I’ve started a new job this week, returning to the bedside as a registered nurse. This was not an easy decision for me, and for years I had sworn I would never go back to bedside nursing.
Bedside nursing can be very hard on a person, taking a physical, emotional, and mental toll. I still consider myself young, but in my mid-30’s, when I left the bedside to teach nursing, my body felt beat to shit.
It turns out that I was not taking good care of myself. And this is not related to the “self-care” that keeps making headlines and is a big industry (mostly marketed towards women, I might add).
In the last 11 months, I have redefined self-care and what that really means for me. And my life has radically changed.
The first half of my story is essentially the story of my unraveling. Of hitting rock bottom and realizing I had to change.
Despite following health and safety recommendations, getting vaccinated, and generally not spending time around people except close friends, I contracted Covid-19 in January 2022. It just hung in there. And hung in there. And would not go away.
It became long-covid, a syndrome of lasting symptoms that have no defined prognosis nor universally agreed protocols for treating.
I could no longer do my job. I went on FMLA for almost 6 weeks.
I couldn’t trust my body anymore. It completely betrayed me. I was always fatigued and would often get post-exertional malaise from the most miniscule of activities.
Going from working out every day and running the largest faculty department at the University I was employed at to not even being able to walk my dog a block scared the shit out of me.
I came face-to-face with my mortality, in a way. I was forced to imagine a life with these new limitations, wondering if I could ever do the things I loved again—or even work again.
My husband struggled to understand how I couldn’t just push through to get things done. “You have to just push through! You’re deconditioned, sure, but if you never push yourself, you’ll never get stronger again.”
I felt unheard and unseen by him and tried so hard to make him understand that this was different from anything I’d ever experienced before. There was no “pushing through.” My body would just stop. I couldn’t do anymore. I had never not been able to push through, and I was scared shitless now that I could not.
One day, my husband was gone most of the day for work. I had felt pretty good the previous day so had done just a little bit of shoveling of snow so the front walk would be clear to the street. Less than 10 minutes of activity, and I kept my effort to the minimum.
I paid for that activity dearly. I felt very weak by the evening and woke up feeling like I had been run over by a tank. I slept almost 14 hours and then spent the afternoon on the couch.
At about 1630 (yes, I use the 24-hour clock), I felt almost desperate for some food. I wasn’t sure how much longer my husband would be gone, but I knew I really needed some food.
What could I get myself that requires little to no effort? Ah! I can slice some cheese and get crackers. That should be easy enough.
I slowly got up from the couch, standing in one place for almost a minute to let my head stop spinning. Orthostatic hypotension was a real issue for me on my bad days.
As shaky as I felt, I held on to things on my 20-foot walk to the fridge. I took out the block of cheddar, got the cheese knife and a small cutting board, then stood there holding onto the kitchen island to catch my breath.
After 30 seconds or so, I started slicing the cheese. Every one or two slices I had to pause for several seconds to steady myself and gather the strength to continue. To continue slicing cheese! Who the fuck can’t even slice cheese?
My husband walked in. Saw me holding onto the island like I was about to fall. Immediately he became concerned and asked me what was wrong.
“I don’t even have the energy to be able to cut cheese. It took all of my strength just to get up from the couch and walk in here. I just need some food, I’m so hungry!” I said, tearing up. I had nothing left.
He grabbed a plate and the crackers, told me to go back to the couch, and brought me my snack. “I didn’t understand before how you couldn’t just push through. Now I get it.”
That moment made a big difference in our relationship and in my recovery. I felt validated and seen. Believed.
And it gave me back some of the trust I had lost in my body, because the person whose opinion matters most to me in this world finally believed me and listened to me when I said I couldn’t do something.
I finally had permission from my husband, and thus I could give myself permission to rest and really pay attention to my body’s needs.
I eventually went back to work for 20-30 hours per week, but by early afternoon I was fatigued and had to go home. The post-exertional malaise wasn’t as bad, but if I pushed it too hard one day, I wouldn’t be able to work the next.
I was slow and not very productive in my time at work, but it did feel good to be back around people and able to get something done. I had turned over leadership when I was on FMLA and now played back-up to the woman-in-charge.
When I went back to work, though, I started being bullied. Subtly, but very apparent to me and to a couple other faculty. My recovery felt stalled. This mental and emotional angst was wearing on me significantly. My body could no longer hide the toll of being psychologically undermined and bullied.
I struggled mightily with the decision but ended up resigning as the chair of the department before the semester finished, allowing the department to elect a new chair for the upcoming school year.
I wasn’t certain of the trajectory of my recovery but knew that working through the summer as the chair role required wouldn’t allow for adequate rest. I wasn’t even certain that I could return to a full-time faculty role at all for Fall.
I finished out the semester, trusting my body more, but still not trusting my mind. I was so relieved when the last faculty duty day came, and even more relieved the day after.
Yet, I was still fearful, and my mind kept screaming at me that I should quit my job. I kept telling it to shut up, it didn’t know what it was talking about.
I was just struggling with increased anxiety and depression because of the long covid and the uncertainty of my recovery. That’s no reason to quit my job. Especially when they would work with me if I needed to come back in a part-time capacity.
But how could I go back to the same group of people who bullied me and spoke poorly about me behind my back? Who undermined me at every turn? Who said one thing and did another? That’s not my value set.
How could I justify returning to a place that would never change for the better? To a group that tore each other down then gaslighted you for trying to call it out?
But I can’t trust my mind or emotions. I’m just struggling with long covid right now.
Our culture values strength to the point that at the first sign of weakness, it will feed you to the wolves. It values working to the point that if you aren’t utterly exhausted you must not be working hard enough.
Our culture will gaslight you into not trusting your mind and body when it is screaming at you to take a break and rest because you should really should just push through. After all, your body is capable of such amazing things, and you just aren’t trying hard enough if you say you can’t push through the fatigue.
What if we slowly, person by enlightened person, changed that culture and mindset?
Stay tuned for part two of my story of awakening.