Helter Skelter

Today has been the first day I have genuinely stopped and taken some time out since my last post.

This is mainly because the current pace and volume of work has been completely relentless.

What started as a three-day a week role has gradually inched and inched until last week it became six days, averaging 10 hours a day.

A lot of the time I hear my MS Nurse's voice in my head chiding me for over-doing things.

I also hear my manager telling me to stop putting other people first.

But how to do this when there's so much to get on top of?

And how to get it all done when everything takes so much bloody longer because you have to fight your own body every day.

At the moment, it feels like my working life is being spent in a genuine helter skelter of haste, confusion and disorder. 

And while I have so far managed to cling on while hurling at top speed, I'm not sure how much longer I can stay on the ride.

:: Helter Skelter by The Beatles

Doctor! Doctor!

It's been a while, and there's a reason - the utter mayhem of work which has led to a recent run of doing 13 out of 14 days.

This has, somewhat inevitably, led to neuropathic pain, spasms and crushing fatigue.

I have had to finish work halfway through today because I just can't do any more.

Ugh.

As it happens, I'm due to see my neurologist tomorrow. It'll be the first face-to-face appointment in more than two years.

I have, as usual, a host of questions. Not least about whether I need to be considering the words 'secondary' and 'progressive.'

But time isn't kind in MS and it might be that I don't want to hear the answers anyway.

*Update: appointment was cancelled, via text, night before I was due to go. Clearly the memo was missed on avoiding stress with MS. Back on the waiting list.*

:: Doctor! Doctor! by the Thompson Twins

Army of me

Do you sometimes look back on a period of time and wonder how you had the hours in the day and the energy to get through all the things in it?

If so, you'll understand the slightly shell shocked feeling of having got to the other side.

Even more so if you have a body that insists on fighting you every step of the way.

It's been two weeks of non-stop work, requiring long hours, lengthy meetings, last-minute requests and constant demands.

And in the middle of it all, my friend's funeral. Which was a very touching event.

It has, in short, been exhausting. And one of those times my husband thinks I have an army of myself stashed away to be able to command to deal with all the tasks.

I don't. But I'm pretty sure we all wish we did on occasion - foot soldiers to pick up the slack and captains to make the decisions.

However, all the work got done (some of it in an eye patch due to insane temperatures flaring my existing eye damage) and I'm now on leave for two weeks.

Company, stand at ease.

:: Army of me by Bjork

Footnote for this week's artist - I once won a nightclub competition at university for looking like Bjork. Anyone reading who may know me in real life can judge whether that was a fair assessment, or if the dark of the club and the drunkenness of the crowd may have played into the decision. Either way, I won a pretty dreadful bottle of fizz and then spent quite a few months of being referred to as Bjork around campus. There are far worse comparisons to be had.

My silver lining

I'm having one of those horrible periods of worrying about a work thing.

Made somehow worse because I'm actually on leave this week and I'd really been looking forward to the break after being unwell with UTI-Covid-jab-reaction-shingles triple whammy.

But instead, I'm worrying.

I can quite easily get suckered down a wormhole of worry when it comes to work, despite my husband patiently talking me through why I perhaps don't need to.

But worry I do. I always have.

And I worry about work in a way that I don't when it comes to MS.

I will obsess about work - should I have done this, should I not have done that. What impact will my decisions have, what reaction will it cause. What if, what if, what if.

I obsess much less about MS.

I have often pondered about this difference - after all, of the two, it's MS that's with me longer and will hit me harder.

Perhaps that's the crux of it, perhaps it's almost too big to deal with and so out of my control, that worrying seems almost pointless.

I don't know. Perhaps the worrying about work is actually a really helpful distraction from the worrying about a cruel and relentless disease from which there is currently no escape.

Ugh.

So when put like that, perhaps I should view this current work worry as actually a (still quite rubbish) type of shiny silver lining, deflecting my attention from what is actually the much bigger issue.

:: My silver lining by First Aid Kit

Statuesque

Oooh, it's been a couple of weeks hasn't it?

Sorry.

The reason for this is simply an incredibly busy work schedule.

I picked up a new part-time contract in the summer, which has gradually expanded to nearer full-time.

It's in the communications team of a large organisation - and one which has found itself even busier than usual due to the current horror show.

I'm there to do the 'business as usual' comms that are still going on round the edges of the crisis stuff.

And, surprisingly, there have been quite a few. It's been quite a test - although the work is familiar, the speed and volume is quite a pace on from when I last did this kind of work.

