From failure to thriving

I have decided to give the linkup party from A Chronic Voice a try. You can find the details and prompts for this month here.

Failing

As a young mother, toddler in hand and baby in arm, all I wanted to do was feeling like my life was on track to something. Eventually, my little ones were old enough that I could start looking for work. But I had never worked with this illness. I had only just learned to navigate parenthood, while trying to manage pain.

But I put my resume out there, applied for jobs, and got a few interviews. And for the first time in my life, I failed an interview.

It put me into a tail spin for a little while. I had by then spent months applying for every job I thought I was physically capable of, and despite my usually winning resume, application and personality, had failed. Maybe I really was too ill to work. My partner helped me through it and encouraged me to keep applying until I eventually got another interview – this time, for a job I was not just capable of but was good at.

Succeeding

My partner helped me through my crash and encouraged me to keep applying until I eventually got another interview – this time, for a job I was not just capable of but was good at. I was still worried about how I would cope with having a job – this one involved more hours but less physical strain – and keeping up with kids and a house and partner.

Through trial and error, overdoing it and resting, I eventually found my rhythm. Nearly two years later, and I’ve learned to balance work and life.

Pausing

The biggest downside with the responsibilities of a full time job with parenting and partnering is that there is much less time to pause and rest. I was forced into one recently, when I got a cold. Ten years ago, a cold would have meant nothing. I would have stayed home out of courtesy to others, but would have been fine to clean my house, play video games all day, do some gardening and have dinner on the table in time for my partner’s arrival at home.

This time, I was bedridden. And as soon as I started feeling well enough to drive, I went to work. What a mistake!

I don’t know how I managed to drive home. Once in the driveway, my partner had to practically carry me to the couch. That was enough to convince me to spend the next day resting up some more.

Pausing is definitely one of the things I struggle with the most about chronic illness. The guilt around saying no is difficult, but I keep trying and maybe next time I am that ill, I will put my health first.

Deciding

The hardest decisions for me now are all around professional health care. Should I go to the doctor? Maybe this will clear up on it’s own. Maybe I need to go to the hospital?

This year I decided it was time to find a primary care doctor. Thanks to my income, I have to use our public system and while it’s much better than a lot of other countries have, it means that specialists have very little to do with my overall health care. Thanks to some referrals, I found one.

Appointments with her are in high demand, so when I was ill and just needed a sick note and maybe some kind of painkiller to help me through, I figured I would just see someone at the same clinic with a lot more appointments available. That was also a mistake, and a story for another time. But it led to my next decision for my health care – that I would always go see this doctor I’ve found who listens to me and treats me as a human rather than yet another person they have to deal with.

Thriving

I don’t feel like I’m thriving yet, but I’m getting closer. It takes a lot to get to that point, I think, when things are stacked up against you. But I have plans to get there. I know some of what I need. Like, my new doctor needs my health records from two specific places in particular so she can give me the most informed help she can. I need to access mental health support and the local pain specialists. I need to keep setting up my house to make it accessible and save money so my partner and I can buy our own house and make all the modifications we need. I need to keep up with my closest friends regularly, because those relationships make a big difference to my mental health, and mental health effects physical health. I could go on but I won’t.

I may not be thriving, but I am at a point where most days I wake up looking forward to the future and while I’m exhausted when I get into bed, I’ve usually had at least a few happy moments in the day. Things could certainly get better, but I’ve come a long way.

Join the Linkup Party yourself! You can see the previous months here, and this months info here!