Hey 53runner
Glad that your wife has come through the surgery. Seems like now she may be headed down the road to recovery. Hope she continues to do well. It must be very stressful for you and your family. But such is life and we need to press forward.
I think you are focussing more on your anxiety than trying to focus on the things that are positive in your life. While meds may help you get through the tough times, there will be other tough times. It's part of living this life. To me, and please don't take this wrong, it's more about choice. If you continue to dwell on it, I doubt it will ever really go away. If, however, you choose to replace those negative thoughts with positive ones...well then the positive ones will grow and replace the negatives. If, however, you never give the positive ones a chance, chance is the negative thoughts will simply take over. Think for just a moment, about how much time you spend in one day, or for that matter, even one hour thinking about your anxiety. If you spent equal or MORE time focussing AWAY from your anxiety, and on positive things in your life.. well, you get the idea. It's called distraction, and the more you practice it, I believe, the more normal it becomes. Until there's just no room anymore for the negative. Sure, it will be difficult at first to FORCE yourself NOT to give any power to your panic........but think of this.......how EASY or comfortable is it to focus the majority of your time ON YOUR PANIC/ANXIETY....????
WHICH do YOU choose? :)