So, my MS brain struggles. I'm not with people to ask all the questions. Plus, technology.

Although it's been quite tough and I have had a fair few sleepless nights, I haven't made a total hash of it (yet) and should probably feel quite proud.

I've also done it through the stress of starting new meds, the increased worry of infection and, like the rest of us, being in the middle of AN EFFING GLOBAL PANDEMIC.

The super exciting comms things so far for me have been the launch of a new music festival and the celebration of an iconic local music venue.

It's been a delight - not least because although I am surrounded by chaos, I am also surrounded by music.

And there's nothing nicer than that.

So in honour of their confirmed appearance at the new festival, I'm paying tribute to one of the acts with this week's tune.

They were a Brit Pop fave and, after making it through the past fortnight, I do feel like I should stand a bit taller.

:: Statuesque by Sleeper

Don't speak

Unexpectedly, I have picked up some new work while in lockdown.

This is great, obviously, but also quite scary. I'm trying to pick up new stuff via technology I've not used before with people I can't meet.

It means all those new-work questions that you can usually grab someone and ask in the kitchen, now have to be via email/Teams calls or chats.

And it's a VERY busy team so I have no way of knowing when I'm interrupting people as there are no in-person clues.

It's work similar to that I've done before, but not for a very long time and I'm both out of practice and out of confidence. Plus my memory is not what it once was.

As such, I have found myself getting quite stressed out (never a good plan for MS) and very tired.

Both of these states of affairs combined last week into a Teams meeting in which I had spectacular MS word vomit.

Words were there - but not necessarily in the right order.
Meanings were clear in my head - just not necessarily once they left my mouth.
Hands were flapping - trying desperately to form representations of what I was trying to articulate.

It wasn't a good impression. And there was absolutely no chance of styling it out in a Virginia Woolf-esque stream of consciousness.

Oh no.

Trying to take a breath and ask myself some key questions:

Could it be going worse? Well, yes.
Could it be going better? Unquestionably.
Could I do it via mime? Tempting.

:: Don't speak by No Doubt

Lazy

I am in the lucky position (especially at the moment) of being able to work from home.

I work in communications and a lot of it is as you'd expect - sitting at a keyboard typing, hunched at a makeshift desk planning or Skyping into meetings and trying to say something useful.

At the moment I'm in the middle of writing and uploading some online training for a national children's charity. I've been learning some new digital stuff from a very helpful chap at a company in Serbia.

So the work calls have been a little different - usual chit chat about work, bit of weather comparison and then a resume of whatever new Covid-19 announcements have been made in our relevant countries.

Fascinating to see how different places are dealing.

So it's all very positive and very busy - but good heavens I am exhausted. And doesn't my MS know it

Numb hands, permanent hug, terrible balance - they're not new symptoms, they're all very, very familiar. And I know they're rearing their heads to unpleasant levels simply because I'm so shattered.

Really, what I want to be doing now is just being hugely lazy for, ooooh, about a week. Yes, just a week to be utterly and completely and unashamedly slothful.

And then I'll be able to get back into it.  Promise.

:: Lazy by Suede

Billy don't be a hero

As part of my volunteering role for our local MS group, I write the quarterly newsletter.

This involves gathering stories and information which will (hopefully) be of interest to readers and means I can chat to a large number of people about their experiences of MS.

The spring edition is currently underway and I've just spoken to a delightful lady about her pregnancy story. It was a happy one and her beaming five-month-old is featuring on the front page.

One thing she said to me during our chat was that she wished she'd asked for more help during her labour. She says she feels was trying to be a bit of a hero.

And I suspect that's how many of us with MS may feel - that we're okay, that we can manage, that we don't want to make a fuss.

And there's the scary thought that we have to keep going because we need to show that we can - whether at work, at home or in relationships.

But sometimes we really should be a bit of a hero, especially when it comes to asking for help.

I rarely, if ever, take this advice. However this current relapse, coming as it does hot on the heels of my last one, means I've not had a lot of choice.

I have battled (and it has been a battle) through work since the end of December and I'm continuing to drag my way through it now. I'm just about managing.

But then something came up for one of the organisations I work for - and I knew I would have to say something.

As a steering group for this particular project, our meetings are generally at the organisation's HQ in London. This is a three-hour meeting which actually means a 10-hour round trip for me with a number of trains, tubes and quite a lot of walking. Never mind then focusing on the meeting itself.

I just couldn't see how I was going to do it. So I plucked up my courage and said something.

