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My Battle with Shingles - People Magazine Health Issue

9/24/2021

2 Comments

 
Picture
In late June 2021, I received an email from the editor of People Health, a health-focused special edition of PEOPLE that's distributed in doctors' offices around the country, with a print run of 500,000 copies. He wanted to know if I would be interested in sharing my battle with shingles and be on the magazine's cover.

My initial thought was that this can't be real. I researched his email address to make sure it was from the Meredith Corporation (it checked out), reread his email a dozen times, talked it out with my husband who convinced me to take the plunge.

"When else will you get a chance to be on the cover of a magazine?" He made a point.

Over the course of a month and a half, I was interviewed, I scouted “shooting locations” around our home and outdoor spaces and sent photos back to the photo editor and shopped for outfits for our family. When I would have conversations about tasks with my husband, Steve, and say things like, “People magazine wants me to send over outfit options,” we would both giggle.

On the day of the photoshoot, a crew of five people set up around our house, front yard and backyard. There was the hair and makeup person, the photographer, her assistant, and two guys in charge of lighting. A huge breakfast that could feed an army was delivered to our home at 7 am and set up outside. I was glammed up, Steve was helped to “look like he had slept for 15 hours.” The photographer gave a Facetime tour of our property to the photo editor who was in New York.
There was a wind machine, dance music, the photographer telling me to jump and swing my arms and smile big with my chin down (which feels very unnatural to me). Every 15 minutes, my nose was powdered, lipstick reapplied, stray hairs tamed. It was all very surreal.

Any latent hopes I may have had about becoming a model were quickly dashed as I exclaimed, “Modeling is too hard! I feel silly and awkward and I’m doing a terrible job.” Needless to say, I was NOT a natural.

After 2 hours of taking pictures, during which time Luna was our most cooperative child, we ended the photoshoot with a water fight in the backyard and it was amazing. I finally felt comfortable and in my element.

I never could have expected something as painful and terrible as Ramsay-Hunt Syndrome to happen to me and at the time, I felt like I was passing through actual hell. But I also could never have anticipated what I received in return: a much greater appreciation for my health and my incredible support system, the value of rest and self-care and the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to share my story and be featured in a national publication.

I had to cut out all of the magazine except for the pages with my story so the file would be small enough to post on this blog, but you can read it here:
people_3.pdf
File Size: 6511 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

2 Comments
Patti Andrews-Spitzer
10/31/2021 01:07:28 pm

Hello,
I had to take my elderly mother to a doctor's appointment and I saw the People Health magazine in the office. I was so surprised to see an article on Shingles and even more surprised to see it was the SAME exact thing I had just dealt with for almost 6-8 weeks. I too had a swollen, inflamed ear and was treated as an ear infection at urgent care. Then my primary doctor identified it as the Shingles virus. About one week later I ended up with Bell's Palsy.
I am a 59 year old female. I also had zero energy and zero appetite. I lost 5 pounds and am normally only 128 pounds so that 5 pounds was a lot for me.
Two months later I am still feeling the effects. I am weaning off of the nerve pain medication that I depended on. I am 80 percent recovered from the palsy. I have lingering intermittent pains but much slighter that before. At the height of my pain I equated it to a time I needed a root canal and labeled the pain a 9 out of 10. One good thing, many of my friends and family ran to get their shingles vaccine. I too will be getting the vaccine next week. I don't ever want to go through this again. Thanks for your article.

Reply
Lindsey
11/14/2021 11:44:39 am

This is amazing. I was diagnosed 4 years ago with Ramsay Hunt Syndrome. It truly feels like going through hell. Thank you so much for helping raise awareness of this horrible condition. More doctors need education about rhs, as I’m sure you know!

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    Christina is a Los Angeles-based writer, photographer and marketing maven.

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