Twelve months ago, my life was anything but simple.
Primarily, I was a first-year veterinary student living alone in a new town. If
school wasn’t demanding enough, I was also weightlifting three or four times a
week, running three or four times a week, and trying to complete fresh meat
training for a local roller derby league. Between school and my extracurricular
activities, I was doing ALL THE THINGS. So in hindsight, it comes as no
surprise that in February, my body gave out. It started as soreness in my low
back that quickly escalated to debilitating pain. When I went to urgent care on
a Sunday, they took radiographs but saw nothing. They sent me home with muscle
relaxers and pain meds to help me sleep. It wasn’t until I was able to see a
doctor of osteopathic medicine at the student health center later that week
that I started to understand what was going on. It appeared that the tension
from chronic stress and anxiety had accumulated over time in the muscles of my
low back (probably aggravated by sitting with poor posture for long hours in
lectures and at my desk studying) and it had reached a breaking point. The
small muscles stabilizing my spine and pelvis had spasmed and pulled my
sacro-iliac joint out of alignment. This was the intense pain I was feeling.
The D.O. was able to adjust me so that proper alignment was restored, which
reduced my pain significantly, but soreness from the muscle strain remained. I
underwent physical therapy for several weeks following the spasm in order to
regain mobility in my spine and to learn how to properly care for my back in
the future, should pain become an issue again.
The pain gradually lessened because I became hyper aware of
my posture and form in every movement I made. Even though none of the physical
activities I had been partaking in directly instigated the spasm in my back,
vigorous physical activity was the first thing to go (this was an eye opener in
two ways--it caused me to find and try new things I could do and it also caused
me to re-evaluate my relationship to exercise and my body). My movement
consisted of long walks (which I really started to enjoy) and core-strengthening
exercises I learned in physical therapy that paved the way for a regular yoga
practice that helped not only strengthen my body and protect it from further
injury, but also train my mind to calm down and be present. I also experimented
with the way I was fueling myself and adjusted my nutrition in order to
determine what was serving me and what wasn’t.
While my back spasm caused me to slow down and assess my
overall health, it was also an inciting event that exposed a lot of other
underlying health problems of which I was previously unaware because my body
and mind were compensating. I made it through the spring semester and thought
that surely over the summer I would be able to continue on the road to
recovery. Unfortunately, the summer research job I had lined up turned out to
be less than fulfilling and unexpectedly draining in combination with the
stress of moving into a place that had more problems than seemed reasonable for
a brand-new duplex. When the end of the summer rolled around, I had taken no
time for myself to relax and was already dreading the notorious Block IV course
looming ahead of me in the fall. The one shining spot in the summer was that my
two best friends finally joined me in Ithaca, so I was no longer alone.
After getting back to school and feeling my health
deteriorate once again (even in light of my clean eating and reduced exercise
burden), I started to ask questions about my health. Why was I so exhausted all
the time? Why couldn’t I get restful sleep? Why did I have daily headaches? Why
couldn’t I focus in class? Why was my back pain coming back? Why did I get
dizzy so often? These were questions that I soon learned couldn’t be answered
by conventional doctors (but not until after I ran lot of tests that my health insurance
ended up not covering). All my extra money spent on medical bills left me no
leeway to seek help from naturopathic or integrative medical doctors, perhaps
the only people able to treat my condition. I was resolved to be my own doctor.
I did a lot of research and read a lot of literature and concluded that my
issue was severe adrenal fatigue (a.k.a. hypoadrenia,
hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis dysregulation). Basically, long term
chronic stress had depleted my adrenal glands of their ability to produce
cortisol. Too much cortisol is usually a sign of being over-stressed initially,
but if that is prolonged, eventually the cortisol levels drop and the normal
peaks and troughs of cortisol that follow a circadian rhythm can’t be
maintained. I won’t go too much more into it but, suffice it to say, this
explained the majority of my symptoms. Luckily for me, the treatment is a lot
of the things I was already working on doing--avoiding things that exacerbate
the problem like caffeine and alcohol, eating the right things to replenish
depleted micronutrients, prioritizing sleep, and making lifestyle changes that
promote relaxation (like meditating). Unfortunately, this is not something that
you take a pill for and you’re all better, and it’s exponentially more
difficult to recover from when the primary stressor (in my case, vet school) is
not removed. I would not be surprised if I am still rehabilitating my adrenal
glands when I graduate. But for now this will have to be enough until I can
afford to work one-on-one with a naturopathic or functional medicine doctor.
The silver lining of all this back pain and fatigue stuff is
that it illuminated my need to seek professional help with my stress and
anxiety. I am very lucky to have access to relatively extensive counseling
services through my school. I have been seeing a counselor weekly since March
(except for the summer time--but that’s another stress-inducing money-sucking
fiasco of a story). Therapy has been transformative for me and I really feel I
am acquiring the tools that will carry me through life better able to manage
all the things that are thrown at me. I accept that the stress of school isn’t
going away, and I doubt I will ever suddenly wake up one day a non-anxious
person, but I understand now that I don’t have to be a slave to it, and my
ability to function under the burden of this stress continues to evolve.