And I'm so glad I did. And I'm hugely grateful to the organisation for accommodating a freelancer. The meeting has now been moved to a venue 25 minutes and one train journey away from me. I am beyond relieved.

Of course, it doesn't necessarily mean I will ace the meeting with genius insights or endless creativity, but it does increase the chance that I won't fall over or gibber on the table.

So no, we shouldn't try to be heroes. But sometimes we might need to tap into our inner wonder woman and be just heroic enough to ask for help.

:: Billy don't be a hero by Paper Lace

The Ballad of Barry and Freda (Let's Do It)

I'm very lucky that one of the work projects that I'm currently involved with centres around the history and heritage of a local iconic music venue.

It's involved hours in the archives and a lot of fascinating research around the venue's performers - from poets and dramatists to singers, sports stars and comedians.

One of the many, many acts I came across while gathering information was the glorious and much-missed Victoria Wood.

So in her honour - and to stave off the November chill - here's one of her finest moments. Turn up the volume and dig out the women's mags.

:: The Ballad of Barry and Freda (Let's do it) by Victoria Wood

My brave face

Up at a hideous time this morning for a large work meeting in London. Lots of expectations, website data, project milestones and presentations to a number of new people.
This is all a bit unfortunate as I am feeling particularly rough.

Clearly a situation that calls for the careful application of camouflage make-up.
(And maybe a slice of pie.)

:: My brave face by Paul McCartney

That's what we can do

I haven't mentioned my work for a little while. I think it's because I've been too taken up with my recent/lingering relapse and all its varying sensory delights.

But as I am (hopefully) coming out the other end of this one - hug has gone, sensation is almost back to what passes for normal for me, I just need my hands to start fully cooperating again - it's time for a work update.

I am currently self-employed and am working on two different projects for two different organisations. They are both very interesting.

It's not been easy carrying on working during the relapse. If I were an employee I would most likely have taken some sick leave, but I work for myself so if I don't work I don't get paid.*

Not ideal for someone with a chronic illness obviously and something I'm going to have to really consider as and when these projects come to an end.

But today I am working. I am travelling down to London for a few days for one organisation, having been at my other one on Monday. The juggling aspect of this appeals to my brain and makes me feel like I'm doing my bit to keep it active and engaged.

But the effort is taken to keep on going during this relapse has been incredible and looking back now, I'm not quite sure how I've managed it.

I think it's because I'm a) ludicrously proud, b) ridiculously stubborn and c) it's my choice - something which is really, really important when living with a disease which can strip you of them.

Work is important to me and I'm lucky that I'm currently in a position with my health where I can still choose to do it. I am aware that this may not always be the case.

I know a number of people with MS who are not currently working and who warn me that I shouldn't I tie my self-esteem up with my job.

They are absolutely right, of course and there have been times over the past few weeks where I have really struggled with what I've chosen to do.

But I've gritted my teeth and - against all reason and good sense - carried on. Because it's my choice and I'm just not ready to choose to stop quite yet.

:: That's what we can do by Deacon Blue

*I could apply for Employment Support Allowance, but the thought of the forms just makes me want to cry.

The first cut is the deepest

It's Hallowe'en - what better way to celebrate the night of heebie-jeebies than by dwelling on my own unnerving condition?

I've spent some time today wondering at which point over the past near-15 years I have felt most scared by my MS.

• That very first hospital admission?
• Hearing the diagnosis?
• Telling my partner he could leave if he wanted to?*
• During the decisions we made about having children?
• Leaving work and feeling useless? Restarting and struggling again?
• Struggling with poor balance, pain and gradual cognitive destruction?
• Realising that my eyesight really wasn't going to improve?
• Wondering if this moment is as well as I'm ever going to be again?

I honestly don't know. And the sad likelihood is, unless some sort of miracle cure is discovered, the most frightening is probably yet to come.

Of course, I'm fully aware this is no way to live a life - trembling in the face of what-ifs - but sometimes these thoughts are completely unavoidable.

And maybe they deserve some consideration.

Being diagnosed with an incurable, progressive disease is frightening. There's no getting away from that.

Once we're diagnosed we realise that, to a greater or lesser extent, fear is a part of our lives now. Fear of the unknown, fear of the known, fear of the damage, fear of medication, fear of progression and fear for our future.

I think we need the chance to acknowledge this dread now and again; to talk about our what scares us and rail tearfully/angrily/gin-sodden against the unfairness and randomness of a disease that was absolutely not our fault.

