Rotisa Pullin: 2017 Justin Starts a New Job

Around the five month mark post chemo, I realized something was not quite right. It wasn't my new fascination with discussing balls at every opportunity; it was more than that – my mood was not what it should have been. At first, I chalked it up to the stressors at work and my difficulty with transitioning back to being a normal person instead of a cancer patient.

Upon closer inspection, I realized I was still feeling down, but it was summer, so the job reason didn't make sense. However, a new school year began, and I noticed that I was feeling off and just not as enthusiastic as I once was about teaching.

Even thought I had moved to a school closer to home and to avoid the stressors from the other school, I was still just kind of "meh" about work. It wasn't that I hated my job; it was that something internally wasn't quite right, and it was having an impact on my ability to teach to the best of my abilities.

My students were still learning, growing, and seemingly enjoying themselves, so they didn't appear to notice my internal struggle. Nor did my administrators, who were awesome and amazingly supportive of me, or my co-workers, who were also pretty great and put up with endless ball puns during team meetings. Regrettably, we didn't teach about spheres during the geometry unit.

Nevertheless, I couldn't find my groove. I felt down all the time again. Something was gnawing at me… I knew I had felt like this before, but I hadn't quite put all the pieces together yet.

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