Anyone can feel anxious, but when anxiety starts impacting your life, it can be problematic. In this week’s episode, both of our storytellers confront their worries.
Part 1: Devon Kodzis thought they had their anxiety under control until a routine doctor appointment.
Devon Kodzis has been called a joyful bumblebee. They have had job titles including animal trainer, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, educator, and currently serve as the Dean of the Academic Incubator at Dallas College. They always have goggle-marks from swimming. Their passions include reading horror novels, hiking, and shouting at the television with their cats. Devon began storytelling at Dallas Comedy House in 2016 and have since produced and been featured in shows such as Gettin It', Truth in Comedy, Story Collider, Talking Dirty After Dark and Backyard Story Night. They have taught storytelling since 2017 and have had students living on every continent except for Antarctica.
Part 2: Naturally anxious neuroscientist Tammy Spence becomes preoccupied with her dog’s health.
Tamara “Tammy” Spence is a neuroscientist and professional worrywart, earning a PhD in worry – for real. She would do almost anything in the name of science and education – including authorizing an entire class of medical students to observe an invasive procedure on herself that she could not bear to witness. Known as the “Brain Lady” for bringing buckets of preserved human brains to elementary schools as part of a Brain Awareness Campaign, she loves illuminating minds…one brain at a time. A proud aunt, she relishes the fact that her nephew considers Mr. Axon – his plush neuron – to be worthy of show and tell at his preschool.
Episode Transcript
Part 1
I remember in second grade being in the Level Three reading circle talking about The Borrowers when Miss Johnson, the school counselor walked in. She grabbed me and she sat me down in the media center away from my friends and she said, “Devon, I want to talk to you today about spiders.”
And I said, “Okay.”
She said, “Devon, your Mommy and Daddy are really worried. They told me that a few weeks ago during bedtime you saw a spider crawling on your night light and you got really scared, but then Mommy and Daddy took the spider outside and set it free. But every night since then, you've been waking up shouting, ‘Spider, spider, spider’. Now, Devon, you know the spider hasn't come back, right?”
And I said, “Yet.” Because what Miss Johnson didn't know was the minute that I saw that little eight legged fuck crawling up my Little Mermaid night light, trademark TM, TM, TM, a chant started in my head. “Spider, spider, spider”. And long after the spider was taken out, that chant continued. “Spider, spider.” I would be trying to pick out cupcakes for my best friend Allison's birthday, “Spider, spider, spider.” I would be looking at the little, dangly flap of hair on the back of my crush's neck, “Spider, spider, spider.” I would be sitting trying to discuss the intricacies of The Borrower series in my Level Three reading circle but, “Spider, spider, spider, spider.”
Devon Kodzis shares their story at Dallas Morning News in Dallas, TX in April, 2023. Photo by Jason Hensel.
Now, what Miss Johnson correctly identified, which it took me thousands of dollars and hours of therapy to realize, is that I have something called generalized anxiety disorder. What that means is at any time my body perceives a threat, and let me be clear, everything is a threat. Everything is a Code Red bear chasing me threat. My body fills with cortisol, the stress hormone, and a chant starts in my head. It's very loud and it sounds like me and it's very hard to function with it going.
The chant was kind of quiet when I was a kid, when I was in elementary school, but it really came into its own right about high school time. It would focus on things like tests, so if I had an academic test coming up, in a couple of weeks it would start quiet at first. “Test, test, test.” And I would study. I would stay up all hours of the night, miss tons of sleep studying so that I would get an A, but it would still keep going. “Test, test, test.”
I would be holding hands with my boyfriend but I couldn't feel it. Just, “Test, test, test.” I couldn't memorize any lines for any of my plays during that week because all I could hear was, “Test, test, test, test.”
My stomach would cramp and I would develop pit sweat from my armpits all the way down to my belt loop. My eye would start to twitch and I would just kind of walk through the hallways, “Test, test, test, test, test,” until finally I passed the test. And then I got a moment of quiet.
