By week three most of my quarantined students had returned to the classroom. Those who were still missing were waiting for the results of Covid tests which we all hoped would be negative. Emails alerting faculty and students to “daily Covid exposures” began to pile up in my inbox. With each alert came building, classroom and time information which allowed the recipient to check it against their movements on any given day. Higher education in the age of what is beginning to seem like a never ending pandemic.
Sometime after learning of my recent classroom exposure and while a third of my non vaccinated students were still quarantining, I received an email from a colleague. “I’m loving being back in the classroom,” it said, “I hope you are all enjoying being back with the students.”
I snarled. “Oh yeah, it’s been a veritable blast,” I groused.
The next morning I woke up covered in a painful red rash. I sent off a note to my GP. “I think I have shingles,” I wrote, attaching a picture as evidence.
“Right you are, doctor,” she said, playfully. She promised to send a prescription to the pharmacy and told me to take it easy.
Did she mean me, I wondered. Clearly she didn’t know who she was talking to. I’m a busy woman. I don’t have time for this shit.
“Are you contagious?” my husband asked.
“Not if you’ve already had chicken pox,” I said.
He looked at me for a moment, assessing the situation. Contemplating next steps as if he could see the landmines ahead of him, he paused and then asked “Isn’t shingles stress related?” He let his words hang in the air.
Now, before you think I’m pandering for sympathy here, let me assure you that that is not the reason I’m sharing my current circumstance. I’m allergic to sympathy.
Instead, think of this as a cautionary tale.
I have never been particularly good at recognizing my own stress levels. The truth is, as far back as I can remember, the word stress was never uttered in my house. I come from a long line of put your head down and keep going people. People who can’t remember when they last took a sick day. People who believe that to give up and admit defeat is tantamount to death.
Head down. Nose to the grindstone. Just. Keep. Going. And for most of my life, it’s worked. Call me a stress junkie. I tend to thrive in stressful situations. A dinner party for 50 people? Yes please. Teaching 6 courses a semester… Piece of cake. Deadlines? I eat them for lunch!
Acute stress, I teach my students, the kind of time-limited stress that comes and goes, has a beginning middle and end. Acute stress is managed fairly well by the brilliant physiological machinery of the brain and body. Resourceful, it marshals all its energy to get you through the crisis, up over the hump and down the other side. Sure you’ll be tired. You might need an extra day or two to catch up on sleep, but before you know it, you’ve moved on. The sun comes up, the road stretches out before you and you’re back on your way.
And then there’s the other kind of stress. Acute Stress’s evil twin brother, Chronic Stress. As in 20 months of a pandemic kind of chronic stress. Chronic stress folds itself into the fabric of your life. Think financial problems. Long term health issues. A health crisis that shows no sign of ending. Chronic stress is harder to recognize because in some ways, it just looks like life. That is, until one day you wake up with your nerves on fire, you body resembling a pot of bubbling tomato sauce and anything your skin comes in contact with quickly becomes your mortal enemy.
“Now do you see me?” It says, and for a moment I actually consider surrender.
“Ok,” I say. “You win. You have my attention now.”
These are stressful times. Recognize them as so. Be kind to yourself and for godsakes, as the saying goes, don’t be me.
Proceed with caution.