Sometimes we need these times of overwhelming dark to be able to fully appreciate our light: to see how remarkably we're coping, how strong we became when it was our only option and how very proud we should be of the fact that we get up every single day and carry on.

Perhaps if MS could see what it was up against, it might play a few less tricks. 

:: The first cut is the deepest by Cat Stevens

* He didn't. We got married.

9-5

Work. It’s an interesting balance.

Generally I like it. And I am very appreciative of the fact that, generally speaking, I can still manage it.

On the other hand, on bad days (or bad weeks or months), it’s an almost impossibility.

And as of last week, its become an actual impossibility as I was made redundant.

This wasn’t a shock. I worked for an organisation which supports some of the most vulnerable in our society - but, by the nature of its work, is an organisation that needs support. Quite a lot of it financial.

And there’s not a lot of that about. Or at least not where it's most needed.

The announcement of the swingeing cuts - and inevitable redundancies - that were being made was given at a roadshow* last year. So since then I’ve been trying to prepare for what this might mean for my future working life.

Thus far I’ve been lucky with work – employers have tried to understand and support me, but I know I won’t always find employment where this is the case. Or perhaps always find employment.

I’m very aware that although my professional knowledge and experience has increased vastly since I was diagnosed, so have my physical and cognitive problems.

There are many, many unfortunate things about the timing of MS, but one of the biggest is that it tends to rear its ugly head in your 20s or 30s, the age at which you’re really hoping to get your career started.

And then, as time and damage march mercilessly on, it gradually eats into your working life options. The opportunities for advancement, promotion and more income look increasingly slim.

In sitcom world being ditzy, clumsy and forgetful is amusing, charming, even endearing. In real life, you’re just a pain in the arse employment liability.

But, incredibly fortunately, an opportunity has come up that a couple of months ago I had no idea even existed.

It’s new and it’s unknown and it will involve a pretty hefty amount of adjusting, but it’s very interesting and includes the chance to use my old skills in a new way.

It’s very early days and I’m not sure how it will pan out, but it’s a chance I didn’t expect to have and I am incredibly grateful.

:: 9-5 by Dolly Parton

*I wonder what the internal thinking was behind roadshow as a name. It’s certainly logical, members of our London-based management team travel out to a number of points across the country where we have offices, programmes and projects. They are, indeed, on the road.

But to many of us the term brings to mind Radio 1 and it’s always slightly disappointing that there’s no music, whistles and/or shouty DJs involved.

Thank U

My boss is leaving work this Friday. This is very sad.

She will leave a massive gap of knowledge, expertise and passion in the organisation, but she will also be a huge loss to my personal working life.

She has been nothing but understanding and supportive to me – even when I managed to end up hospitalised with a massive relapse just 12 days after I’d started.

Yes, I’d voluntarily told her about my MS during interview, but I didn’t expect to have to slap her in the face with it quite this quickly.

Because from her point of view, it was a panicked early morning phone call from an unproven employee with whom she had little personal connection.

A phone call telling her (in a very slurred fashion) that I now couldn’t speak, walk or function anywhere near well enough to do the role that she had entrusted me to do.

Not the best of first impressions.

In the end, the relapse was so significant, I needed more than three months off sick and had to have an extremely managed return to work with equipment organised, transport signed-off and tasks shared. Although I returned to work, it actually took ten months before I felt fully on top of things again and all that time I knew I wasn’t working to the best of my ability.

And I’m aware there are legal requirements and company policies in place that should help with this sort of thing and I know HR teams manage the mechanics of illness all the time, but in the end, it was down to her to look after the day-to-day mess of me that she had been left with.

Without her willingness to back me I doubt I would have been able to continue working in this role. And I really want to work.

It should be patently obvious that trying to keep a job with any kind of chronic illness is not an easy thing to do. For anyone involved.

It takes understanding and support, communication and openness. It takes being scrupulously fair and it means gaining trust. It takes patience and belief and a lot of hard work. And it takes these things from the employee AND the employer.

Distressingly, it doesn’t always happen. Look at the papers, read online forums, ask someone - there are too many people who do not feel they can talk honestly to their employer or who have encountered prejudice and discrimination when they have.

Many people who have been treated unfairly or who do not feel able to continue working, are in that position not because of their health, but because of their workplace.

Many people with MS cannot work – and they should be supported.

Many people with MS want to work – and they should be supported.

I really don’t want to feel useless, either in my personal or my professional life.

So, I’d like to thank my boss for being thoughtful and considerate and kind. For fighting for me and for never once making me feel like I was her workplace burden.