And then pregnancy. “Pregnancy, pregnancy. Devon, your period is three hours late. This is it, Kodzis. This is DEFCON fuck. Pregnancy, pregnancy, pregnancy.” Don't worry, I passed that test too.
The thing was, though, my anxiety tended to really focus on things that made me look like I had my stuff together. So because I had to stay up all hours of the night, I was getting straight A's. When I did have the attention for it, I could take on the most lines of anybody in my theater program.
So I got into great college programs. I met a wonderful man, who I'm now married to. I traveled the world. And the entire time I had to learn how to cover up what was going on, so I picked up some tricks, in case you want them.
First things first, if you have pit stains, wearing a black turtleneck makes it really hard to see and everybody will think that you're just kind of quirky and intellectual.
Eye twitch? Put on glasses. People will think you're kind of funky and cool.
If you have a lot of twitchy activity in your limbs, develop a big, outsized personality and nobody will notice that anything is wrong.
Devon Kodzis shares their story at Dallas Morning News in Dallas, TX in April, 2023. Photo by Jason Hensel.
I even managed to get it so that I kept my crying screaming panic attacks to two hours on Sunday, between 2:00 PM and 4:00 PM. And even then, only in closets where nobody could see me. I had it made. I made it 29 years. 29 of them.
Then about three years ago, a friend of mine recommended a new general practitioner, a new doctor. I was like, “All right, sure. Yeah, I'll give her a try.”
So I showed up. I got into the office. I got naked. I put on my medical gown, you know the kind that has the butt hanging out the back, but I kept my shoes on because I'm classy, and I hoisted myself up onto the bench with the paper layered up there. I could feel my sweaty nervous backs of my legs turning that paper into like a crunchy pulp underneath me. We were ready.
And so my doctor walks in and she says, “Hey, Devon, I saw on your profile that you're an educator and I've got a medical student interning with me. And I thought that it'd be really good if he could take some practice doing the mental health intake survey.”
I was like, “I got this. I'm gonna win at being a patient.”
“Absolutely. Bring him in.”
So she steps out and in walks this tall, handsome young man with these big, beautiful dark eyes and a crisp, white lab coat with the Texas A&M logo on it and his name embroidered, Pedro.
He did not make eye contact with me. He would not look at me. He sat down on a stool right about knee height and scooted himself to the computer where he started the intake questions.
And he said, “Have you noticed that you have had a hard time sleeping or lost interest in activities recently?”
I said, “But I sleep either 2 or 12 hours a night, no say which, and I work 60 hours a week, so I don't really have time for hobbies.”
No laugh. Typing. Okay, okay. Tough audience but I'll crack him. Don't worry.
He says, “Have you noticed that you develop random twitching motions in your face or your hands or you have a painful cramping in your stomach?”
And I was like, “Yes,” as my eye is like closing twitched looking at him.
And he said, “Do you had excessive sweating?”
I didn't say anything. I just let him turn around and look at the stains developing from my armpits all the way down the length of the gown. Still no laugh.
Then he says, “Do you have racing thoughts or have a hard time controlling what you think?”
And I thought, “Dude, I have not controlled a single thought in my head since I came out of the womb.” And I said, “But, Pedro, I'm doing great. Listen, I know I have anxiety. I know I've been in therapy. I do the breathing exercises 70 times a day. It's fine. I'm crushing it, Pedro. I have a great life, a great marriage, a great career, I produce storytelling, I'm doing great.”
And he turns and looks at me and says, “What would it feel like to do that without pain?”
Y'all, I made it 29 years. 29 years 2:00 and 4:00 PM panic attacks, closet, me, alone. I don't know exactly what happened, but I do know that when I opened my eyes someone was screaming. It was me. I was on my side. One tit has gone into the sleeve of my medical gown, ass out the back and I am just kicking and howling in the middle of a panic attack. I feel this pressure on my foot and I realize Pedro has scooted and is trying to comfortingly hold one sneaker looking me in the face.
