No Greater Travail than Keeping your Job While you are Ill

No Greater Travail than Keeping your Job While you are Ill

When at last, you think you’ve made it; there are so many other struggles to overcome. You are now able to walk without assistance. You are able to talk without stuttering or losing your train of thought. You are able to read a complete sentence and actually comprehend it. You are ready to get back into the world. You want to contribute to society. Yes! I can go back to work!

With a great sense of accomplishment, you go about seeking employment. Interview after interview, great credentials but your gap of employment is questioned. At first, proud of yourself in gaining your life back you share your experience. Only to be slapped into reality that you are now deemed “unreliable;” you might get sick again or miss too much work. Door after door is slammed in your face. You are left just stating that the gap was due to a family illness.

Alas! You finally find someone that appreciates what you have overcome and what you have been able to do with that experience. At last, you have joined the land of the employed.

So happy you give your job everything you have, even to your own detriment to your health. You feel this certain loyalty so when you see that the business is struggling you help them through the tough times. You have their back and do what you can to get them over the hump. Everything is getting up to speed and you are now part of a team.   A team that works together; holds one up when they need it; supports one another when one isn’t up to par; and assists one another when two minds are better than one.

But, what happens when your health takes a turn for the worse? Will it be a repeat of what happened before? Where they turned their backs on you. Or, will the team stand beside and assist you? Or, will they, begin to point out all the things that you are not able to do anymore? Will they understand that even the simplest things that you had memorized for years will not come easily? Or, will they find fault in everything you do?

While your body is struggling to regain its health, you do your job the best you can despite the nausea, migraines, light-headiness, brain fog, etc. and proud you made it through the day. While you are trying your best, here is your teammate pointing out all your faults. Never mind, that when they needed your support, you were there to help or correct the situation when they were not at their best. Then on another day, you are questioned, when do you think this will get better? How long is this going to last, you know, not being at your best and on top of things, how long is that going to last? Or, why don’t you have this all memorized?

In the meantime, you are screaming inside. OMG! How in the world could I not remember that? OMG! I knew that but I couldn’t remember what you were asking! You’re so frustrated that when you arrive home, you decide to call your doctor. You pick up the phone to dial and you can’t remember the number! A number that you had memorized for years! Or, you decide to take a nice hot shower and then can’t remember how to shut it off! Or, you are furiously looking for your glasses, only to realize a few minutes later that you already have them on!

How in the world do you explain that to someone that has no clue what you’re going through? How do you try to explain your situation to someone that is now only looking at your faults? How do you explain what is going on to someone that is looking for ways to make you so miserable hoping that you decide to quit? How do you explain that you hate what is happening to you as much they do?

I’d like to share Lisa’s statement which says it all for many of us that suffer from chronic Lyme Disease or the other tick-borne diseases: “I don’t know which is more frustrating, dyslexia, word swapping, missing chunks out of sentences I write, or misusing or misspelling the words such as to, too and two, even though in your head you know the right one. I go back and read some of the things I wrote and I don’t know how anyone understands me!”

Only to get a reply from Pamela who shared her struggles with her illness and what was expected of her at work. “What’s really fun is when you do it at work and your jerk boss who has printouts, [has] been educated, [has been given] doctor’s explanation [and] doesn’t give a darn and puts you on probation for all your mistakes from dyslexia, not being able to count, and not following orders because you can’t remember what he told you. Happened to me.” It “came back to haunt me when applied for another job with the state and they wanted a copy of my performance record.”

Thankfully, it was a positive effect for Pamela. “I wrote a letter explaining why it was bad and thanked them for their time. Lo and behold!! The supervisor had had Lyme! I am very qualified for my job but my Lyme may have helped, but he had to talk the big boss into hiring me.”

Reality is that the world doesn’t stop, life continues so must you. Your life is a constant struggle to maintain your health; maintain your livelihood and maintain your life.

It is no wonder that LymeDisease.org’s chart of a survey on those chronically ill showed that Lyme Disease patients suffer the worst quality of life compared with other chronic diseases.