Well my lovelies, here we are at the end of October in the year of our Lord 2015, and I have been absent from my blog since last month. There have been many reasons for this delay, from the bizarre to the awesome! I count it all joy! One major reason for my absence has been a rush of new opportunities that I have received for my writing.
I am a Staff Writer for
Spoken Moments LLC , which is a non-profit organization based in St. Louis that supports and hosts local arts and events for the community's poetry and spoken word movement. As their Staff Writer, I am responsible for writing content for the organization's blog on its website
www.spokenmoments.com. It has been an amazing opportunity and I am delighted to be a part of this movement!
Another great series of opportunities that I have been blessed with is through the local upscale, urban magazine
Delux Magazine. Delux releases print publications of its magazine every two months. I have just wrapped up my second issue writing for them which is exciting! This most recent issue, which is due to come out in early November 2015, will feature three of my articles, including the cover story! I'm so excited to see my name in print. It's truly an incredible feeling as a writer. I'm excited to continue my journey into journalism with Delux.
Now, as great as those
happenings have been, there has been one road bump, which I'm afraid to say was probably a bi-product of my experiences with my writing ramping up. On the last Tuesday of September, I noticed my lymph node was swollen behind my left ear. This was odd and of course I was worried, but I kept on moving. Later the same night, I found that I had 3 small bumps on my scalp, near my forehead, also on the left side of my head. They began to itch and hurt. This was all very odd but I thought it was maybe due to a bug bite. For the next few days, I experienced severe, mind-blowing pain and migraines. I never get migraines, or any headaches for that matter so I knew something was wrong.
I called my doctor's office that Friday. I was trying to wait a week before calling for fear of being blown off by the office and being told to wait, but I knew something was wrong. Of course, they were booked that day and told me to call back the next day to see if I could get squeezed in by another doctor in the office or wait til Monday to call. I was bothered, but said ok. That day continued to get worse and worse, not to mention that I had a wedding to attend that evening. I decided to go to the Take Care Clinic at Walgreens. I went and unfortunately was misdiagnosed as having a skin infection. This upset me because I had told the nurse practitioner there all of my symptoms but she only was stuck on "skin irritation". So she prescribed me some antibiotics. The next day I started taking the medicine, and the rash spread to my left eye. I waited to see if the medicine would kick in further into the 10-day dosage, but it did not.
Now keep in mind, I'm a borderline hypochondriac and had been reading WebMD and Google about my symptoms for almost a week, trying to figure out what I had and why the pain would not go away even while taking antibiotics. On Monday night, I decided to look up
Shingles. It looked like what I had but I still wasn't sure about it. I mean, let's face it. Only old people get shingles right?
After suffering and working at home during the week, on Wednesday morning I finally decided that the meds weren't working and called my doctor. Again, the receptionist told me that they were booked and suggested making an appointment for the following week. I gave push back and she asked me what is the problem. I stated with a serious vocal tone, "I think that I have shingles." She put me on hold and came back in a minute and told me that the doctor could see me in two hours. I was there!
As soon as my doctor walked into the examination room that I was in and saw me, he shook his head and said "oh no". My doctor and I have a running joke because I always self-diagnose when I arrive at his office with an issue. So he asked me "are you thinking what I'm thinking?" I said "I have two possibilities, what are you thinking?" He said "I have only one. What do you think it is?" I asked, "do you think it's shingles?" And he replied "I know it's shingles."
Of course I was shocked and upset at the diagnosis. How do
I have shingles??? I'm 32! This is something that old people get! He assured me that he himself had had it and went into all of the symptoms that he had with it, which were identical to mine. I asked how I could have gotten this and he told me flatly, "stress, stress is the only way someone your age gets shingles." This was even more shocking because although I have been stressed, I've been dealing with it. I haven't cried myself to sleep or rocked in the fetal position in a corner! But my body clearly wasn't handling the stress as well as I thought it had.
The scary thing about shingles is that there is no cure and there's no exact timeframe for it leaving your body. Some people have it for a couple weeks, others have it for a lifetime. Everyone is different. It can also cause permanent nerve damage and blindness in the eye that it surrounds.
That afternoon after getting the medicine that my doctor prescribed, I went to the opthamologist to make sure that my cornea wasn't damaged. That's how the blindness happens. He told me (in 2 minutes after about a 40 minute wait smh), that my cornea looked fine. Thank God!
As I continued taking the 7-day dosage of these big blue pills for shingles (not to be confused with the little blue pill for Viagara, I'm just saying), my symptoms began to diminish. It turns out my case of shingles was pretty mild in that it only affected my scalp, forehead, and eyelid. I was blessed. I am blessed.
Now, I was nervous because my doctor, WebMD, and the CDC's website all say that it can cause lifelong nerve damage. My doctor said that when he touches his face, the side that had shingles still tingles unlike the other side. I understood what he was saying because I too felt the difference in my face and scalp while the rash was clearing up.
I was quarantined for a good week which was unbearable! And the recent opening of the new Ikea store didn't help my agony. I was so bummed that I couldn't go but I didn't want to get anyone else sick. Shingles is only contagious for a little while and only to certain groups of people: Chemo patients, Pregnant women, babies under 18 months, people who have never gotten chicken pox, and HIV and transplant patients.
I had my sad moments when I'd cry and question "why me?" But then one day during it all, I changed my attitude. I sometimes look at things that happen in my life as part of my memoir and determine how much of my "book" will be devoted to the situation. I decided that shingles will not define me and will get no more than a paragraph of "my book" no matter how long it lasts.
I prayed to God every day for the 2 straight weeks I had this that this would not leave me with long-term effects and to take this away from me! God answers prayers.
Fortunately, every day the tingling would diminish until finally, I'm happy to say, it was gone completely! No more rash, no more burning, no more migraines. Now when I touch the infected areas, I feel nothing. It feels normal just like the right side of my eyelid, forehead, and scalp. Praise be to God in the highest!!!!!
I have to use this experience of course to show how good God is but also to tell people to take care of themselves and don't push yourself too hard. I didn't think I was, but my body thought differently. Take it easy. Take time out for yourself and spend your free time doing something you love to do. And relax yourself. Be still some times. That's the lesson I'm using for this. I'm not a homebody and I constantly want to be out doing something fun. But all of that running around and taking on new projects came at the expense of my health, which is not good. Shingles forced me to be still.
We only have one body and one life. Take care of it and take care of yourself. I'm thankful that my bout of shingles only lasted about 4 weeks in its entirety. It could have been much worse but God blessed me and I am absolutely grateful!