I sat up and I got myself together and I said, “I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry. I don't usually do this. I've had a really rough day. I've had a rough week, okay. So I've had like a rough couple years, maybe decades, but like I'm doing my best. I'm going to therapy. I know what I've got going on but I'm crushing it. Look at all these things that I've accomplished. I'm making it happen.”
And he said, “How long have you been in pain?”
And I said, “29 years.”
He said, “I'd like to write you a prescription for an SSRI, an antidepressant used to treat anxiety. It's called escitalopram. It's called Lexapro.”
And I was like, “Maybe you didn't hear me. Pedro, I'm crushing it. Like there's nothing wrong with people who need mental health medication. That's totally fine. I have lots of friends who need it. But when my friends who needed it got on it, they were like having a hard time with their careers or their friendships or they had just gotten divorced. They looked at the point in their life they were in sweatpants and just trying to make it work and I'm sitting here half naked in a doctor's office crushing it. So it didn't really fit my image.”
And he said, “You have done amazing things in 29 years, but I would really like to see what happens with what you can do when you're on this medicine.”
I don't know if it was the panic attack or the nudity or the horniness but I said okay.
He left and he came back with a piece of paper. As I grabbed it, my eyes were welling up with tears.
And he said, “Two weeks. That's when you start to feel the effects. Full effects in six to eight.” He hands me the paper and he walks out. Then he turns back around and says, “Oh, by the way, this may make it hard for you to orgasm. Have a nice day.”
After I got the prescription filled, I sat in the parking lot of a Velvet Taco for 30 minutes bawling, staring at this pill bottle, just looking at it trying to get up the courage to swallow a single pill with a full bottle of Topo Chico. And I decided, damn it, we're going to do this. We're going to give it a shot.
The minute I swallowed the pill, this chant started in my head. It said, “Sick, failure, sick and…”
Devon Kodzis shares their story at Dallas Morning News in Dallas, TX in April, 2023. Photo by Jason Hensel.
Actually, it doesn't quite work with the ambiance if I'm saying it. So if you guys don't mind, y'all over here are going to be sick. You say it. Sick. Y'all give me failure. Oh, wow. Failure's a lot louder. Okay. Cool, cool, cool, cool. When I point to you…
[Sick, Failure]
Beautiful. So I started taking the pill and it started kind of quiet, that chant that day. But then, over the next 13 days it got louder. Until, finally, on the 14th day, I woke up and I heard this sound. This [grunting]. And I feel this twitching on my chest.
I look and my cat Walker is sleeping on my chest in a full on like dream just like [makes noises]. I've never seen anything like it before.
And I woke my husband up. I said, “Nick, Nick. Look, Walker's snoring. He's dreaming. Isn't it so beautiful?”
And he said, “Devon, he always does that. You never noticed?”
I got up and my stomach grumbled. Made a piece of toast. It was delicious. I drank coffee, which I usually only consume for chemical purposes. Turns out that's real good too, y'all. And then I went to take my pill that day and it started again. I heard that, “Sick, failure, sick, failure.” And I said, “Not right now,” and it stopped.
Did you all know that was possible? You can just choose to stop thinking something? You all been holding out on me? Some good shit. It's a really good deal. And, actually, if you don't mind, it is Lexapro o'clock right now, so I'd like to raise a toast really quickly. Raise your drinks, imagined and real, to cat snoring, to doing things that are amazing in pain and without it, and to Pedro. Great news, buddy. I can still orgasm.
Thank you.
Part 2
I'm an anxious person, always have been. And since I couldn't beat anxiety, I decided to try to understand it. I knew the answer had to be somewhere in the brain so I enrolled in a PhD program in neuroscience and committed to spending most of my 20s in a laboratory experimenting. First, on rodent brain slices containing the amygdala, which is a region linked to the generation of fear and anxiety, and then I worked my way up to experimenting on anxious college students.
