So I went to school today. I felt a little better this morning; still a little tired, but able to make it to school. However, when I got there, a colleague said “You’re here? I saw you on the sub list.” It turns out that, indeed, I was on the sub list, so I called my doctor and got in to see her this afternoon.

I used to hate going to the doctor, mainly because I have a serious phobia of needles. That phobia is still there, but I’m a lot more lazy about protesting the needles. It’s really weird, but as I’ve gotten older, I just don’t have the energy to freak out as much about things that scare me as I used to. I used to have full-on meltdowns any time a needle was even mentioned, but now I’m just like “ugh, I wish we didn’t have to do this.” This is only true for having blood taken out, though. Shots are still scream-and-run away territory.

My doctor checked out all my vitals, including a lump on my jawline near where I had a tumor removed when I was 19. We’re going to keep an eye on that one because it seems like it’s a lymph node, but it’s been there a while. Then I got some blood drawn. I had blood tests back in September that came back pretty much all normal, so there are some new tests this time: mono and some autoimmune blood tests. I had mono really bad when I was in college, but apparently it could be messing with me again. It actually kind of feels like mono; I’m so tired all the time.

Later, after a long nap, I went and had a massage, which seemed to help the stiffness in my neck and shoulders quite a bit. I told the therapist that I’ve gone through a lot of stress this past year or so and I felt like my body was reacting. She said that our bodies react to stress in a lot of ways that we don’t always recognize.

I thought about that on the way home. Working at Forest Lake had gotten more stressful throughout the last year, and my body started reacting back then with new migraines, heart palpitations, and panic attacks. I started sleeping more and eating more. The summer between school years was shorter because of construction up at the high school, so I didn’t get as much time to recuperate as I normally would have. Then, this fall, making the decision to leave in the middle of a school year was extremely stressful. I spent a lot of time anxiously thinking about options and crying. The move was elongated because I stayed on as the debate coach until the end of the debate season just a few weeks ago.

I feel like I’m mentally handling things relatively well, but my body has been slow to catch up. I might be ignoring some things that are weighing on my mind, though, and so I’m probably not handling things as well as I want to think I am. As I write about it, it makes sense that my body is “detoxing,” in a sense, because I’m still in transition I guess. Nearing the end of the transition, hopefully, but I’m still there.

When I was leaving school today, I was talking to the secretary and principal about feeling badly about missing school. The secretary said “new school flu. All new teachers get it.” I said that I was not a new teacher, but she said “new to us. That’s all it takes – new germs.”

I suppose in a sense that’s part of the problem. I don’t think I’m necessarily sick with a flu (although the tests are not back yet), but my body is probably reacting in a visceral way to the different stresses I’ve been under for, actually, the past year or so. I’ve felt up and down with exhaustion for quite a while.

Maybe I just need to be gentle to myself. I need to keep reminding myself to be gentle. I’ll get there, eventually.

It would be nice, however, if the tests just came back with a really easy fix.