Hi,

I am at my wits end...

My husband had an emergency surgery in May where he was left with an ostomy bag/stoma. Luckily, he's having another surgery in 2 weeks to have the bag removed and his colon put back in his body. These are good things that will help him return to living a "normal" life.

The surgery was VERY traumatic in that he didn't have a choice and one minute he was home and the next minute he was forced into having a large part of colon removed due to infection. The surgery and whole recovery process not to mention having to adjust to a bag attached to your belly has caused him a lot of anxiety and bad feelings.

Over the past 6 weeks, his anxiety is out of control where he doesn't want to be alone, he doesn't want to be in his house , he can't sleep, SUPER jittery and when he does wake up at 5am, he bolts out of bed and runs out of the house to nowhere.

He started seeing a CBT therapist about a month ago along with a psych NP who prescribed Buspar and a sleeping pill. All of these things worked for about a week and then his anxiety is now worse AND he's developed a tic!

I am hopeful the next surgery will return him to his normal baseline, but what does he do in the meantime?

He's doing the right thing by seeking treatment, but he's not doing the work to calm himself down and he whips himself up each and every day saying he can't be like this anymore...

Please help with advice or stories! Thank you so much!!