:: Thank U by Alanis Morissette

Yoshimi battles the pink robots

I’m beginning to feel slightly victimised by technology.

Not the usual wifi blackspots, refusal of the computer to talk to the printer when it’s sitting RIGHT THERE or the losing of my mobile in wet and unpleasant places.*

But a personal, inbox invading victimisation.
I shall expand:

Part of my job is to write content for our organisation’s website and we’re just introducing a new system to help us organise the site behind the scenes – planning the content, images, blogs, films, campaigns, social media and links.

So far, so good.

But as part of the new regime, I also get emails from the system which are meant to help and encourage the planning work.

The last three emails have had subject lines that could only have been written with the intention of filling the recipient with confidence and courage for the working day ahead.

No word of a lie they have been:

• Your brain isn’t always right
• How to manage the chaos
• Your brain is lazy

Given that my brain isn’t right, is frequently in chaos and could feasibly be viewed as lazy, I felt unfairly targeted by this unprompted electronic judgement.

However, when I actually read the things, they give some quite helpful tips about inbox management, communication and structuring the working day.

But the most interesting of their tips were those that could also be applied to a life with MS and they are:

• More rush = more fuss
• Stop saying yes
• Get out of your own head

I think the first two tips are fairly self-explanatory. I don’t always follow them, but I really should.

The third one is more complicated and despite the theme of last week’s entry, doesn’t refer to gin.

In the workplace, so the tip suggests, it’s about getting your goals out of your muddled head and down on paper so you can work towards them with some sort of clarity.

In the personal space I think it’s probably pretty much the same.

The only snag being that I find any kind of forward planning difficult with MS due to the sheer ruddy unpredictability of it.

Going away next year? Unknown. Coming out at the weekend? Unknown. Working tomorrow? Unknown. Watching the TV tonight? Unknown.

But I think the overall premise is pretty sound, so I’m going to give it a go, starting with the smaller, more immediate targets.

Goal one: find the paper. Goal two: find the pens. Goal three: remember what on earth it is that I wanted to do with all this pretty stationery. 

:: Yoshimi battles the pink robots by The flaming lips

*I’ve dropped two phones down two toilets in my time. I am a techno-idiot who doesn’t learn from her mistakes. I managed to salvage one by bunging it immediately in rice and praying to the god of communication (Hermes, not Vodaphone.)

The rice worked, but – top tip here - the helpful man in our local phone shop tells me the most effective wet phone saver is cat litter. I know, remarkable.

Help!

I get the train to work.

I like it. Generally it runs on time, I get a free newspaper and I can people watch (one of my favourite things.)

It also lets me wind down after a day in the office and I can think about dinner/read a book/switch off without causing a road accident.

This week it’s also let me do a little bit of thinking about employment, employers and some of the practical help I’ve needed to keep me in a job.

My working life has seen me in the private then the public and now the third sector – quite a variety, but the one common thread is that it has never been easy being at work and having MS.

Surprisingly however, some of the hardest battles I’ve had weren’t with my employers – who have generally been quite understanding and supportive, if a little bewildered by the vagaries of the condition – but with the people ostensibly put there to help.

Access to Work was a particular struggle. Great idea, rubbish execution.

Not the lovely man who came to sort me out with fancy office equipment and an impressive James Bond-esque villain’s chair. (Although still slightly disappointed by the lack of ejector seat, take note office suppliers.)

But the woman on the end of the phone being incredibly difficult about the process by which to claim transport to the office. The woman who quite clearly didn’t believe I was unwell even though I had a letter from my medical team, copies of my scans and occupational health reports. Plus I had wobbly tear voice on the phone so it must have been true.

Perhaps I just got a jaded fed-up worker, perhaps she’d seen a few scams (although the whole flippin thing is so complicated and exhausting I almost, almost, take my hat off to anyone who can scam the benefits system) perhaps I was unlucky enough to just speak to a bit of a jobsworth.

Perhaps she was secretly just trying to save me from the taxi drivers. This may have been it as the taxi/passenger conversations during the time I needed to use cabs were quite eye-opening.*

Or perhaps I should stop excusing her.

Perhaps people who deal with claimants with chronic variable illnesses could do with a bit more training and understanding about chronic variable illnesses.

That would seem to make sense.

:: Help! By The Beatles

*They ranged from the mundane – weather, potholes – to the wholly unexpected; marital guilt (theirs), how to fiddle taxi claim receipts and the fertility issues of two separate cabbies. I unwittingly became a trapped confidante in some sort of mobile secular confessional.

