Working Girl…

First things first – sorry about the teasey blog that I did in the week. I had intended to follow it up the next day, but then things got a bit busy, and, well!

Suffice it to say, that it looks like there is a better than average chance that I may be returning to work in the new year, perhaps even before.

I cannot emphasise enough how I have fantasised about this. The day I had to leave  my job 8 years (!) ago, I cried my eyes out for about a week.

It was a good job (in terms of how much I enjoyed it),  but it went about so much more at the time. I was so sick and felt like I was losing all control. I clung to my work for longer than could have been expected, given the circumstances, but in the end it was inevitable.

I was medically boarded and have been at home ever since. Not that I haven’t enjoyed it immensely, but it has been anything but a long vacation. It has been hard. For a long time, I was just fighting the good fight, physically speaking. But over the past couple of years, I have been feeling so much better that a lot of emotional issues have crept in. I was feeling distinctly ‘left behind’, as friends that I had worked with and been at school with and am still close to, earned degrees, got promotions, climbed the ladder, etc. It wasn’t really fair, was it?, I thought sadly to myself, in the grip of a pity party. The playing fields were not exactly level. I also had to abandon my studies, because my eye-sight was so bad at the time.

All that seems about to change. The insurance company where I have my disability pension, send me to their neurologist every year to assess my health and determine whether or not I still ‘fit the bill’ to be on a disability pension. Well, this year, with me doing so much better, he must have motivated for me to return to work.

An occupational therapist/ claims assessor from the insurance company,  phoned me last week to discuss the possibility of me returning to work at the company where I had worked for before I got boarded. We had a long chat, and not once did I get the feeling that they were trying to pressure me into going back to work a.s.a.p to get me out of their hair. She asked if I would need anything special with regards to my working conditions to make things easier for me. She also said that she understands the nature of MS, and that they didn’t want me getting all stressed out and relapsing again.

Long story short, she has contacted the guy in charge of human resources at my former place of work and is negotiating a half-day position for me. I had to supply my updated CV and she emailed it and an accompanying letter to him and CC’ed it to me. The letter reads that my cognitive functions are intact (good to know), that I mobilise independently and that I have good functional capacity. Doesn’t that just make me sound like a prime catch?!

She added that I am available for an interview.

I am unsure of whether I should perhaps phone him and set up a meeting to speed things along and show willing, or if I should wait for him to make contact in his own time.

The latter is appealing, as it would be nice to have one last festive season as a non-working lady. (If anyone adds ‘of leisure’ I will make you come and wash my dishes, vacuum my carpet, cook our meals, do customer tele-support to help Michael out, groom my dogs,  wash and iron the clothes, wash the tiles, and the bath/ toilet/ shower, shop for groceries, feed the dogs/ earthworms, make the bed/ water the roses, put out the garbage, pick up the dog-sh!t,etc.  😀

Of course, my days of staying up at night till I feel like it, and sleeping in as late as I like next morning will come to an abrupt end – but it will be for a good cause 🙂

Michael had a remark to make when he heard they wanted my updated CV. “Phone them and tell them you did your Master’s degree in Rocket Science, and absailed off Mnt Kilimanjaro, and should you include that in the CV?”

Michael can be a bit facetious 😉

But what did they think I did while on a disability pension, anyway?

In the end, I just used my old CV, but added a section on my Medical History, which I thought was appropriate.

So now I guess I wait.

Will update here as soon as I hear anything…