My final bellyache
Jun. 8th, 2009 01:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
j4I feel like I'm retreating further and further into some kind of shell.
The weekend was horrible, not least because I spent most of it doubled up with stomach pain. Had about 3 hours' sleep last night, agonised about whether to go into work this morning (illness is unlikely to be anything infectious and I'll be in just as much pain if I stay home and do nothing, possibly worse because I won't have things to take my mind off it), eventually decided that if I dragged myself in for the (mildly important) meeting at 9am I could always go home afterwards.
The first thing my office-mate said when I got in was "Good weekend?" ("Not really, but at least it's over now.") I know you're not supposed to tell the truth in response to that sort of question, it's nothing to do with information-gathering, but I'm generally too shattered to think of convincing lies. I suppose I ought to get into the habit of giving a non-committal "Yeah, not bad" no matter what.
Meeting was productive, but the boss thinks that the reason I'm ill is "stress" and thinks I "may be in the wrong sort of job". Yes, I am stressed; being in discomfort and pain a lot of the time tends to make most people less-than-relaxed, I would have thought. But now I'm worrying about getting fired for being ill as well. (Yes, I know they can't fire you for being ill, but in straitened circumstances they're less likely to make an effort to keep the flaky sickly people, & the effect is the same.) The boss probably sees more of my emotional angst than a lot of people, but that's only because I've trusted him enough to talk to him; we seem to get on well most of the time, I've come to see him as a friend as well as a colleague (though I'm wary of using the word because it suggests some kind of reciprocality & it seems presumptuous to assume that). Now I feel like I shouldn't have given that trust so readily, and I worry that it'll just end up being used against me.
When I get up in the morning, I don't want to go to work. (I always do, though, because I know what happens if that starts seeming like an option instead of a necessity.) When it gets to the end of the day, I don't want to go home. (See above.) I am so deeply and bone-wearily tired that the effort of context-switching is just too much. If you gave me a reasonably comfortable place to sit and a simple task that would take 10 years to complete, I would probably just sit there and complete it.
It's getting harder and harder to talk to anybody about anything (online or offline). I feel like I'm watching the conversations from the other side of a pane of glass. There are a handful of conversations which I can have on autopilot, mostly set-piece rants or hilarious catchphrase-trading.
I feel as though I still have something to say but no way to say it.
I'll take a quiet life. Retreating into my shell.
The weekend was horrible, not least because I spent most of it doubled up with stomach pain. Had about 3 hours' sleep last night, agonised about whether to go into work this morning (illness is unlikely to be anything infectious and I'll be in just as much pain if I stay home and do nothing, possibly worse because I won't have things to take my mind off it), eventually decided that if I dragged myself in for the (mildly important) meeting at 9am I could always go home afterwards.
The first thing my office-mate said when I got in was "Good weekend?" ("Not really, but at least it's over now.") I know you're not supposed to tell the truth in response to that sort of question, it's nothing to do with information-gathering, but I'm generally too shattered to think of convincing lies. I suppose I ought to get into the habit of giving a non-committal "Yeah, not bad" no matter what.
Meeting was productive, but the boss thinks that the reason I'm ill is "stress" and thinks I "may be in the wrong sort of job". Yes, I am stressed; being in discomfort and pain a lot of the time tends to make most people less-than-relaxed, I would have thought. But now I'm worrying about getting fired for being ill as well. (Yes, I know they can't fire you for being ill, but in straitened circumstances they're less likely to make an effort to keep the flaky sickly people, & the effect is the same.) The boss probably sees more of my emotional angst than a lot of people, but that's only because I've trusted him enough to talk to him; we seem to get on well most of the time, I've come to see him as a friend as well as a colleague (though I'm wary of using the word because it suggests some kind of reciprocality & it seems presumptuous to assume that). Now I feel like I shouldn't have given that trust so readily, and I worry that it'll just end up being used against me.
When I get up in the morning, I don't want to go to work. (I always do, though, because I know what happens if that starts seeming like an option instead of a necessity.) When it gets to the end of the day, I don't want to go home. (See above.) I am so deeply and bone-wearily tired that the effort of context-switching is just too much. If you gave me a reasonably comfortable place to sit and a simple task that would take 10 years to complete, I would probably just sit there and complete it.
It's getting harder and harder to talk to anybody about anything (online or offline). I feel like I'm watching the conversations from the other side of a pane of glass. There are a handful of conversations which I can have on autopilot, mostly set-piece rants or hilarious catchphrase-trading.
I feel as though I still have something to say but no way to say it.
I'll take a quiet life. Retreating into my shell.
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Re: if you're in pain and knacked no job is the right job
Date: 2009-06-09 09:49 am (UTC)I can't remember what they tested for the last time it got really bad (apart from the ultrasound for gallbladder stuff which didn't find anything), I think they did do a couple of blood tests actually but god knows what for. That was in Cambridge though so it must have been oh my god over 2 years ago.
(The problem with asking GPs to test for specific things... well. I still remember the look I got when some GP ages ago told me that there was no way Prozac could be anything to do with the side-effects I was getting, and I said "but I looked it up in the BNF and it lists it as a known side-effect". Basically if you actually do your homework then you're obviously either a nasty little smart-arse or a hypochondriac.)
I think another part of the problem here is that I know my mum has similar problems sometimes so part of me just thinks at myself "oh for god's sake, all women get this, stop whining". And when it's in the "just uncomfortable" phases I think "I can't go to the doctor for a bit of trapped wind when PEOPLE ARE DYING OF TEH AIDS CANCER etc". Though then that leads into the "If I can't cope with a bit of stomach pain I am never going to be able to have children", which then reminds me "Oh wait, stomach doom means that I have about as much sex drive as a bowl of overcooked lettuce, so I am never going to have children anyway and furthermore I am not fulfilling my duties as a Wife so it's no wonder if he hates me and wants to shag prettier women", which is frankly only one stroke of black eyeliner away from "I HATE MYSELF AND I WANT TO DIE".
Also, my parents don't understand me, and I wasn't allowed to keep a bear in my room. :-}
I think I need a "fucking emo badger" icon, maybe.
Re: if you're in pain and knacked no job is the right job
Date: 2009-06-09 10:17 am (UTC)You've tried the Gaviscon, you've done what you were told, and it isn't working, so you're justified in going back to ask them to look again. I know this advice is eerily similar to the advice you'd get about a work grievance, but anyway: keep a diary. Record your symptoms every day, as dispassionately as you can. Maybe give the pain a score between 1 and 10. GPs are used to people who say "It hurts all the time" and they've learnt to discount that kind of language. It's harder to ignore someone who says "This is what I've been experiencing over the past month".