Episode #63 

When Everything Changes - Part 1

Sometimes things change or happen to us unexpectedly that can really rock our world.

Join me, Dr Julie Osborn, in this special episode as I share with you the start of an unexpected personal journey. The same CBT tools I used to cope can help you cope with events and changes in your own life too.

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Full Episode Transcript

Hi, and welcome to My CBT Podcast!

My name is Dr. Julie Osborn, I'm a Doctor of Psychology and a licensed clinical social worker specializing in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

I'm here to help you bring the power of CBT into your own life. In this podcast, I’ll answer some questions and share with you some practical ways to apply CBT principles and tools so you can achieve a greater level of happiness and satisfaction in your life in relationships.

So before I get started with today's episode, I wanted to share a really nice email I received that I would like to share with you guys. What I'm hearing from you makes a big difference for me, and it's very humbling and keeps me going and knowing that the podcast is really helping a lot of people.

So I'm going to start off with Maria, that she wrote: “Dearest Dr. Osborn, thank you for the work you do. We thank God for all his blessings; they include you and the work you do for everyone. This email is long overdue. The latest episode push me to finally send you an email of much gratitude. Everything you said in the episode about being an effective parent are spot on.

“Allow me to share one crucial strategy that works for me and may possibly work for others: you actually mentioned this many times in the episode, and therefore I feel it must be enumerated too. And that is, as parents, we must acknowledge that we are not perfect, we need help and there are many resources out there for us. My CBT Podcast tops the list.”

Right?! She goes on to share a little information about getting her son to get some help and him realizing that he can come and talk to his parents when he needs to, which is great. She felt really validated once he saw that she's there for him as a parent.

So she did say that she appreciates everything she's learning and that she will continue to listen to the podcast, continue to learn CBT in her own life. She acknowledges that we are not alone, but all the support we have in our lives to help our children feel supportive and get their needs met. Thank you, Maria, for that. I really appreciate it.

And I'm just so happy that the podcast are making a difference. You're getting a lot of help.

So today my podcast is going to be a little different than usual. It's going to be the first one of maybe I would say maybe three, that I'm going to be talking about something that's going on in my life. And because I've gotten the emails from you guys, so many over the last year and a half since I started my CBT podcast, I feel really comfortable being vulnerable with you guys and just being authentic and sharing what I'm going through.

But incorporating how grateful I am that I do have all my CBT tools because I have used them every day to deal with what's going on in my life. And so I thought, I'm just going to let you guys know what's going on. And I think maybe you'll still be able to learn some good tools and see how it's so integral in your life. Different tools throughout the day. You can use with CBT to deal with stressors and things that are going on in your life.

So I will start from the beginning with today's episode and let you know where I'm at.

So back in July, my husband and I went to Maui for a really nice vacation, and I had a conference that I went to when I was there. So it was kind of a win win, and I was feeling good there. Everything was fine. My back was bugging me a little bit, but that happened sometimes.

I didn't really think too much about it. And then I came home on July 22, and almost immediately I started feeling really uncomfortable in my stomach, and I wasn't sure what was going on. And I already had an appointment to go see a urologist just for some other issues. So I went to go see him, and he told me he thought that I had urinary retention issues, which I thought, you know, for my age, that was kind of weird, but I didn't really know any better, obviously.

And I just kind of listen to what he said.

And he gave me some medicine, and he said, Go ahead and take this for a month and then get back to me in six weeks. So that's what I did. And I was taking the medicine and it was almost two weeks and I was actually getting worse. It was hard to walk. I couldn't take my pain, lay off for walk outside and my stomach was getting extended, and I was just really uncomfortable.

And I just know my body. And I thought I need to go to the emergency room because this isn't working and it's only getting worse. And I'm not the type of person this is going to kind of say, okay. They told me to take these pills for a month. I'll keep doing that like that's, just not me.

And I guess that's my first thing to talk about with the CBT here is advocating for yourself, which is a huge part of my story here. And just knowing that because a doctor says, take these pills and call me in a month or six weeks. You really need to have that intuition. Know your body. If something doesn't feel right, you need to have your thoughts that you're having that you know what?

My thoughts or something isn't right. I know my body. I need to do something. I'm not just going to be passive and listen to what a doctor tells me to do better than anybody. I'm not saying doctors are wrong by any means, but just having that intuition, you know, when you're like, you know, something else is going on here.

So I go to the merge room, just about 1030 at night. Things are pretty crazy there, you know, with COVID. And they got the tens. And the wait was just, like, so long. But I waited.

I waited. I waited, finally got back into the emergency room and told them that I was being treated for the urinary tension. And so that's what they were focusing on. I got a lovely catheter. They said, Well, let's just kind of empty you out and see what's going on.

