My Story, My Diagnosis: Tawanda's Story

Tawanda, a single mother of two, has had the shingles three times. The condition she describes as a "small ball of fire" can be triggers by stress, and this was likely the case for Tawanda. She's now working to get her stress under control.

Transcript

00:00

[MUSIC PLAYING] My name is Tawanda Tenny. I'm a correction officer, single parent of two. I've had the shingles three times.

00:07

My oldest son was in the army. And my youngest son was getting ready to graduate from high school. I felt the sting on my right lower side.

00:17

Throughout the week, it went from a stinging small bump through to a small rash. My sister-in-law, who was a nurse,

00:26

she asked me why was I stretching because I was kind of irritated. They were red, kind of blustery.

00:32

And she told me that they were shingles. And she said that they were chicken pox at a dormant stage that had surfaced and that I needed

00:39

to go to the doctor ASAP. At my worst, my shingles felt like a small ball of fire

00:46

if you could imagine that. Anything that got next to it, irritation, irritation. So I'm walking around work with my uniform on

00:55

and that included quite a bit on my waistline. So at the Royce, it was probably about 8 and 1/2.

01:01

On the second time that I had them, it was during the time my sister was diagnosed with cancer.

01:08

And I think that intensified my stress, which aggravated my shingles. After going to my doctor for the third time,

01:15

he confirmed that I need to, number one, learn how to deal with stress. I get a tingling sensation if I get stressed.

01:24

It's kind of up on the surface of my skin. If I'm in a predicament where I see the stress is coming

01:30

or it's intensified, I just simply acknowledge the situation and kind of have to back away from it.