Occupation: University Administrator
Industry: Higher Education
Age: 30-ish (I’ve been lying about my age for the last 7 years; let’s keep it that way.)
Location: Central PA
Salary: …

2018 was a pretty roller coaster year for my health, or maybe just a downward slope.  I was doing pretty well at the beginning of the year, then it pretty much just jumped off a cliff.  During that time, I was actually hospitalized and diagnosed with a condition that came as a result of poor eating, stress, and lack of exercise.  Three things that are absolutely controllable and easy to manage.

I was vomiting, light-headed, dizzy and experiencing extreme back, abdominal, and pelvic pain and had a consistent fever of about 102 degrees for three days, but I insisted that I was fine. I don’t like to claim illnesses and when it comes to getting sick, I often work under the, “if you don’t acknowledge it, it won’t be that big of a deal” model. Positive affirmations can be powerful but are not the best ways to manage increasingly serious health conditions.

One of our favorite Schoolin Life sayings is, “The only L’s we take are Libations,” but it’s not entirely true. Over the course of the last year, I’ve taken my fair share of L’s and quite of few of them weren’t served with a cocktail umbrella on top. We can gloss over with platitudes like “a setback is only a set-up for something greater,” or, “failure is the proof that you’re trying,” but the truth is that failure is hard and it hurts.