Home sick

The last day in our York home.

There comes a time where you have to make decisions that are far more adult than you'd like, where a thread of circumstances starts to map out a path that you know in the long term is the best, but you don't want to walk it in the meantime.  I have so often spoke about the challenges faced having lupus and working full time,  having returned to work after having my daughter I began to face a whole new round of unfair expectations in my working life.  And so began the merry-go-round of having no option but to reduce hours, responsibility and pay, be exhausted and pay extortionate amounts of childcare all to ensure we were £400 better off than me NOT going back to work.
There's only so much you can blame Lupus for, yes perhaps things would have been different if I was a fit and healthy Mum, but it was time to stop making excuses, there was no possible way I could work full time with a child and a challenging illness, it was a struggle working part time.

Full time Lupie

If you have not yet delved into the far reaching depths and or earlier updates of this blog, you may not know that whilst having Lupus, I also work full time.  As many of us familiar with the disease know, it comes in all shapes and sizes (a bit like my waistline over the past 5 years) as well as severity.  To work full time for anyone is demanding, the relief of the approaching weekend and Saturday morning lie ins to recuperate, is notable if not from the sighs of my husband (the lovely and hardworking SuperMark) on a Friday morning, then the literary cheers, whoops of glee and photos with glasses of wine in hand on my Facebook feed on a Friday evening.  But for anyone working full time with a condition like mine, the reward of making it through a working week is far more of a celebration than the usual Friday night 'Beer 'o' clock' festivities.   To make it through to 5.30pm on a Friday when you suffer with chronic pain, fatigue, nausea, sore joints and a belly full of toxic medication is a rewarding and honourable achievement, because there was at one point in your life, when you thought you may never work again.