Suspicious minds

We had an away day at work recently.

Sigh.

The very phrase strikes fear. No matter where I've worked, they are the kind of thing that I look forward to with rather less enthusiasm than I reserve for my smear test.

It’s the ‘fun’ activities, the sneaky feeling that everyone else in the room knows a lot more than I do about their jobs, and the having to make slightly awkward small talk with scary-big-boss while simultaneously trying to work out how the flipping hot water dispenser works.

(As an aside, I’m still convinced this ability to get the hot water from the kettle type thing with its inexplicably complicated push button type opening is some sort of ongoing test within our working lives which will one day separate the truly capable from the utterly, utterly hopeless and we will be pay graded on our hot water prowess. Or lack thereof.)

And, with the addition of MS, there is the constant extra struggle to concentrate and contribute without slurring, stumbling or giving the vacant thousand yard stare. Always a good one to bring out at 3pm when scary-big-boss asks you a fundamental question which could determine your entire working future at this organisation.

Anyway, as it happened, it wasn’t bad at all. The fun activities were actually fun and we had the benefit of a truly inspirational speaker, Dave Heeley – or Blind Dave as he is known. Find out about his incredible achievements.

I also had the extra surprise of being given an award for my work. I’ll quickly add that this is not a post to brag. This is a post examining my unexpected reaction to this very pleasant surprise.

This is to wonder why my immediate thought was: “They’ve only given it me because I’m disabled and they feel sorry for me.”

And it’s not just the award. In self-doubting moments, I also wonder if I only got my job because I was helping up some kind of inclusion representation on their employee database.

When did I start becoming so suspicious? Or self-doubting? Is this what 12+ years of MS has done? How much disability prejudice have I internalised without being aware of it?

It’s a dangerous route to go down because it means that I’m not separating the ME from the MS. And yes, I’m aware that – for larger or smaller, depending on the day – MS and I do have some kind of parasitic symbiotic relationship, but I don’t want it to become the relationship that completely defines me.

So I’m trying my best to kick down the nagging voice of doubt and instead accept the recognition on face value. Perhaps it’s not pity, perhaps it’s actually that I’m not really terrible at my job.

Even though I will never work out the secret hot water pay and grading challenge.

:: Suspicious minds by Elvis Presley

I won't back down

When I left my previous role, my lovely work colleagues presented me with an amazing wordle picture. (Here’s some examples – I didn’t know the proper name when they gave it me.)

They’d collected up all the words they’d use to describe me and popped them all onto A2 and framed it as part of my farewell gift.

And they are 35 lovely, lovely words. Then right down at the bottom of the picture are two others that made me smile: strong-willed and stubborn.*

While I’ve assumed they were describing someone far better than me with the nicer words, sadly there’s no getting round those two.

Because crikey they’re right. But the thing is, I’ve yet to decide if being stubborn is a help or a hindrance.

This was brought into focus last week, this time in my current job, when I was quite clearly not well. My head was on fire, my brain had moved house and my balance had gone so completely I was stumbling around the office like Bambi on absinthe.

So to stop me injuring myself/my colleagues/the office equipment, HR stepped in and gently suggested I might like to think about going home.

This was met with a furrowed brow – although not as furrowed as I would have liked due to head-on-fire situation. 

But it did prove that I’m a bit of a nightmare for employers when it comes to my MS in the workplace – I don’t like giving up. And I don’t like it for a number of reasons:

1. Guilt
2. Deteriorating sickness absence record
3. I know how ill I can be and on that scale, I wasn’t that ill

But eventually common sense prevailed and HR won. As my colleagues chaperoned me down in the lift (ostensibly to make sure I was okay, but actually to make sure I left the building) I fell into three walls and sheepishly apologised for my ridiculous carry-on-until-the-bitter-end-ness.

I accept that I struggle with utter pig-headedness.

From my point of view, it’s what keeps me going. From their point of view, it’s what’s preventing their duty of care.

Plus all the in between messiness of me feeling a burden or making colleagues uncomfortable and them worrying about offending personal pride or accidentally making me feel I’m not wanted.

It’s unlikely to be a dilemma that’s settled soon, if at all. So in the meantime I’m just grateful to be a) working, b) working with people that care and c) not to have broken the printer.

:: I won’t back down by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

*I can’t decide if strong-willed is actually just a polite and faux empowering way of saying stubborn. But I think they’re probably both on there to make a point.