I was so ready for academia I even supported the pervasive attitude of publish or perish, meaning that your success is measured entirely by the number of manuscripts that you publish each year. After all, this is kind of like the last and most crucial part of the scientific method. If you do great work but no one knows about it then what's the point?
To encourage academic success, the PhD program required students to publish at least one lead author manuscript in order to graduate. That became my primary goal. But halfway through my first semester, something in me shifted and I felt this overpowering desire for a partner, a best friend, someone who would always be there for me. I knew that I was finally ready for a dog.
Tammy Spence shares her story at Verge Center for the Arts in Sacramento, CA at a show sponsored by Capital Storytelling in April 2023. Photo by Daniel Shambra.
So I bought a small house with a big backyard and drove to Carolina wine country to meet a free Border Collie German Shepherd puppy. I gently picked up this black and tan fluff ball and held him in the palm of my hands. I brought him up to my eye level and when our gazes met, I felt a wave of calmness wash over me. I loved him instantly and I knew that he would be my baby. I named him Jabba Bear.
Jabba Bear had such an expressive face. Picture these distinguished tan eyebrows hovering above big, curious brown eyes, which he clearly inherited from me as his mom. Tiny ears that never grew with the rest of his body, black lips curled upwards in their perpetual smile and a large floppy tongue hanging out of a dry open mouth.
As a teenager, as his undercoat came in, he shed so much, but his fur was soft, thick and magnetic. It would clump together to form Jabba Bear tumbleweeds that gently rolled across the hardwood floors of my house.
Jabba was great for my well being. He encouraged me to be more active, begging for hikes in the forest, long walks and short jogs. And as a neuroscientist in training, I understood the positive impact of exercise on mental health, but I attributed my newfound calmness entirely to Jabba Bear's happy go lucky attitude. He was wearing off on me.
But my anxiety was not relieved for long. One day, as I was scratching Jabba's head, I noticed a firm mass behind his right ear. I squeezed it and he didn't respond, so I panicked and called the vet because Jabba was clearly growing a third ear.
When I took him to the vet, she politely listened to my concerns and then asked if I wanted to watch as she treated Jabba's third ear. She then pulled out a razor and shaved it off.
I was horrified as she laughed saying, “Relax, this is only a patch of matted fur.” I had never seen matted fur before, but I breathe a sigh of relief and apologized for overreacting, offering an explanation like, “Oh, sorry. First time dog mom,” in case that wasn't totally obvious.
A few months later, I took Jabba for a jog like usual. Near the end, we bumped into each other, which wasn't uncommon given our shared clumsiness and I didn't think anything of it, until the next morning when Jabba woke up with a limp. Over the course of the day, the limp did not subside so, naturally, I took him to the vet.
They examined him and gave him a prescription for doggy Advil and it worked, so we went on a road trip for the holidays.
Tammy Spence shares her story at Verge Center for the Arts in Sacramento, CA at a show sponsored by Capital Storytelling in April 2023. Photo by Daniel Shambra.
Once Jabba finished his medication, the limp returned. I massaged his muscles and traced the outline of his bones trying to figure out where he was hurting. When I got to his back left foot, it felt sort of warm. I squeezed it and he did not respond. I figured that was a good thing considering what had happened with his third ear, so I waited until we were back in town before taking him to the vet.
I dropped him off in the morning and went to the lab because I had to run an experiment. When I called to check in on Jabba halfway through the day, they asked me if I was sitting down. The vet proceeded to utter a bunch of technical terms about lesions and blood and I temporarily lost my hearing only to regain it for the concluding remarks. This is really surprising given that Jabba is a mixed breed puppy. In all of my years of practicing medicine, I haven't seen this before.
“Miss Spence, what I'm trying to say is that cancer doesn't read textbooks.”