And when they did that, nothing much happened. And they didn't understand. And you can do this ultrasound, which I didn't know that just identifies, like, after you go to the bathroom and you empty yourself, it will tell you, like, if your bladder is empty or not. So when I was at the doctor the first time when I got the medicine, you should be a fifth or less. And I was at 300.

Now I'm at the hospital, and now I'm over 800, and they're like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. You got, like, a liter of fluid in. You got to get this out. But then when they did the catheter and then they did a second one, nothing was coming out.

And they're like, this is something going on. So that's when the emergency room doctor came in before that PA was helping me. So he's just like, this is where Julie? Something's going on. So they do an ultrasound, just the one that's, like, on the cart.

And he's like, something's there. I can't tell what it is. So that's when he said, we're going to send you for a CT scan. So I'm like, okay, so by now, you can only imagine just beyond exhausted. And, you know, it's just a lot.

And so they sent me for the CT scan. And that's when my life got turned upside down. So the doctor who is excellent doctor, he came back and he was like, oh, my God, Julie, you got two major sets and your over reason you need to have surgery as soon as possible. And I was like, what like, I wasn't even imagining anything, right? I'm just thinking something's going on with my bladder.

It turns out because my sist were so large, everything was sitting on my bladder. So that's why I had to go to the bathroom a lot. But it was just everything in my abdomen just got pushed up. And that's why it was so uncomfortable. I mean, when I was in bed, I couldn't lay on either side.

And it was just really uncomfortable. He was taken back a little bit. He wasn't trying to scare me too much. But I was just kind of, you know, just kind of overwhelmed. And my other CBT tool I definitely used in that moment.

I want to share with you is staying present I was just thinking, I need to just stay present. I don't know all the answers. It doesn't mean I have cancer. You know, a lot of people have sister or benign. It just need to be present.

And I was doing a lot of breathing.

So after that, they sent me for a really good ultrasound because I can see things a little better than a CT scan. And they said, you definitely need to get surgery. And I want you to see a doctor right away. So again, I was just kind of staying present. It was, you know, I was really working on not doing catastrophic thinking, right.

Like, the worst case scenario. There's so much that I didn't know. But I knew that, you know, I had to get this taken care of. And the doctor, remember, the Er just couldn't believe that. It only been two weeks, approximately that I've been feeling bad, like it all just came out so fast.

And that's why I think it was just so hard for me to kind of take everything in. And like I said, I feel like the rug got pulled out from under me, that my whole life just kind of changed in that moment and what my future is going to look like and all of those things that come with it. So staying present, I was really mindful of what I was thinking about. I was just like, I need to take the next step. I need to go see another doctor.

He said I needed to see a guy in ecological oncologist which I never even heard of before. And I need to just take those steps, take care of myself and figure out what's going on. And all of that kept me come. I wasn't feeling too anxious. That was again staying in the moment and just kind of doing the next designated thing.

So I leave the hospital. And the doctor, who is excellent, as I said, actually got me the name of it actor to call. And he says, I want you to call as soon as you leave. So I leave the hospital. And as my husband's pulling up the car, I get on the phone and I call right away because I know I need to see somebody.

And I don't know if this is what I should call this podcast. But what they said to me was, we don't take your insurance. And that's what I heard for the next, probably a week and a half. We don't take your insurance. We don't take your insurance.

So let me tell you, with having a private practice, I buy my own insurance. I pay a decent amount. It's a PPO, believe it or not. And I'm thinking, it's a decent policy. And when I need it, it's going to be there for me.

So I come home because now again, they're not taking my insurance. The doctor that my doctor referred me to from the Er, and I come home. I'm so exhausted. I mean, now it's like eight in the morning. I didn't sleep at all last night.

I'm getting all these tests and it's just uncomfortable if any of you been in the hospital the Er before, right? So they're poking and prodding you and all that kind of stuff. I commit my car, I have to start making phone calls. I gotta tell you guys, I am so emotionally and physically drained, I just can't even tell you I'm in bed and I'm uncomfortable, right? I'm very uncomfortable and open up.

And I go on the portal for my insurance and start making phone calls. And all these doctors that are on the portal just keep telling me, oh, we don't take the insurance, we don't take the insurance. So I just fall asleep. I wake back up. I start making these phone calls again, and I'm thinking, this is so difficult.

There's got to be other people out there that just might give up or just say, Forget it or I'll deal with it another day. You know, there's so much stress trying to manage your health care, finding where to go, getting the right doctor, making sure they take your insurance. Like, you know, I knew there are issues out there. Obviously, I'm a social worker. I refer people to places all the time and try to get them hooked up with resources.

