Occupational Health Appointment

Needless to say, after being off work ill since January, my employers are getting impatient and wanting an idea of when/if I’ll be able to return to work. I had my second appointment with their Occupational Health Department last week; once they write a report and my employers have seen it, it will be time for my Stage 2 Capability Hearing, which I’ve been told will be more formal than the previous ones.

The appointment itself went well, to the point that the doctor said that I seemed even worse than in February physically, with more obvious joint involvement at this time. But that is the pattern of Still’s Disease – the fevers, rash and systemic symptoms seem to hit hard initially before making way for the joint problems. He kept a copy of the notes I’d made, outlining what had happened since February and asked how I was ‘mentally’. Why is it that I get the feeling he didn’t believe me when I said ‘fine’? Perhaps it was the questionnaire that he gave me to fill out; the last question being ‘did I ever think I’d be better of dead?’.

Fortunately for me, the answer is no, because I can only imagine how much harder all this would be for someone suffering with depression too.

I do feel anxiety / guilt with regards to work though, because I’m not there and I can’t give them any answers. Most of the time I feel that it would be better if I just resigned so that anxiety wasn’t niggling away at me the whole time. I know jobs are hard to come by and I should be grateful that they have kept my position open for so long, but work just isn’t the most important thing to me – getting myself well and having a life is. There are plenty of options to start afresh, and I think that is ultimately what I need.

For now though, I just have to wait until I hear from work about that next meeting and think how I want to approach it.

L

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