The Pink Lady Gets a Wake up Call: A Diary, Journal, Blog, Book by a Wife, Sister, Pet Parent, Music Enthusiast About Her Invisible Disease & Daily Life

By Nicki Ells

In 2016, author Nicki Ells is fulfilling her calling. She’s teaching English at a public high school. But halfway through the academic year, Ells feels a change within herself, a change in her body that signals something is wrong.

 

In The Pink Lady Gets a Wake Up Call, she tells her story through a series of previously published blog posts, some of which are pure academia, some conjecture, and some are just whimsical as Ells takes a break from worrisome thinking and fighting with her body.

 

Beginning in 2016, she shares her thoughts on a variety of topics including the education system, the health system, her trials, and her tribulations. Ells also reveals the research she conducted about her disease and how it all works and doesn’t work, and she talks about support groups and the pharmaceutical game. 

 

This memoir chronicles the journey of this public-school, creative writing teacher as she takes an in-class, daily activity of teaching teens and turns it into a personal log of symptoms and experiences. Ells narrates how the pain, inability to cope, and misdiagnosis’, which skewed any normalcy, were now in charge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Oct 30, 2018
• ISBN: 9781480869035

Nicki Ells

Nicki Ells earned a Double-Major Bachelor Of Arts and Sciences in Extended-English/Language Arts Secondary Education, from Northern Arizona University in 1995. Ells has since earned a Master in the Art of Teaching Degree with an emphasis of Educational Psychology, from Marygrove University in 2005. Up until 2016, She was actively engaged in learning the ins and outs of incorporating new Technological skills into the ever-changing curriculum. Her ability to work closely with her students made being the Academic Advisor of clubs and activities sponsored by the different schools where she was employed, encouraging and insightful. Her twenty-plus year career was absolutely her “lifestyle”. She now spends her days doing what she is able to, in the game most call “Life”. Ells is a wife, sister, daughter, pet parent, and music enthusiast.

Book preview

The

Pink

Lady

Gets a

Wake Up

Call

Nicki Ells

59754.png

Copyright © 2018 Nicki Ells.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Archway Publishing

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-6902-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-6903-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018911623

Archway Publishing rev. date: 10/29/2018

Contents

2016

Hashimoto’s + Hypothyroidism + Autoimmune-Deficiency = Me!

Pugs & Pillows

36 Hours -Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow…

Even Trees Branch Out

Bursting at the Seams

Blessings

Writing Right

Cell Phones in the classroom…

I’m Moving On

Day of a Teacher

Shattered Bird

Anxious

Hashimoto’s

Rule over time

Staff Whiteboard

If

One Man’s Trash…

Tea with honey please…

Ode to where the lilacs bloom

All that Remains

My body isn’t cooperating

Type A with a side of B

When No One Wants To Talk About It

Superstition vs. Societal Acceptance

They’re both idiots!"

More with Less!

You Write Too Deep For Me. Quota my love

Girls Can Do Anything Boys Can Do

2017

Catch 22

What Do You Carry?

Head to Toes

A Patient to Physician Poem

Ridges vs. Fix

Tuesday

FEED THE BLONDE!

I Am Here

Whether or not you think I am, you’re right."

The Medication Metaphor

90’s Music

Demolished

A Poem:

Pickled!

Odds: Six: One

Millennial Generation

Bariatric surgery

Planning, Hoping & Fumes

Summer 2017

Be Gentle With Yourself.

Tattoos & Trees

What I learned this past week…

Friday August 25, 2017

Do You Believe Me Now?

When?

135 Yesterday, 95 Today

My Life Consists of…

Unspoken Rules:

The Dance

One Word…

I wish…

Glass and Mirrors: Reflection or Through?

Thyroid Gland vs. Throat Chakra

Play It Backwards

2018

2018. Jesus, Take the Wheel

My Pug

As Seen on TV

Retiring Together

It’s Tough

Rooster Fries

Charlotte : My Cup Runneth Over

About the Author

2016

JANUARY 2, 2016

New Year trial… Blogging… Am I missing something that good writers use?

My goal is to write every day. Maybe it will be a line or two. Maybe it will be a paragraph, essay, poem, etc.

1-2-16: Hello. It’s me.

Cloudy skies fill my mind as well as the horizon.

Snow on the ground equates comfort and anticipation.

Weather always seems to control my physical well-being.

Too hot – miserable.

Too cold -there is no such thing.

Hashimoto’s + Hypothyroidism + Autoimmune-Deficiency = Me!

A Public High School English Teacher

FEBRUARY 25, 2016 ~

I get to navigate through a whole new experience. I tread lightly because I really don’t know where this is going to take me.

I’ve always cheered for the home team or underdog. It’s just part of my nature. I found my calling in the field of Education just after my sophomore year in high school. I delved and dug. I asked Veteran Teachers. I asked Academic Advisers. Everything just seemed to fall into place and point me in the direction of teaching Kindergarten one day and then High School English two months later.

