I almost feel like I have been handling the recent stresses in my life too calmly.
My youngest step son was diagnosed with epilepsy on his first day of high school. He had an amazing first day and then was sitting at his computer like he normally does in the evening and just collapsed with a seizure. He went to the hospital via ambulance and had two more grand maul seizures through the night. He had one more later in the week, but it was a small tonic seizure. He has been free of them since his meds were upped to a higher dose for the last month. Then he had one at school today. He apparently felt it coming and got himself to the nurse before it came on. Then we were sitting at dinner this evening and he felt another one coming. It came on slow with an eye twitch that spread to a full clonic. It didn't last very long though the whole thing is tense and does feel like it is taking forever in the moment.
For both the initial incident a little over a month ago and today's I feel like I have handled it with more grace than expected. My anxiety is pretty high, but I am still functioning and getting stuff done. When my anxiety level gets too high usually I struggle with shutting down.
And while everything with the 14 year old is stressful enough, I have more on my plate than that. I have a new role as a Math Department Chair at my school, a department more than double the size of the staff that I had last year. We have been down two full teachers the whole year. Well mostly. We got one position filled briefly and then they quit after a week. So that has been great. (I am trying not to believe in curses, but damn, if the math department isn't cursed sometimes.) I FINALLY am supposed to have the department fully staffed by next week but I have been fielding a lot of angry parent emails and phone calls. I don't always do well with parents, and have spent a decent number of years in my career as a teacher actively avoiding parents if possible. Yet somehow I am almost revelling in dealing with the parents, as much as their disgruntled nature at the moment is stressing me out.
I've been able to count on everyone coming to work, or letting me know when something is wrong. The team comes to me and communicates with me. Which is awesome so that we can plan ahead and take care of issues as soon as possible, like covering classes this afternoon when one of the teachers got into a car accident this morning on the way to work. (She is okay. Very shaken up and had her airbag deployed so she will be out a few days.) This communication was not what I was getting from my smaller department last year. (One of the members of my team last year did a no-call, no-show AGAIN this year. I wrote him up for it at least 3 times last year. Their new manager is trying not to lose her mind.)
In addition to Department Chair and Sick Kid, I have also stepped up one of my secondary job titles of Lead Technology Liaison. I'[ve been meeting with the IT staff regularly to help finish the last of our transitions from our old parent company, and make sure that everything that we are doing in the process makes sense and is as seamless as possible. They are a great group and I am really enjoying working with them. It feels like we are finally making some positive changes that we were not able to make with our multinational giant corporate conglomerate overlords from before.
Oh... and did I mention that my Math Department is also onboarding as many people as all of the other departments combined? We had to clear house last year because of soooo much awful dead weight that was contributing to the downfall of our academic program. (When the kids say they learned nothing, I very much believed them.)
And while the list of stressors imply that I should be ready to collapse under the weight of it.... I feel like I'm not. I feel like I am rising to the occasion far better than I had to last year's challenges. I feel like I have calm and rationality in the face of it all, even when I feel like I have no reason to be.
I'm still not drinking, which I think has helped. I have continued to go to the gym and I work with a personal trainer at least once a week. My eating habits are okay... my sugar consumption is a little fucked since that seems to be the one place where my stress is really manifesting. Some dark chocolate something is just... *chef's kiss* when I want to run screaming from my responsibilities. I otherwise eat pretty healthy. Mostly "low carb" but high fiber and high protein.
I also did not expect this to get this long.
