Dr. Monica Aggarwal

I have been reflecting a lot this month about life and I want to share that. January marks one year since my family had COVID. We were so lucky not to have significant symptoms and I believe it is our clean living that got us through it well. My husband was doing his MBA last year and working full time plus helping manage our 3 kids, and with all that stress and lack of sleep, my husband developed Shingles in his eye. It was horrible. He was in constant pain. He would describe electric shocks going through his eye every other second. There was so much anxiety and worry about him losing his eye. I would wake up every hour to check on him and you feel helpless.

There has been some correlation between COVID and Shingles likely to the immune suppression. But I am always reminded about the impact of stress on the body. Even if you eat a plant-based very healthy diet, but then you don’t take care of your stress, you are still at risk for illness. My husband learned this last year the same way that I learned it 10 years ago. He is better now. He takes more time to breathe, walk and relax. His eye is better and we are okay. Lessons are important but sometimes back-breaking.

Since that time, I have developed a bit of an anxiety problem. Anxiety is not something we like to talk about, especially not as physicians. It is a sign of weakness, isn’t it. Amazing how pride pops in there without realizing it. The anxiety was significant. I am a great sleeper and all the sudden, I wasn’t. I couldn’t go to sleep at night, thinking that someone I loved was going to get sick and die. Or each cough that I heard was COVID and each headache was a brain tumor. Amazing, how our minds work, how anxiety works. This went on for about one year and now I am thankful to feel much better. How did I change? I wrote in my journal daily, thinking of all of the things that are good in my life. I thought about joy. I reflected on how my kids are sturdy and that they would be okay. I thought a lot about my own death and how, my family would be okay. I meditated a lot.

Every day, I learn something new about myself and about life. Each day, there is a new lesson. I have been reading books by Thich Nhat Hanh like Being Peace and Mindful Movements, both of which I recommend. I felt saddened by his recent death but remember Mitch Albom’s Stranger in the Boat and remember to think of death as an extension of life. Hard but important. I take from these books, this mantra, (breathe in), “I calm my mind and body.” (Breathe out and smile), “I smile at myself.” I was at the dentist this week and while I had scrapers and suction and spit everywhere, I did this meditation and my anxiety went down and I was o-k. Dr. Richard Edlich, my mentor in college, used to say, that it is not about finding peace on a mountain but finding it in daily life, in the here and now.

Some of my 2022 resolutions:

Get a job on my terms. I get to choose.

Work on my anxiety.

Make more connections.

Build more muscle.

Heal my inflammation, work at it every day.