Health has been on my mind a lot lately as I hear about grad students’ I know mental or physical health decline. It also brings me back to my own struggles with my salud during grad school. It was not a fun time. I want to share my story with you and some tangible things you can do to make sure you don’t end up in the chaotic attack graduate education can throw at your health. Your health matters and should be a priority. As long as I could remember I was a really healthy individual. I would only get a cold maybe once a year and my mental health was amazing. My first year in grad school went fine. I was super healthy until finals week at the end of my first year of grad school. I got the freaking flu in May, which was really odd for me. Then summer came and everything was still okay. Everything seemed on par with my health in the past but when I started my second year suddenly everything changed… I remember when I started the semester that I would be constantly burping all the time and felt nauseous at times. I was so weirded out and didn’t know what the hell was going on with my body. I went to the student health center where an awesome doctor (Dr. Garrison) who I saw throughout graduate school concluded that I may have a bout of acute gastritis and prescribed some antacids to help reduce my stomach acid and he said within a few weeks I should be good to go! I took the meds he prescribed and like he said I got better, which I was so relieved about…. But then… Fast forward to Halloween weekend during the fall semester, I got smacked with a cold! I didn’t think much of it because it was just a cold and within a few days, I would be fine right? WRONG… a whole week goes by and I still felt terrible… I couldn’t even get out of bed, which was not like me at all. I was scared because I had never been that sick before. Of course like any anxious human I started doing google searches and found that having a cold after 7 full days was not okay, so back to the doctor I went. The doctor listened to my concerns and he wasn’t too worried and said that I should ride it out for another week. He did test me for strep and mono just to make sure I didn’t have anything going on in my system. All those tests came back negative. I went home feeling very confused and helpless because I was used to always being on the go and bouncing back pretty fast. This experience really shocked me and challenged me physically and mentally. For the next week, I would spend my time in bed and would only leave my house to go to class. Sleep, eat, class, and repeat was my routine. Another week has gone by and I still am not back to my normal self… and I remember watching my friend’s dog because she had to be out late and I broke down at her house… I literally started crying for my mom because I felt so helpless, alone, and like this was never going to end. This moment of uncontrollable tears streaming down my face was my wake up call… Lorena que estas haciendo para llegar hasta aquí!? (what are you doing that has led you here). All summer and fall semester I had taken on A LOT of responsibilities on a research project that my lab was conducting on top of all my responsibilities as a graduate student. When I agreed to everything it didn’t seem too much and as Mexicana daughter of immigrants I had been conditioned to hustle hard because if I didn’t then I would be considered “lazy”. And the crazy thing was after the summer I could focus on just my research work because I had earned a pre-doctoral fellowship to fund my work. But I didn’t know any better and no one (not even my adviser) was stopping me in tracks to make sure I wasn’t taking on too much. Instead the load just kept getting bigger and bigger… and as you can tell by my story, my body was literally screaming at me to stop and tell me no seas pendeja cuidate (don’t be dumb, take care of yourself)! So I go back to the doctor and he runs a ton of labs because he is concerned. He’s like you are very healthy so it makes no sense that you still feel like crap. He can tell by my white blood count that I am fighting something. So he tests me for mono, strep, flu, and a few other things to rule everything he could possibly rule out in his office. I was crying in his office because at that point I didn’t know what to do. His only thought was that I could still be fighting off what I caught at the beginning and caught something half-way through the process. He gave me antibiotics to help with whatever I was fighting to hopefully get me back to myself. I started taking antibiotics and the doctor told me that if after 4-5 days I still felt crappy, to come back again. So I started the antibiotics and a few days later I still felt like shit so I went back and he ran labs again. My white blood count was actually back to normal so that was a good sign and he told me to give it another week because it could just be a lot of stress on my body trying to recover. Finally, thanksgiving rolls around and I feel much better. I was finally myself. Those were the longest 4 weeks of my life. I had never had that experience and I don’t wish upon no-body. Even though I felt better, the crisis with my health didn’t end there. From all this stress on my body and the stress of grad school, I developed gastritis which I battled all throughout graduate school. I could not function without being on the most powerful proton-inhibitors. Everyday I had to wake up and pop my pill otherwise I felt so sick to my stomach. I also regularly became accustomed to catching a cold or feeling off every month to 6 weeks. It became my new norm… I also became a very anxious person. The whole experience of being sick for 4 weeks made me so anxious about getting that sick again. Anytime I felt off or felt something my mental health would be shaken… this actually pushed me into therapy and I learned to be more aware and mindful of my stress levels. The point is this should not be anyone's norm! Doesn’t matter what health conditions are unleashed during your graduate experience. Shouldn’t the system change if so many students develop physical and mental health conditions? I think so!! But since of course I couldn’t change the system on my own I did change some things in my day to day life that helped me stay afloat until I crossed the PhD finish line and these are what worked for me and could help you or at least help you find what may help you!
I hope this post is helpful to you and your journey. I can happily say that I longer have any of these health issues that I had during graduate school. It's safe to say that grad school was a toxic environment for me and my health. This is a major reason I didn’t go into academia because I value my health and couldn’t see myself break down the way I was. Plus, I found a career where my health was not compromised and where I felt my light ignited in ways that I never imagined. I hope you find a place where you can be your best self and don’t feel like you have to compromise any part of your life. I care about you… please also care about yourself too! |
AuthorDr. Lorena Aceves unapologetically telling you the real deal about being brown in an academic world, but deciding she is going to be her authentic self and make her wildest dreams come true en esta vida! Archives
November 2022
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