Today I had high hopes to go into work. I woke up, was able to take a shower without crying, put a stick-on heating pad on, and took two 500mg Extra-Strength Tylenol. I put on my super-cute St. Patrick's Day outfit that I couldn't wait to show off, made my family breakfast, and ignored the pain that was creeping up on me. I was going to work at the job that I love so much and I was excited about it. We dropped Blake off at school and even though I was hurting, I was going to take on the day and get as many circuit boards done as I possibly could.
That lasted a half hour.
I was in tears. Sitting down at my desk, looking through the microscope or just soldering circuit boards is putting pressure on my "owie" (I'm trying to be sensitive in my postings so the guys can read them without being embarrassed or excluded). The medicine that should've kicked in by then wasn't working. The heating pad wasn't working. I could barely walk. I was just miserable.
Thank goodness at that time I had an appt with my therapist. I walked slowly into her office, crying because of the pain. I just let it all out to her. I told her about my frustrations with this, about not being able to work, the effect on Jon, and so on. It was good to get it out, but the pain was still there.
So after the appt, Jon took me home. I changed into my jammies, put a heating pad on my "owie", and ended up falling asleep. (P.S. I have to talk about my heating pad here. For Christmas, Mom gave me this awesome half-body heating pad that you warm up in the microwave, since I'm always so cold. It is the very best thing for my "owie" right now, because I can fold it up, which makes it very heavy. The combination of the heaviness and the heat makes things feel much less painful. Thank you, Mom, for this wonderful gift that I am definitely getting a lot of use out of!)
I'm trying to be positive about my situation. Some people weren't happy about some of my postings last year because they were so "depressing". I'm not depressed about my situation this time, and I think it's mostly because I have a real medical condition, versus an "unknown" or "anxiety-led". Now I'm just in pain. I have lots of items to entertain myself while laying in bed, but the one thing I can't do is work on my blankets. I have eight blankets I wanted to get done before the end of this month (three I have to get done by then, the rest because I wanted to), but I can't work on them because if I can't sit at my desk to solder circuit boards, I definitely can't sit on the floor and work on tying fringe on a blanket.
But you know what? The time will come when I can work on my blankets again. I may not get them done in the time I was planning, but that's okay. People aren't expecting to receive them, therefore, they won't mind if they're "late".
As far as work goes, it absolutely breaks my heart that I can't be there. Even though I'm "quite close with the boss", I didn't want to be treated any differently than anyone else. If any other employee kept taking off work, everyone would wonder how serious they were about their job. The things that I need to remember are that:
a) I have a note from my Dr saying that I can take time off work if I'm in pain due to my medical condition,
b) everyone knows that I love my job and that I put my heart and soul into everything I do there, and
c) once I have my surgery, I will be working a bazillion hours again. Right now I need to concentrate on myself, my body, and if I am in pain, I should not push it. The work will get done by other dedicated employees. I would do the same for them if they were dealing with health issues. That's what we do; we help each other out to make the deadlines. That's why it's an awesome place to work.
"With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
- Matthew 19:26
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