But, boy, was this an eye opener for me personally having to deal with this and couldn't believe how difficult it was. And these insurance portals are not up to date to take a quick step back before I went to the air the first time, I actually went on my computer and looked up with hospitals I could go to and the name of the hospital here. I go to his home, which is excellent. And it said on my portal that I could go there. Well, when I'm at the hospital after the fact, the doctor says, you know, Hog isn't in your network, but obviously, I need to see you because it's an emergency room, and I'm like, Well, I saw it and my husband was smart and said, Take a picture.

So I had it sharing that with you because I'll be mentioning that again. So again, this is all with the insurance. Nothing on the portal seems to be correct emotionally and physically, just trained trying to get through this. So I finally get an appointment. But it's like a week out.

And then I find another hospital that they say they can see me. And if I send over the paperwork and it says urgent that they will make an appointment for me within that week, I'm like, this is great. So I get the paperwork, I can send it over to them. And long story short. So we're talking like, August.

I'm sorry. We're talking the end of July now, and they're telling me that the appointment I can get that's urgent is September. 7, and I am like, you got to be kidding me. That's your urgent appointment. So I just submit the appointment.

But I'm probably not going to be there because I have to deal with this. So again, it's just complete frustration. Everyone I'm talking to cannot believe what's going on. Then I call my help insurance, and I actually get one of their reps. I talked to three of them, one of the representatives.

It says I will call the doctor's offices for you while you're online. I say, great. She's calling these doctors trying to get an appointment, and they're telling her, oh, we don't take that insurance. Oh, we don't take that insurance. She's like, Well, you have a contract with us around the portal.

Well, we don't take that insurance. So I'm like, you see what I'm dealing with? I can't get help, I can't get help. And that was ended up being overall most difficult emotional thing I went through is just feeling like, out on this island by myself. Then nobody would help me in my time of crisis.

And all I want to do is have surgery and get the system because I don't know what's going on. So about a week passes, and my sister is like, we need to go back to the emergency room. This is ridiculous. So we go back to the emergency room and I see another doctor after a very long wait, covets getting worse at this point. And it was kind of weird when they took me back.

They never hooked me up to, like, a blood pressure machine or anything. I'm like, this is strange. So the doctor finally shows up and he's like, what brings you back? And I tell him I'm getting worse. I'm uncomfortable.

I can't find anyone to give me any help, and I have to get surgery done. Now. This time, when I went back to the hospital, I called my insurance and I asked them to send me an email with the hospitals that are in my network. And again, Hoke shows up. So now I'm like, well, now I have an email, so I'm not going to worry about it.

So that's why I went back to the emergency room again, to that particular emergency room. Sorry. So anyways, with that doctor, he gets on the phone with a guy? No, oncologist Dr. Mandeville, I want to mention him because he played a huge role for me.

And I heard him say to that doctor, Does she need to be admitted? And he said no, which was wrong. He should have admitted me that night. But Dr. Mandeville said I will see her tomorrow.

I'll do whatever I need to do to get help. And and I'm sitting there. I'm just crying with this doctor, just saying, like, I just can't get any help. I just don't understand why nobody will help me. No, I can't find the doctor to take the insurance.

So it's horrible. It's just horrible so I leave again. Next morning, Dr. Mandeville office calls me and they say, Come on in. We're going to see you.

And me and my husband are walking into the office. I'd already been to this office because somebody else referred me there, and they had told me we don't take your insurance, although one or two of their doctors are on my portal. So I said, let's just go in. I don't care. Let's just go in.

I need somebody needs to help me in. This doctor said he would help me. So I go in, start filling out some paperwork, give them my insurance card. And here we go again. We don't take your insurance.

And I stood there and I said to her, I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving. I am now leaving until somebody helps me.

I thought in my head, what am I gonna do, leave here and just go stand in the parking lot, just with no help, with nowhere to go with no direction. Like, there's no way there's no way. That's what I'm saying to advocate for. You. Don't ever give up on yourself.

And don't just listen to these doctors or these appointments that are so far out. But you have to stand up for yourself and Satan. No, this is my life. I need help. And I'm going to sit here until somebody does something.

So she went back to the office and I told her I said, Dr. Mandeville city would help me. He told me to come here. So she goes back. She comes back out and she says, Doctor Manville said to go cross the street, back to the emergency room for a third time and tell them you need to be admitted for surgery.

I said, okay, so me and my husband go back to the emergency room for a third time, just like, oh, my God. But how much more can I take? But he was my golden ticket. Dr. Manville was my golden ticket.

