Once fit and active, HSTA’s 2020 educator of the year is now ‘exhausted’
Posted: April 29, 2022
Raechelle Villanueva used to run marathons and even once paddled the Molokai channel. Now she has the shakes and feels exhausted.
The Waialae Public Charter School third-grade teacher has been battling the symptoms of long COVID. She first tested positive in January.
“I don’t know how I got COVID,” 39-year-old Villanueva recalled. “I’m the most careful person.”
She recalls running around Diamond Head in “the best shape I’ve been in a while” before getting COVID.
After testing positive, she felt dizzy and sick. “My brain, something was off. I couldn’t think,” she said.
Villanueva expected to get better after 14 days, but her headaches persisted. She even had trouble getting up to brush her teeth.
On day 16, she visited an infectious disease doctor who diagnosed her with long COVID. He told Villanueva that her condition was unusual because she was so young. He prescribed her steroids that helped with certain conditions, but not all.
As of April, Villanueva says she’s still not feeling any better. Her hands shake from time to time when she exerts herself. When she has a flare-up, she experiences a heightened sensitivity to light that forces her to wear sunglasses indoors.
Constant exhaustion keeps her from doing activities she normally enjoys. If she pushes herself too hard, she suffers from piercing headaches and extreme exhaustion.
“I still can’t go running anymore,” she said. “It takes three times the effort to even do half of what I used to do.”
Villanueva’s condition causes her to miss school because of flare-ups, but she counts herself lucky to have an understanding substitute, students, and administration. She was out of school for three weeks after contracting COVID.
“With long COVID, providing five days of sub plans was so incredibly difficult,” she said. “I have to train my students about what it’s like to have a teacher who has long COVID. They just want me there.”
Villanueva is an active Hawaii State Teachers Association member and considers herself a union leader.
In 2020, Villanueva received HSTA’s S.T.A.C.Y. Award for Teaching Excellence, the highest honor the union bestows upon an educator. She serves on her school’s Negotiations Team but had to step down from other union leadership roles because of long COVID.
She canceled plans to teach summer school because her “brain is fried.” She also canceled plans to travel to Washington D.C. for the NEA Foundation’s Salute to Excellence in Education gala. The physical stress of traveling could possibly cause a flare-up.
Villanueva said, “My summer will be spent figuring out how long COVID can cause permanent brain damage. I’m really scared that the brain fog I’m experiencing is permanent.”
Villanueva lives in Kaimuki with her husband, two children, and her mother, who is in her 70s. She says long COVID has diminished her quality of life and impacted her entire family.
Villanueva hopes to connect with others who are experiencing long COVID.
“I think there’s a lot of us suffering in silence,” she said.