U.S. MILITARY H BOOK EXCERPT 13TH OF A SERIES

THE RESILIENT WARRIOR

SELF-SOOTHING WITH BUBBLE BATHS

BY CAROL GEE

Book Editor's Note: Featuring self-help, mental health, and mind and body tactics from a variety of sources — veterans, former and active U.S. Marines, Navy, Army Rangers, Green Berets, family members and caretakers — The Resilient Warrior is collaborative collection providing needed wisdom for complete well-being for all of us. The first step to thriving is surviving, and the first step to surviving is knowing how to get what you need, when you need it. The following excerpt of this essential self-help guide to living a healthy, resilient, fulfilled and better life is the thirteenth in a series that EP Magazine has featured over the last several months.

Utilize a bubble bath to de-stress and unwind. "Ahh," I sighed as I slid into a bathtub of hot water full of frothy bubbles. Leaning back against the padded rubber bath pillow, I exhaled as the hot water covered my entire body.

In my mind's eye, I could still hear the blip, blip, blip, of the various machines hooked up to my husband. The sounds seem to pulsate throughout my entire body every time they sounded. While under the tangle of tubes and wires and oblivious to everything around him, my husband slept. "Heart

attack" the doctor said, walking into the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit with my husband's chart in hand, and asking me how old he was, all seemingly in the same breath.

As I told him his age, I remembered thinking, 44 years old seemed way too young for something so serious to have happened. Standing by, I felt helpless, a feeling that I absolutely detested.

As the female half of a two-military servicemen couple, both long retired from two successful careers. All my life I've had to use skills honed in the military to resolve problems. For the past 27 years, my husband has battled one chronic health issue after another. Married without children and no immediate family in the area, it has always been just me as his caregiver. Every time I have sat in the 'family' waiting room of a hospital, I have