they don't feel.
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  SPEAKER_00: I know that most horses live in circumstances where they're required to cope
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  SPEAKER_00: the same way I did with my hands,
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  SPEAKER_00: just making small adjustments and finding a way around their discomfort.
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  SPEAKER_00: They keep doing the tasks we hand them even as the work becomes increasingly uncomfortable.
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  SPEAKER_00: We take all the accommodations we construct around their discomfort
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  SPEAKER_00: and describe them as if they're personality quirks.
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  SPEAKER_00: That horse is difficult to bridle.
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  SPEAKER_00: That one needs a really long warm-up.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that one hates for you to touch him at the girth.
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  SPEAKER_00: Plenty of other explanations exist for why a certain horse does certain things.
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  SPEAKER_00: Not all of it may stem from pain.
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  SPEAKER_00: But pain and physiology deserve an equal place in the conversation.
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  SPEAKER_00: The answer, thank you docs, is not always anxiety.
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  SPEAKER_00: My hands didn't stop functioning when the nerves began to deteriorate.
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  SPEAKER_00: They kept doing their jobs, and I kept adjusting to accommodate them.
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  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, those adjustments became so ordinary that I barely recognized them.
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  SPEAKER_00: I ran the farm, taught lessons, wrote words, carried water buckets, and held lead ropes.
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  SPEAKER_00: As I did all this, I was losing the use of my thumbs.
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  SPEAKER_00: The surgeon didn't tell me to develop more resilience.
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  SPEAKER_00: He didn't suggest that my nerves needed to learn to tolerate the pressure.
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  SPEAKER_00: He booked me for surgery and went in, relieved the constriction, and made more room.
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  SPEAKER_00: How can we make more room?
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  SPEAKER_00: We humans live and function in a vice grip.
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  SPEAKER_00: How can we learn the first baby steps of expansion and Horse training is based
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  SPEAKER_00: on teaching a horse to tolerate pressure.
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  SPEAKER_00: We apply pressure,
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  SPEAKER_00: release it,
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  SPEAKER_00: increase it, and praise the horse for learning to respond appropriately to tension.
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  SPEAKER_00: But we rarely stop to ask whether pressure is the only tool we've been taught to use.
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  SPEAKER_00: How often do we reward a horse for becoming good
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  SPEAKER_00: at enduring something we'd be better off changing?
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't think the answer to every question is to assume reluctance always signals suffering.
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  SPEAKER_00: Horses have opinions and preferences just like we do,
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  SPEAKER_00: and not all of their actions stem from physical discomfort.
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  SPEAKER_00: For me, I want to stay curious.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've got to remember that often the creature
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  SPEAKER_00: who looks like they're managing everything beautifully is the one who has become
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  SPEAKER_00: the most accomplished at compensating.
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  SPEAKER_00: Ask me how I know.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: My hands are beginning to feel again.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm experiencing weird zooming pains and zings as the nerves regain function.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what my hands will do tomorrow or how long any benefits gained from
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: the surgery will take to reach a new normal.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: I do know that I can sleep all night without my hands turning into frozen blocks of ice.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's nice.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: As I start to hold the leaf blower and carry buckets again,
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm pensive and interested in the difference between removing
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: the thing that's causing harm and recovering from having lived with it
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  SPEAKER_00: because these two things are not the same.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm making a note here so I remember to apply the same kindness to the horses.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: When we finally recognize that something is wrong,
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: changing the circumstances is only the beginning of our healings.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: We don't get to decide how quickly another living creature should recover simply
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: because we've removed the source of its discomfort.
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  SPEAKER_00: We can give it time.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: We can give it choices.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: And when necessary, we can give it more room.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: I've spent decades teaching people how to listen to horses.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I suppose it's only fitting that my hands had to become almost useless
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  SPEAKER_00: before I understood how much function can be lost while everything still appears
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  SPEAKER_00: to be normal on the outside.
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  SPEAKER_00: And how much courage it takes to give expression to what we're truly feeling again
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  SPEAKER_00: and again and again until someone hears us.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Love, Kim.
• 18:47
  [music]