Business teacher Kay Ward only had one month behind the desk this year before her life came to a screeching halt, causing her to say goodbye to her 12-year teaching career at the school.

Over the past year, Ward has had back surgery, thyroid surgery and has been diagnosed with shingles in her right eye, a condition that she had not even heard of until her diagnosis.

Ward said that she is in constant pain due to her shingles. She compares the agony to little snakes crawling around in her forehead.

“They crawl down the right side of my nose and then they just shoot straight into the middle of my eye,” Ward said. “Then they go into the very back of my eyeball and just stay, crawling around in there. It’s enough to drive you crazy.”

Ward’s medical ailments started in September when it was discovered that Ward had degenerative disc disease, meaning that all of the vertebrae discs in her back were drying up and crumbling away. She was scheduled for back surgery in late December.

Before this surgery, Ward had to have blood work done due her high thyroid levels. The endocrinologist discovered a tumor on her thyroid.

Although the tumor was not cancerous, she had surgery to remove it in late October.

Barely two months later, a caudal catheter was put on either side of her spine to fill up each of the vertebrae along her back.

Ward was back in the classroom on Jan. 2. She hadn’t been back to school in three months and said she was greatly relieved to be able to return to her students.

“I had 90 perfect students in the fall, and that doesn’t happen very often,” Ward said. “I didn’t have one single student that was a problem student, and I was so blessed to have that. We had really enjoyed the class and I had grown to love each and every one of them.”

However, during second period the next day, she got a massive headache. The pain was so intense that Ward had to go home. It had barely been 24 hours since she had been back to work.

Ward’s eyesight went in and out as she drove. Once home, her shocked husband immediately took her to the pain management doctor. It was there that Ward was diagnosed with what the doctor called “a raging case of shingles” in her right eye.

“I was in so much pain, I literally prayed to die,” Ward said. “I literally prayed that the Lord would take me. I have never in my life known pain like that.”

Her case is unusual, as shingles generally affects the skin. Because of this, Ward went from doctor to doctor until a contagious disease doctor made the official diagnosis. By this point, her condition was into a stage where it was very difficult to diagnose.

“My first words were, ‘When can I go back to school?’” Ward said. “And [the doctor] looked at me with this look that was just so scary to me and he said, ‘You may not go back to school.’ And it just scared me to death. My heart just dropped right onto the floor.”

There is little that Ward can do to combat her illness. She spends all of her time at home and only leaves the house for doctors’ appointments.

“These are my directions,” Ward explained. “Stay as still as possible, stay as calm as possible, and don’t miss any dosages of the medicine. That’s all I can do.”

Ward must keep her right eye patched almost all the time. She can only uncover it for an hour a day and when she sleeps. During that hour, she generally spends her time watching the news or checking her email. Sometimes she will read but has taken a liking to audio books.

Ward has since reluctantly retired from her job teaching. She hadn’t planned to do so for at least another two years.

“My whole routine of life is gone as I knew it,” Ward said. “Teaching is not something that I do, it’s what I am. It’s my whole life.”

There is one thing in particular that Ward will miss the most about her career at Marcus.

“Students. Period. Big, huge exclamation point,” Ward said without hesitation. “I am a teacher who loves her students.”

Her classes have been taken over by two long-term subs since January.

“Bless their hearts, I didn’t get to meet my spring students,” Ward said wistfully. “I had been dreading telling my fall students goodbye. But that was all taken away from me, because I wasn‘t able to be there with them in the end.”

Senior Cassandra Lucio was a part of Ward’s fall class at the time of Ward’s thyroid surgery. This was Lucio’s second time being in one of Ward’s classes.

“I really liked having her as a teacher,” Lucio said. “I learned a lot from her. I had her for BCIS, so I learned about the Internet and computer programs, and I also learned a lot from her Money Matters class, too.”

In an attempt to help her finish out the year, many teachers have given up some of their local days, which are days that teachers have for family emergencies and personal reasons. Because she had to use her own local days for her thyroid surgery, Ward didn’t have any left. She describes her fellow teachers’ sacrifices as “the greatest gift a teacher can give.”

“I’m so eternally grateful,” Ward said. “I totally stand in awe of their generosity. Our faculty at Marcus is a family. They have wrapped their arms around me and taken shockingly great care of me.”

Many teachers, such as business teacher Janice Shuffield, keep up regular communication with Ward.

“We’ve gotten to know each other at a whole different level,” Shuffield said. “Our friendship has gotten really close. It’s a weird way for that to happen.”

Shuffield is one of several teachers who are habitually visiting Ward. She makes the effort to see Ward every weekend and regularly texts and emails with her. Ward said that she is eternally grateful for such care.

“I don’t think I could make it through without them,” Ward said. “It’s their strength and their friendship and the love for the Marcus family and my faith in the Lord that will see me through.”

She compares her retirement to a game of baseball, her favorite sport.

“In baseball, you have three strikes, and you’re out,” Ward said. “And when I was laying there day after day, week after week, it made me realize that the Lord had flown to my back three times this year, and I think He was trying to tell me something. That it was time to quit. That it was time for me to be home.”

Ward plans to return to Marcus as a substitute teacher once she is able. In addition to traveling to see her family, she also hopes to become more involved with her church, possibly teaching children’s Sunday school.

“She will be really, really missed,” Shuffield said. “She had a way about her teaching and her way of presentation. It was such a sweetness and a unique way. She put a lot of herself in our department and as a leader.”