My Story, My Diagnosis: Tamara's Story

When Tamara began to feel pain in her back, she worried she was experiencing cancer relapse. A trip to the doctor revealed something else: shingles. Likely brought on by the stress of her daughter's wedding, they took three weeks to fully dissipate.

Transcript

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[MUSIC PLAYING] It started with just a pain in my back.

00:06

Well, I actually went to my doctor thinking that I was having a relapse from cancer that I had experienced five years earlier.

00:15

My doctor checked me out and determined that it was shingles even though I didn't have a breakout yet.

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I'm a widowed mom and just married my daughter off to her man of her dreams.

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So I was the mom and the dad for the wedding. I walked her down the aisle. And plus, I did all the mom stuff, which I loved doing.

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But it was stressful. So we attributed my breaking out with the shingles

00:42

from the stress from the wedding. It's one of the most painful things I've ever been through.

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It was three weeks before I was really back to normal. I don't even know that I knew that there was a vaccine for shingles.

00:55

But it's my understanding that there is a vaccine for shingles. And I would certainly have had that vaccine

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if I'd had the opportunity. There seems to be so many people that are afflicted with it. And I would certainly not want for anybody

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to ever have to go through it. It's horrible. And if you have an opportunity to take the vaccine, I would greatly suggest it.