So I was back at work and if I'm honest it helped in so much that it gave me another routine, well as much as my job could give me a routine, and it kept my brain busy. My boss had sat me down and said to just do what I could, that lasted about 10 minutes! I went back into it the same way I always did, full on. After a week I was stood on a stand at a seminar in Cardiff feeling really uncomfortable because I had a suit and shoes on for the first time in months. I actually enjoyed being back, I was exhausted at the end of each of day, I mean physically and mentally exhausted, exhausted to the point of feeling sick but the normality was becoming soothing.
The first week was difficult when people asked me about my illness but I had developed some "stock" answers to any questions and I just said them automatically to whatever question I thought it suited. "It was a soft tissue cancer, yeah in my leg, no not sure how it got there" "I had to have some radiotherapy and surgery, they cut a bit of my leg away" "yeah its all gone now, yes I'm all clear, yeah I'm glad it's over" "yes it's good to be back at work, yeah I'm all good now" I never went any deeper than those answers, never discussed anything, it was like being back in the Army. Number, Rank, Name, Date of Birth. A mantra, a protection from having to talk too much, to talk feelings, it was easier to just give enough facts to be polite and let people think I was being open whilst at the same time blanking it from my mind and pushing it back down. After a couple of weeks the questions slowed down and after a month it was like I had never been away, the questions stopped and work just went on as normal. At work so did I, I had my work face, my work persona, my work attitude, everything was normal. I had a visit from the occupational therapist after about a month and she asked me about my job, what I did, how I travelled, just general stuff really. She watched me walk up and down some stairs, assessed how I moved and said that was all she needed she would say I was fit to return officially but the company would have to make some allowances for me. They had to allow me to travel by train if I was tired or my leg hurt, they had to provide me with a wheeled case, allow me rest periods as I built my strength back and most importantly gave me a return to work plan which allowed a phased return. If I'm honest it wasn't really phased, people still emailed and called on my rest days, they still asked "could I just?"," Would I be able to?" I didn't mind, it kept me active, I wanted to be active and to have my brain focused on something so I did what they asked. If I got really tired I had a rest, I turned my laptop off, but I had to be exhausted to do that, I didn't want to let the "back to normal" face slip, I didn't want anyone to see what was going on underneath. It was the old duck on the water analogy, on the surface I was fine, just swimming along, underneath I was going like crazy, thoughts, feelings, panic, worry and dread. I struggled most when I was driving or travelling alone. If I was in a hotel for the night that was awful, I would look for something to do, I couldn't relax, alone my head just went in every direction it wanted. I could never sleep in a hotel, I would spend all night pacing and then be exhausted the next day, I just wasn't resting. I let the face slip once, just once. I had to attend the annual pension day briefing at head office. People at work did look at me differently now, some avoided me and the conversation about illness but one did speak to me, tried to help me, get me past it and back into normal thoughts. That helped, just asking "you ok today?" helped, "how you feeling?" was enough to get me talking a bit about the pressures of being back at work, what I was feeling about it, it was enough just to start to help with the pressure on my shoulders pushing me down. So back to the slip, the pensions advisor was talking about how we "needed to consider our future and what we needed to retire on", "how would we feel at 65 with nothing?" I wasn't actually listening to him, I was daydreaming, thinking about my life, thinking "well some of us will just be happy to get to 65" and then it came out. "What about if we don't make it, I'm probably not going to, so why should I have to save for it, I want to enjoy my life now" I can still feel the sneer on my face as I said it. I was being a dick and I knew it, he looked at me a bit shocked and confused and I just put my head back down and went back to playing on my phone. I still don't know why I did it, well that's a lie I do. All these people were talking about getting old, about retiring and I didn't think I would. The odds are that there is a good chance I won't so why should I have to listen to all these w**kers talking about it. I wanted to lash out and let them know how I was feeling, to let someone see I was hurting. People looked embarrassed, they didn't know what to say, they looked at me and pretended I hadn't said anything. One person looked at me and could see the turmoil I was in, they spoke to me afterwards and asked me. I shut them out and work face came back on, I was fine it wasn't a problem, I was just dicking about. My eyes said something else and they kept pressing, kept asking and I told them, I told them how I felt and that sort of opened a gate, I could talk a bit now, not a lot but a bit. I wanted to tell people everything, but I wouldn't, if I asked for help I wasn't better, it was beating me still and I refused to be beaten by it. The problem was that the more I fought and tried to fight alone the more it was beating me, I had started to hate being alone, it scared me, my mine wasn't strong enough but I had to be alone a lot for work what could I do? I didn't tell anyone as I didn't want them to think I wasn't coping, I was supposed to be happy and living my life to the full not worrying that my life was over and it was just a case of waiting for it to come back, all these other cancer survivors were so strong, it didn't bother them, I thought, I know differently now but back then...... Maybe when I got to my first check at 3 months I would be better, that's what I kept telling myself, when you get there it will be over, it will prove to you that you are going to get better. Just get to 3 months Daz and it'll be better you can look to the future then. Who was I kidding, definitely not myself, my descent was continuing and picking up speed, I had my work face on to the world but couldn't look myself in the mirror. I hate liars and I was lying to myself, I was telling myself that I was ok and I most definitely was not.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Darren EvansOn Feb 11th 2013 my life changed forever when I was diagnosed with a myxoid liposarcoma of the right thigh. This is my version of my life since then. Archives
June 2018
Categories
All
|