Folks already in the field told me that their profession was anything but easy. They warned of late nights grading and weekends spent in the school building making copies and writing lesson plans. God forbid the evenings of writing sub plans with Kleenex in one hand and a pen in the other. It really is easier to suffer through work with the flu than writing Sub-Plans- no lie. Public schools are full of sniffles, coughs and germs looking for new hosts.

All mentors conceded to …tenure status being the saving grace in the stress of high school teaching. That was in 1994.

I graduated college with a double major in Extended-English and Secondary Education. Somehow my first real job was in 1998, teaching Kindergarten… talk about runny noses and sticky hands. This lasted for five years. Note this assignment was not high school, nor English specific. However, it was a nice introduction to the field and I am forever grateful. Those kids taught me a lot!

By 2003, I was ready for the student loans to pay off -so to speak. It’s now 2016, half way through the academic calendar and I am still fulfilling my calling. Shakespeare, Poe, Prepositions, Diagramming Sentences, College Application Essays, Harper Lee… sigh, thump of my heart, breathe. Yet, I fear that it may be time to stop. Gasp! Nooooooooooo!

Things are changing. I am changing. I struggle with being myself. Simple add on to teaching duties are becoming chores and more difficult this year. Is it age? Is it menopause?

You see, three years ago I sought the advice of my local practitioner regarding the following symptoms: fatigue, headaches, depression, anxiety, temperature hypersensitivity, lack of desire for anyone/thing. I had a nasty run-in with hives on my upper torso and random food allergies. She ordered the tests and my blood was drawn.

My blood work came back to say Help needed! I was forwarded to an Endocrinologist, Psychiatrist, and Gynecologist. But I was busy teaching, broadcasting sports events, working with students on the school yearbook and trying to be a decent daughter, wife, community member and tutor. Something would have to give. On the day before Winter Break 2014, I had my first, full-scale, anxiety attack. I was a mess. My principal found me climbing into my desk and sobbing. He needed to hand me a copy of my disciplinary letter. You know. The kind they put into a personnel folder because you screwed up.

I’ve NEVER, EVER gotten a reprimand before! This was nuts. I was losing it and hating myself more than usual. My husband knew it and my students were catching wind of it through the daily interactions. I had to do something. My world was falling apart. Why?!

Angry and cruel internal dialogue put me in a very dark place. You know the kind of place. I made appointments and started my journey into understanding my body.

Hashimoto’s disease with Hypothyroidism seemed to be the one diagnosis that everyone in the medical field could agree on. Having Autoimmune Deficiency allowed Hashimoto’s to hold hands with Hypothyroidism and all sorts of vitamin deficiencies. The psychiatrist did away with my current medications and started a whole new regimen. The Gynecologist offered ablation to help with the hormonal fluctuations and pain in being a female. Keep in mind, this started in January of 2015. I had to manage it all while staying committed to my teaching duties. I did! I was. At least I thought I was. I’m not. I wasn’t.

Instead, I am forgetful, exhausted, moody, overwhelmed, panicky, awful and lonely. I’m afraid that I’m losing it and won’t be able to get it back. My name is the same, but my demeanor is a whole different story. Every blog, magazine article, medical journal, and website says the same thing…

This is going to hurt and it is NOT going away.

Teaching, in and of itself, is difficult. The stressors with the ever changing habits of teens, scoring/grading, mounting pressures from administrators, curricula, professional development, directives and testing are enough to have a perfectly healthy individual experience stress eating as well as sleep deprivation. Imagine what it does to a person with Hashimoto’s Disease, Hypothyroidism plus Autoimmune Deficiency syndrome.

It is painful -both emotionally and physically. Frustration and humiliation are running amok.

I am at a loss. I am too distraught to be sad. I am too tired to fight. I have lost touch with friends and hobbies. My weight or physical size has grown in the wrong direction. My patience is at an all time low.

I look forward to sleep (the good, deep, relaxing kind) and quiet time. I have changed my daily diet only to change it back. My hair is falling out and my skin is dry like paper. I order a special vitamin for that. I even forget words or ideas within moments of mentally drumming them up.

I get seizures now. Those are surreal. I seldom remember them unless reminded by another person (i.e. my husband who held me through it). They scare us both. I have a pill for those now. My medications are tweaked every three weeks to three months. Better living through chemistry, right?

Fun stuff! Reality isn’t really fun right now…

I’m worried that my disease has become a real disability. It’s affecting my home, work and social life. I have qualified for FMLA due to my increasing sick days. The American Disabilities Act has a section just for Thyroid issues. There are workplace accommodations listed that (before 2014) I would have never needed. It’s a good start, but my system needs so much more attention, understanding and help. A scheduled potty break in the afternoon just isn’t going to cut it for me.

Obviously Hashimoto’s doesn’t seem to bode well with High School -right now.

Flare-ups,