30 - Post 2

Since my health has been the overbearing aspect of my life for the last decade I figured I should start there. I wrote blogs a few years ago giving updates about the health battle I was enduring, you can find those here, ,here, here, here, here, here, here & here. I’m going to pickup where those left off. Since there has been so much time that has passed and there’s a lot to go over, I’m going to update part by part and come back to this post and update as I go.

So, I left the dr. Office who continued to lose paperwork. I ended up going back to the first OBGYN that I ever had, that office has both surgeons who performed my mother and maternal grandmother’s hysterectomies. They both had to have them because their periods never stopped. My grandmother waited so long that she was rushed from the dr. Office to the hospital and had to get 3 blood transfusions before going into surgery. It is not even a question that I will someday have that same problem and need to have my uterus removed as well. Both of them also had cancer cells in their uteruses.

At this point at work, I was missing time because I was so sick all of the time and the anxiety of being sick while working was making me have regular anxiety attacks. I would miss work and just pace my apartment crying or I would sleep. Having your body bleed for 40+ days straight, having your digestive system feel like its being ripped to shreds on top of mental anguish is a lot to deal with, and it was becoming too much for me. I was in the OBGYN office crying my eyes out saying how I’m missing too much time at work, I’m crying all the time and I’m exhausted from bleeding and just feeling really defeated. I asked the doctor to please help me by filling out FMLA paperwork that will allow me to miss time at work when I’m too sick to function, with job protection. The doctor made a face and said she doesn’t do FMLA paperwork. PAUSE - I’m pretty sure that’s a lie, every doctor who is legally licensed to practice is eligible to fill out that paperwork. She didn’t want to help me because it’s paperwork. She wants me to lose my job, my health insurance, my house, my car, everything - because she doesn’t want to do paperwork. Cool. I made it very clear my life is on the line and this is not an acceptable answer. You know what she did? She told me that I should go see a counselor for how upset I was, and that she could fill out the paperwork for me. LOL. A woman, calling another woman too emotional and sending her to a counselor when the issues are obviously physical and medical. She told me that I would have to wait until the next depo shot was done and then she would put me in menopause for 6 months with a shot to see if the endometriosis pain would go away (remember, she is the 3rd doctor now to diagnose me with it without a laproscopy). Since the counselor was the only option I had to save my career and my well being, I called. The voicemail I left was bad, I was sobbing and really worn down. I felt like the system that is built to protect me was instead ripping me down. I went to the counselor a few days later, with the paperwork to allow me to miss time when I was sick. It was a nice relief to finally meet someone who was actually helping me. I had resisted going to a counselor for a really long time because talking about my memories out loud and having to relive certain moments of my life is something I have exactly zero interest in. I had been assigned a victims advocate when I was 13 years old and have been ignoring the calls and voicemails since then.

So, I had the ability to miss time from work with job protection but I was still dealing with the unbearable stomach pain, the crippling anxiety and my body decided to begin to have diarrhea all day, every day for months so I also stopped going to the gym. Everything I loved was being changed and taken from me because of my health and my doctor’s problems with helping me. I love working, being productive, improving skills and being the best at what I do. That was taken from me and my career because my body is failing me in every way that it can think of. I love doing cardio, with my ENFP personality (if you don’t know what that is google MBTI personality types) its necessary for me to have cardio daily.

I was really unhappy about getting the shot that puts you in menopause because it was going to increase all the symptoms I am already having that is making my daily life hell. I was also TERRIFIED of getting off the depo shot because I FINALLY after weeks of bleeding, got it to stop. Well, something amazing happened and I ended up getting the most prestigious 6 month rotation at work. This was it, this was my moment to shine at work and make everyone realize I am something special. So I cancelled all appointments with the OBGYN, because there was no way in hell I was going to let her make me more sick with a shot (which makes it even more screwed up that she won’t sign FMLA papers) and make it hard for me to be able to perform at my best.

I was determined to not let my health affect my work over the next 6 months, I HAD to prove myself. && prove myself I did. I did better than anyone else has in history in that position, I introduced new ways to make the department more productive, I had record breaking participation and I was able to bring entire communities together who shared similar interests. It wasn’t easy. There were times where I had to sit on the toilet with the laptop and keep working. There were days I kept a puke bucket next to my desk. When I was training the person who was taking over for me (because in this role you don’t really talk to people with your voice, it’s all messaging) I had to explain to her that when I take deep breaths it’s not because I’m mad or annoyed but its the pain in my stomach taking my breath away (this happens constantly throughout the day). Since I wasn’t on the phone with anyone for 6 months, I was able to work overtime every. single. week. I kicked butt. Unfortunately, the FMLA paperwork I needed to miss time while doing my job where I have to talk all day while entertaining the customer and doing complex problem solving…ran out the week that I was scheduled to go back to the role that just doesn’t work with my body. I have severe digestive issues and I NEED to have a job that doesn’t include using any part of my digestive system, which right now is my mouth. Talking too much during the day makes me get really warm and then I get dizzy and thats when the diarrhea and puking comes. After this rotation, I was well known in the company. I had area managers recruiting me to do special projects with them which was good because that meant my time on the phones would be less, which meant less stress and anxiety about puking or having to run to the bathroom while on a live phone call, all day, every day. WELL, not everyone really understands how art works lol. I had an area manger ask me to run a video production team where I would be picking the topics, writing the script, having it approved, editing, finalizing, recruiting actors, train there actors, record the actors, re-record if necessary, edit the clips, make the video content its self, edit the actors into the video, add in music and adjust audio, add in special effects, send video for approval, do any necessary editing, then post it to the community. I worked out a whole plan and tried to do it as time conscious as I could, and it came down to being able to complete this monthly video project in 16 hours a week. They told me I could have 4 hours a month to do all of this work. I told them thank you for thinking of me but I know that 4 hours a month will prohibit the project from being something I am willing to put my name on. This kind of thing kept happening, where I was getting the chance to keep doing community management and design work, which I am trained and certified to do. But they were giving wildly inappropriate time frames for it. So I was left with the choice of working off the clock to get these projects to the point I want them to (which would have been like having a non-paying part time job) or just participate in these projects and let my name be attached to things that I don’t think are good enough. All of this career stress on top of constant diarrhea, puking, stomach pain, dizziness and an intense heat sensitivity.

During all of this, I reached out and got myself a nutritionist because since no Doctors were addressing my digestive issues I needed to do that for myself. The nutritionist agreed with me that it seemed like I needed some medical digestive care, she wasn’t able to provide me any information about my diet that I didn’t already know. She did however feel for me and my situation and recommend that I get a new primary care doctor and gave me a name and number to someone. I called that doctor office and wasn’t able to get an appointment for a month.

...to be continued