And I walked into emergency room. And I said, Dr. Mandeville said, I need to get admitted, and I need surgery. And I remember at the office, too. I remember she says, oh, we all know your case.

And I'm like, Well, then let's do something about it. That's great. You know, my case. They were able to see all my tests and everything. But that doesn't help me.

I actually need somebody to help me and get me in surgery, get me in surgery. So again, I'm back at the emergency room. So they finally another super long wait. I didn't even count up the hours. I sat in an emergency room waiting room, and they finally admitted me that evening.

And so I was sitting in Triage where they take your blood and do all that stuff. And because they're so busy with covet and possible is just so busy that they're doing a lot of that before they take you back to your room. So I'm sitting back there. My husband is a very small room, and I see this one doctor talking to daughter and her mom about surgery. And you know what they're going to do, not really paying much attention.

And all of a sudden, this doctor comes over to me, and this is Dr. Mandeville, and he introduces himself, and I just start crying. And he says, We're going to take care of you. I don't want you to worry about anything. You have surgery schedule for ten.

And I was just, like, so grateful. And I just told him, like, you're the only person that that help me all this time. Every phone call. I mean, just everything I share with you guys, who I was just overcome with the motion that somebody finally stepped up and did something for me. Just give me the help.

Give me the help. I'm not waiting on everybody else. I have to take care of myself and going back again. You know, all this time, I just kept saying, I need to use all the tools I teach all my clients, and I share on my podcast. And I need to be mindful of my thinking.

I need to stay present. I need to be assertive. I'm not going to take no for an answer anymore. I need to speak up. I need to advocate.

What would I tell my clients to do? I would tell them to do exactly what I was doing. You need to go back to that emergency room, and you need to just refuse to leave until somebody helps. You just refuse to leave. So after I stopped crying with him and he explained a lot of stuff to me and what they were going to do with the surgery and that his colleague would be doing the surgery in the morning.

So they admitted me and I got ready for my surgery the next morning. So that's the beginning of my story. I'm going to end that for today. Don't want to give you cliff hanger. I can tell you that I'm going to be okay.

Which is the good news. It's been a very tough road, very tough recovery. I'm still in the middle of it, but I really wanted to find the strength to start sharing my story with you guys, because I want to find some purpose and everything I've gone through and just to be able to help you give you some direction. If there's something in your life that you're not speaking up for yourself, you're not advocating. It doesn't have to be about your health.

It could be about relationships. It could be about work issues, difficult people you're working with or if you feel like you're not being treated right. It could be speaking up for your child at school, you know, if they're being bullied or if they're having issues with the teacher, or maybe they're anxious to go back to school with Covin and you just need to speak up and let the teacher know they can give them some extra support. I mean, it could be anything in your life that you need to advocate for yourself.

You need to have healthy boundaries and you can't let your fear take over and don't assume that someone, the doctor or any authority figure that they know best.

You know yourself. You need to trust yourself. You need to be aware of what am I thinking? It's holding me back from speaking up. I to do what's best for me because I can tell you as you hear my story.

There's a good chance that I say in my life for refusing to leave that doctor's office and saying I'm not going anywhere. Am I leaving? I'm leaving. I'm leaving. I'm leaving.

And someone does something for me. So everything you've learned so far, I've been using every day, every moment, every time I feel defeated or frustrated or scared because I got all those emotions. Remember? Just because you have good CBT tools doesn't mean you don't have your negative emotions. You're a human being.

Sometimes you just got to let yourself cry and have that moment, and then we got to say, okay, what do I need to do next? What's going to be best for me? How do I honor myself? Let me sit down and do it all record and be able to identify what are my hot thoughts that are making me so scared or fearful or worried or anxious that I'm not advocating for myself. And I'm not speaking up because I need to challenge those thoughts, and I need to find the strength I need to find the support.

I need to find the community in my life, to support me, to do what's best for me. If I feel like I just can't do it on my own, which is okay. It's not easy. It's not easy, so it takes some time to think about where you are in your life. Maybe some things again.

You need to make changes. You need to identify your fears that are created by your thoughts and really challenge those thoughts so that you can make a good decision for yourself and make decisions based on what's best for you, not how you feel.

So that's it for today. I hope this was helpful for you.

I'm going to continue to share my journey in the upcoming podcasts and I hope that you'll find them helpful, you'll find a little nugget for yourself that you say, ‘Maybe that's something I needed to hear.’

I'm always open to your emails at MyCBTPodcast@gmail.com.

Questions, your stories, suggestions - I'm always humbled by everything that you guys share with me and how much you appreciate the podcast. It really means a lot.

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Thanks for joining me. Stay safe and I will see you soon. Take care.