So this past week I was having the same kind of stomach pain intermittently during the day on Tuesday, and it kept getting worse through the evening. I had just been celebrating that although my job is demanding, I enjoy it and feel like it's a better match for my interests, so I haven't been experiencing all of the adverse health problems resulting from stress that I experienced while I was on the tenure track. When my stomach pain hit on Tuesday, I didn't think anything of it at first, but as it kept getting worse, I remembered when my stomach pain started 10 years ago, and I started thinking about what I would do next. I love my job, but one thing I've learned over the last decade is that if my body is telling me that my job is too stressful, I need to listen and make some changes. I took Tums before I went to bed and hoped that my stomach would feel better the next day, but I woke up at 2 and my stomach still hurt, so I took more Tums and went back to bed. At 3, I woke up again and finally realized that the stomach pain was the stomach flu, which is why the Tums before bedtime didn't help. (It also explains why I was tired enough to go bed at 9:00, which should have been my first clue that I was getting sick, not having indigestion.) I hate having the stomach flu because I hate vomiting, and now that I'm middle aged, I hate it more because my abs are sore the next day from vomiting and my back hurts from lying in bed all day. But this week I was relieved and grateful that it was only the stomach flu and not the beginning of another bout with stomach acid, and was happy to realize that I would be back to normal in about 48 hours.
Moral of the story: Listen to your body. I kept trying to make adjustments, always thinking that at some point I'd somehow figure out the secret and be happy with my job. I thought this even though I was having debilitating stomach pain and had to go on 40 mg of omeprazole in my early 30s, and even though I kept having recurring bouts of depression that got progressively worse each time they hit. It's been hard to transition out of academia because I spent so much time pursuing that goal that I just kept trying to make it fit because I didn't want to feel that I'd wasted so many years in grad school and on the tenure track, and as my mom says, my mama didn't raise no quitter. So I'm not where I imagined I would be in my 40s, but that's turning out to be the best thing for me.
(Silver lining to the stomach flu: I ate whatever I wanted today and I'm still several pounds below my regular current weight. :D)
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