New York City Schools Make Me Sick-Literally

It all began in February of last year at PS 295. I was "student teaching" pre-K through fourth grade art. I was working in a veritable petri dish of germs-working with little ones is like that. It started with a tickle and then a sniffle, and a fever which led to a hacking cough. After a while, it felt like someone was sitting on my chest and I couldn't breathe. This had never happened before. I'd been sick in the past, sure, and I would always get the same thing. It would always follow the same pattern, but this time it was different. I went to the doctor and she listened to my chest with a stethoscope, but heard nothing. She heard my complaints and said "Let's do a chest x-ray just in case". Ok, I was game. I wanted to get to the bottom of it. I had been student teaching the entire time and not taking any time off while sick. I wanted to make sure I had my student teaching hours in so I could complete this requirement for graduation. I was also taking grad classes, teaching yoga and waiting tables part-time. Two days later, the doctor called me back in to tell me that I had pneumonia.

What? We looked at my chest x-ray and she pointed to the infiltrates-damn them-and gave me a medicine cabinet of drugs to help me fight of these foreign particles in my left lung. Now I was forced to take time off. Because I was jacked up on steroids, wired and couped up, I spent the entire week painting. I was incredibly productive, and to be honest, I have to thank pneumonia for sending me in an entirely new direction with my work. Thank You, Pneumonia.

Cut to November, same year, I'm now working in an elementary school full-time, PS 298, where I am currently employed. I was hired in mid-September and had spent the first two weeks getting my room together, not teaching a single class until the first week of October. I was totally fine with that. The art room had been moved and I had to continue shifting about all the materials from one floor to another. I was making the room my own and getting myself mentally prepared for what I was about to get into. If I only knew...

It was a Tuesday morning, third week of November-I know this because I usually get up on Tuesdays at 5am for an early meeting at school and I wasn't feeling quite right that day. I was sitting in the meeting, starting to notice some changes in my body-aches, pains, shortness of breath, fever-y yuck yuck. Hmmm. I continued my day, my week, plowing through, getting my work done, being the responsible art teacher that I am. When Thanksgiving came around, I had a really bad fever, super high, but I went to my aunts house anyway, not wanting to miss out on the fun and my loving famliy. The rest of the weekend was spent in bed, watching some film noire pics and drifting in and out of wakefulness. When Monday rolled around, I felt good enough to go back to work, thinking, "I can handle this-it's just a cold-whatever!" And work I did. The whole week went by and by Thursday, my mentor told me that I looked like shit and that I should got to the doctor. Now that I was working for the DOE, my insurance had changed and I no longer had access to my old doctor and I really liked her. Now I had to find someone else, which I did and she's not so great-I'm in the process of looking for a new one. She's dismissive and wasn't really paying heed to my complaints. I told her that I already had pneumonia once that year, just eight months prior and she swore up and down that I didn't have it again. She listened to my lungs and heard nothing. Same as last time. I was beginning to think that this archaic form of health assessment was a crap shoot. She ordered an x-ray and told me to take the next day off. The following week she got the results, I went back in to hear the good news-I had pneumonia. Again. I hope she felt like an ass, because she was so certain that it wasn't pneumonia. I told her that I knew what it felt like at this point and she flat out told me it was impossible. Oh really? She prescribed some anti-biotics and an inhaler and sent me on my way. I was told to take some time off from school and to come back in a few weeks to make sure my lungs were clear. I pretty much taught the entire first half of the year under these conditions.

It's now March 2009 and I've been in pneumonia recovery since about January, but it's been slow. Very, very slow. I have a really hard time breathing most days and have been using an inhaler to assist me when it feels like I'm going to run out of air. I don't get it. I am a very healthy person. I practice and teach Bikram yoga. I eat well. I don't smoke. I only have a couple glasses of wine when I actually partake. For the most part, I sleep fairly well. Two weeks ago, it felt like it started all over again. I went to the doctor in a panic, thinking, OMG, this can't be round three. It wasn't and my lungs are clear. The x-ray result turn around was fairly quick and I was only given a very low dose of anti-biotics. What's going on? Why am I this ill for so long? All these questions started running through my head.

My pharmacist and I are now becoming friends. The last time I was in, he told me that he didn't want to see me anytime soon. I had been trying a myriad of inhalers, but nothing was helping my breathing. I went back to him after my last visit to the pulmonologist with a steroid script in hand, knowing that this would work, as it did during my first round pneumonia. Predinose wasn't administered to me the second time and I think that's why my recovery has been so slow.

Whilst my pharmacist and were having a chat, a man stepped up to the counter to pick up a prescription. He heard what we were talking about and put in his two cents. He was a plumber, but formerly a maintenance man in old building and told me it was probably where I was working that was making me sick. He asked if the school building was old and, I said yes, of course it is. The heat is always overbearing, so much so that I have to open the windows even when it's below freezing outside. He mentioned that there's probably still asbestos in the building and, as confirmed by my current roommate, who is in PA school, that there's a chemical they pour into the hot water pipes to keep them fluid that has been noted to be an lung irritant and to cause asthma. That very day, my lung doctor told me that I now have asthma and that it was likely environmentally based-meaning, my school was probably the cause of my breathing problems. I mentioned that I was also working in an elementary school when I got pneumonia then first time. It was an old building as well, during the cold winter months, where the heat was cranking and the widows were open.

It's the schools, I'm now certain. I was suspicious of this, but after my doctor and the maintenance guy telling me it was the schools, I began talking to other teachers in my building. One of them told me that in her old school, they found black mold and she was sick all the time. No one knew why until an air quality test was done and it revealed this dangerous irritant. Now, it's my turn. You can actually order air quality tests on line. Also, my lung doc gave me a peak flow meter-a breathing test to take with me to school and on really bad days, I have to document how much air I'm actually exhaling. I'm also to test and document my breathing on really good days. She believes that if there is a strong variability in the readings, that it is in fact my school that 's making me sick. I intend on purchasing an air quality test and giving it a whirl. I'm certain it will reveal some hard core irritants. The week I was out of school, mid-winter break, I had no problems. We'll see what happens in a few weeks during spring break. I'm sure I'll be fine. In fact, when I'm home I have no issues.

Now I know, New York City schools do make me sick.