They ran a few more tests to confirm that Jabba Bear had developed osteosarcoma or bone cancer in a toe on his back left leg. Jabba Bear was barely two years old and the cancer was so far away from the big joints where it typically grows so we discussed his treatment options with true optimism. Bone cancer is aggressive so the recommended course of action was limb amputation followed by chemotherapy.
The vet told me about a clinical trial that was about to launch at North Carolina State University which is one of the best veterinary schools in the United States. A clinical trial is a type of research study where participants are broken into groups, a control group which typically receives no treatment or a standard proven treatment and an experimental group which may receive an experimental treatment.
At that time, I was actually gearing up to start my own clinical trial on anxious college students, so I jumped at the opportunity to enroll Jabba in this study. I felt that it was part of my duty both as a dog mom and a scientist.
Two days after Jabba’s cancer diagnosis, his back leg was removed. One week later, he became the first patient enrolled in that study at NC State. And every three weeks, I drove two hours from Winston-Salem to Raleigh North Carolina for Jabba’s chemotherapy.
And while he was receiving treatment, I set up shop in a cafe on campus and worked on my dissertation. Reading, writing, thinking, all about anxiety. And the more I read, the more worried I became. I even developed meta worry, which is worrying about worry.
That was a brutal time. Jabba had all the side effects of chemo: nausea, vomiting and a lot of diarrhea, but he never stopped smiling. 50 weeks later, he successfully completed the trial. I remember asking the vet if this meant that he was cured. They told me that we would continue to monitor him for another year. And I counted the days until Jabba's second ampu versary and threw him a party to celebrate how far he'd come.
Shortly after that celebration, Jabba Bear woke me up by jumping in bed with me. I remember tenderly stroking his face when I felt a lump on his upper right lip. It was warm, almost hot to touch, and I felt a knot develop in the pit of my stomach because I knew what this meant.
I took him to the vet and they confirmed that his cancer had spread to his jaw. At that moment, I accepted the inevitable, that my baby boy was dying and there was nothing else I could do to save him. I was not going to remove his face.
The timing was awful. I was in the middle of the clinical trial of my own which was the biggest and most important study of my PhD. Several participants had already dropped out of my study and I was worried that if I didn't have enough people in my experimental condition, I wouldn't be able to publish my findings.
My anxiety was at an all time high. I felt like my research was a dumpster fire. I was losing my son. I felt helpless.
I knew that Jabba was getting ready to cross the Rainbow Bridge so I hugged him tight, ordered all of his favorite treats and took him to a garden for a picnic. The next day he passed.
And I gathered my composure to the best of my ability because I had to go into the lab and continue my research. I had a participant scheduled. we were nearing the end of the semester and this is one of the last people to participate in my clinical trial.
Tammy Spence shares her story at Verge Center for the Arts in Sacramento, CA at a show sponsored by Capital Storytelling in April 2023. Photo by Daniel Shambra.
This participant was a young man and he was critical to my study. About three quarters of the way through the session, he asked to stop the experiment. It is his right to do that, so I stopped. I disconnected him from the equipment and, as I was letting him go, I asked why he stopped. I wanted to make sure he was okay.
He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Oh, no. I wanna go to the beach.”
I wanted to kill him. I was so furious it took every ounce of professionalism that I had to swallow my rage. And once he left, I fell to the floor and just screamed.
Somehow, I finished that study and managed to squeeze out one lead author publication unrelated to the clinical trial to meet those PhD requirements.
During my time in grad school, I learned a lot about research commitment and priorities and most of what I learned came from my time as a dog mom to Jabba Bear. For this reason, I dedicated my dissertation to him. I haven't known of another person to dedicate their dissertation to a dog but there was only one Jabba Bear.
Several years after Jabba Bear passed away, the clinical trial that he participated in, it was published in a well respected journal. So even if my big study wasn't published, I'm happy to know that Jabba's big study was. And his legacy will continue to live on both in the hearts of people who had the pleasure of meeting and knowing him and in the scientific community as veterinarians continue to learn about the cancer that doesn't read textbooks.
Thank you.