This Brutiful Life

[Note: This post may be updated in the future if more information is available.]

About a year later (mid-to-upper 30s), I started having pain in both shoulders and both hands and feet. I had no idea what was happening. A friend of mine recommended a well-known physical therapist in our area, and he treated me for about 5 months. There was not an obvious reason for my shoulder pain, but the PT said that I needed the treatment. This was not covered by insurance at all until my deductible was met for the year. Well, as I have mentioned, most of my testing and treatment was not covered by insurance that year, so I had to pay for most of the PT treatment out-of-pocket. The deductible for the school district’s insurance was higher than the other insurance plan I could have been on through my husband, but the school district required teachers to be on their insurance plan at that time. I couldn’t believe that I finally had something that would be covered by insurance, but since it “looked” like I hadn’t spent any money on medical care that year as far as insurance was concerned, I still had to pay a majority of it out-of-pocket.

During this time, my cousin’s husband passed away unexpectedly from an accident. It was a terrible time for everyone, but especially for her and her two children. I was going to her house 2x per week after school to help out, and then I was going to PT 2-3x per week after school for treatment.

My PT treatment was helping, but he had me add in Dry Needling (not covered by insurance, of course) to my treatment plan in order to progress at a faster rate. I had never heard of dry needling, but I was willing to give it a try.

Eventually, my shoulders, hands, and feet were feeling better, and I was released from PT treatment.

About 3 months after being released from PT, I developed another cough. I thought it was a virus, so I tried to wait it out. When it didn’t go away for a few weeks, my doctor prescribed antibiotics, but the cough did not go away. I kept coughing for another month, and then I went back to the doctor. She did x-rays and prescribed an inhaler.

Near the end of the school year, we had to put our beloved dog down. We loved her so much! She was the best dog, and we were heartbroken. Anyone who loves animals knows how much of an emotional stressor that is.

Then, the end of the school year was happening, so I pushed through until the end of the year and hoped that the summer break would give me a chance to get rid of the lingering cough and become healthier.

Soon after the school year ended, I developed a vaginal infection. I thought for sure it was a vaginal candida (yeast) infection from the antibiotics, but it was not. The diagnosis was bacterial vaginosis. I had never heard of bacterial vaginosis, but I was told that it was not an STI (which I wasn’t worried about since all signs indicated that we were happily married, but thanks). Doctors usually prescribe vaginal antibiotic creams as a first line of treatment. I completed the treatment, but my vagina still felt like it was on fire. I was in so much pain. It hurt to urinate, so my doctor checked for a UTI, but it was clear. We had a family trip planned with our entire extended family on a cruise down the Mississippi River, and I didn’t want this situation to prevent us from spending time with family. Somehow, I made the trip, but it was a physical struggle the entire time. On the airplane ride home, I developed a fever and vomited multiple times. When we got off of the plane, I sat down on a chair in the airport and cried. I just wanted to go home.

At home, I could not stop vomiting. We contacted my Naturopath, and he thought maybe it was food poisoning. My throat was extremely sore, but it got (mostly) better once I stopped vomiting. Because we thought it might be food poisoning, we tried to wait it out. I was not sleeping. I was having really bad acid reflux, and it was causing my body to startle itself awake every hour or so. A few days later, I went to my conventional doctor’s office and was told that it was probably a combination of a virus and food poisoning. I specifically asked for a strep test to rule it out, and it came back positive. My doctor prescribed oral antibiotics for the strep. There wasn’t any treatment prescribed for the other ailments. I also developed an eye infection, so my eye doctor prescribed antibiotic eye drops.

The oral antibiotics helped with the strep throat, but my eye infection would not heal. I was also still having a lot of vaginal pain. Truthfully, my entire body was in pain. We went to see my Ob/Gyn, and she prescribed a different antibiotic for the vagina. I inquired about finding the root cause instead of continuing to treat with antibiotics, but she said antibiotics were the only option and the root cause wasn’t able to be determined. She told us to go see an Ob/Gyn specialist if my symptoms didn’t improve. [Side note: Until that moment, I did not know there were specialists for specialists.] Well, the antibiotics made my vaginal pain worse, so we went to see the Ob/Gyn specialist. He was sure it was a candida (yeast) infection from the antibiotics, but no yeast was found. He told us to come back in 2 weeks to do another yeast culture to see if the results would be different. The results were still negative. I asked about whether or not hormones could be the problem, and he told me that women at my age don’t have problems with their hormones. He made it obvious with his tone and attitude that he was tired of me and was not interested in being my doctor for much longer.

At this point in the summer, I could not sit down without being in extreme pain. I couldn’t even imagine wearing professional clothing and going back to school. I knew that my body was struggling, and doctors were not helpful at this time. I was at an all-time physical and emotional low, and I knew that I needed to put myself first. I knew that I needed to resign from my teaching job. I loved my students and colleagues, but I needed to make myself a priority.

My husband was completely supportive of my decision to resign. I asked my family if there was any work that was not super stressful that could be done for our family’s business using my skill set. They were supportive and said that they could use help in their compliance department, and that I would work closely with my oldest cousin. They said the compliance department was a well-oiled machine (in hindsight, maybe not the most accurate description at that time 🤣), and I would fit right in. Also, the job would give me more flexibility in my days and hours worked.

Within the span of 6 days, I had decided to resign, contacted our financial planner, looked into health insurance through my husband’s place of employment, talked to my family, informed colleagues and friends, informed the parents of my students (and told them to please tell their children), and moved my belongings out of my classroom. It was July, and I wanted to make sure the next teacher was able to move in and get settled as quickly as possible. It was an excruciatingly painful time for me, but I was very grateful for the support of my husband, family, friends, colleagues, school community, and school district. And, I was proud of myself for making the best decision for me in such a short amount of time.

Just another day of . . . This Brutiful Life: The Brutal & Beautiful Moments of My Life.