My experience over the last year with my own health has also
begun to shape my professional goals as a veterinarian. There have been times since
I started vet school that I thought I wanted to work with farm animals, large
animals, birds, wildlife, etc, etc, etc. It was usually something different
depending on whatever course I was taking at the time and never something that
felt particularly compelling. But having experienced the physically and
emotionally debilitating manifestations of chronic stress and unchecked
anxiety, and having to learn how to balance my lifestyle and manage the stress
has indirectly demystified my path. Slowly, I have realized that advocating for
my own wellness is foundational and imperative for my success in any endeavor,
and I am increasingly appalled that basic care for oneself is not emphasized
more amongst my colleagues. I've become very interested in the practice of
maintaining balance in the blatantly unbalanced high stress environment that is
vet school. I see in my peers a need for an advocate for wellness within the
vet student community, as well as students and practicing clinicians of all
medical disciplines. I feel strongly that something is not right when those
charged with the responsibility to care for the health of others often
compromise their own health in order to do so.
So, I am in the midst of designing my own path here, to
learn about and promote wellness in the healthcare professions. I've
experienced first hand what stress, anxiety, burnout, fatigue and depression
can do and I want to be a resource for people like me to find support in the
future (support that I, for the most part, haven't had--within the vet school
at least). There are a few pieces of this puzzle that are just beginning to
come together. The biggest piece being that I am in the process of applying to
the DVM/MPH dual degree program so that--with only one extra year--I will graduate
ready to serve in the public health sector. My more long term goals include
completing a Masters of Social Work after I graduate so that if I so choose, I
can become a licensed clinical social worker and provide counseling to other
vet students or medical professionals. You may think none of this sounds very
veterinarian-y. I think about that too sometimes. The only thing I can say
right now is that there is a need--a need for someone to advocate for those
over-worked and exhausted residents suffering from compassion fatigue. A need
to raise awareness about the suicide issue in the veterinary community instead
of sweeping it under the rug. I believe animals are part of this equation too!
Animal-assisted therapy is a huge field that I can’t wait to delve into. The
more I think about the directions I could go, the more excited I am about
connecting all the dots between my skills, interests, and passions.
The most immediate step I am taking to establish my own
balance and cultivate more skills to promote wellness for others is to attend a
yoga teacher training in 2016. Teaching yoga has always been sitting in the
back of my mind as something I would want to do if whatever I was currently
doing didn’t work out. But I was inspired to do it now--in this transformative
year of my life--when a current 3rd year vet student started leading classes
during lunch one day a week, free to students. I already had a personal daily
yoga practice myself (to maintain my spinal health and manage anxiety) but this
resource opened my eyes to the possibility, feasibility, and receptivity
amongst my peers, as well as my potential ability to fulfill the need they were
crying out for. Through yoga and mutual struggles in school, I have become dear
friends with the student who teaches now and she introduced me to her home
studio in Trumansburg, Lakshmi Living Arts, that is also the site of an Anusara
yoga teacher training. I’ve already spoken to the lovely women who run it and
they’ve agreed to let me do a work-trade for half the cost of the training. It
is divided into two 3-week sections which conveniently coincide with my
academic breaks. The first is in January and the second is in May/June. Even
though many of my classmates will be spending their semester breaks doing
things that are more "relevant" to veterinary medicine, I am so
excited to be taking this time as a kind of spiritual retreat to study yoga,
learn about myself, and clear my mind to make it ready for what might come
next.
I’ve ruminated long and hard on this opportunity, and for
me, the pros seriously outweigh the cons. I truly believe that spending the
time to deepen my yoga practice in this way will have profound effects on my
own well-being, making me more equipped to survive two more years of vet school
stress and beyond. It also fits perfectly with the new sense of direction I
feel in pursuit of a career as an advocate for wellness. The response to my
friend’s class for students this year has been overwhelming and some are
already asking what will happen next year when she will be in clinics and
unable to teach. I get butterflies of excitement in my stomach when she
mentions that I’ll be taking over. My heart aches for those I see around me
suffering in a way I’ve suffered and knowing they have not yet found balance.
There are times when I want to call out in the middle of the crowded, quiet
library with students hunched over books and computers, guzzling coffee, “It
doesn’t have to be like this!” But alas, I empathize with those students
running on fumes, barely keeping their heads above water--because I’ve been
there, I am there, alongside them. And while I would never wish the physical
health problems I experienced and am still recovering from on anyone as a
motivator to change their lifestyle, I also know everyone has to come to the
realization in their own way that they can’t do it all, and they can’t do it
alone. Until then I will ready myself to be there when they do, to offer an
open ear, support, and guidance, to be someone I wish I would’ve had when I was
going through the same things.
All in all, comparing where I am now to where I was twelve
months ago is an exercise in futility. It’s not simple. Will it ever be? It’s
not as if that was normal, then I was broken, and now I’m back to “normal”. I
will never be back to that normal, especially since that normal resulted in me
being broken. But not really broken. More aware. I am constantly reminding
myself that I am not a problem that needs fixing. I am more a collection of
quirks and characteristics, and it’s my responsibility to separate the things
that honor my true self and illuminate it from the things that hinder and
dampen it. For now, that means letting a lot of things go and trying to sit
peacefully with myself and everything that I am at this moment--not what I used
to be, not what I wish I was--with no judgment and no expectations. The past
year has brought with it many struggles but also many lessons. What will 2016
bring?
May my thoughts, words, and actions contribute in some way
to the happiness and freedom of all beings, without exception.
