Back toUpdated on October 27, 2025
In this video, Tamara shares her shingles story: The initial pain she feared was a cancer relapse, her diagnosis and three-week recovery, and why she suspects the stress of planning her daughter’s wedding triggered her shingles infection.
Medically reviewed in April 2020.
Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING] It started with just a pain in my back.
Well, I actually went to my doctor thinking that I was having a relapse from cancer that I had experienced five years earlier.
My doctor checked me out and determined that it was shingles even though I didn't have a breakout yet.
I'm a widowed mom and just married my daughter off to her man of her dreams.
So I was the mom and the dad for the wedding. I walked her down the aisle. And plus, I did all the mom stuff, which I loved doing.
But it was stressful. So we attributed my breaking out with the shingles
from the stress from the wedding. It's one of the most painful things I've ever been through.
It was three weeks before I was really back to normal. I don't even know that I knew that there was a vaccine for shingles.
But it's my understanding that there is a vaccine for shingles. And I would certainly have had that vaccine
if I'd had the opportunity. There seems to be so many people that are afflicted with it. And I would certainly not want for anybody
to ever have to go through it. It's horrible. And if you have an opportunity to take the vaccine, I would greatly suggest it.
