Getting Nervous

I go back to work 2 weeks from today. At that point I will have been home nearly 4 months, a total of 114 days. When added to the 12 days I took off earlier in the year for bipolar/psychological issues that makes nearly half the year I've not been well enough to work. Actually I can't make the firm statement I go back in 2 weeks, I go back if I am in good shape in 12 days. Nobody can promise that.

I have been working on some of things that need done before I go back, appointments and the like. I've also been practicing exerting energy. Which is not easy in this heat. But I'll be working in a hot environment. I've got plans and promises to myself about carrying a cooler of water bottles because I've been seriously lacking in that department, and on not drinking any caffeine at work. I've been making arrangements for some accomodations, and it looks like I'll be able to work a 4 day full-time schedule, at least on a trial basis. I think that will help a lot at first as right now I go well for a while then need a day of rest.

I am so excited. I love what I do. I love my patients. And I'm well enough to be bored silly at home now. I was actually begging my mother to take me somewhere with her that basically is a 4 hour car trip.

I'm also SOOOOOOOOO afraid. As I've said before I'll be learning whether I can handle this job when I return. Everyone knows this, although it is unspoken except with my treatment people. I have been so sick for so long that it's hard to believe I really was well and working for a long time. It's also hard to remember that I've worked when I was quite ill and done just fine, many months of the years I've done this. Then there's the question of whether I just have had progression of my illness that is going to affect my ability to work from now on, or if I was just that sick as a fluke because so much went wrong all at once and I refused to admit it (the more likely scenario).

It's also very hard because I've had the last 10 days when I've been feeling better and have been able to see for the first time how much easier life is on me without working. Everyone says they don't want to work, but that's not what I mean. I truly want to, I didn't commit to as much education as I did to only do this for 6 years, but I mean that I actually feel human when I can go with my body's needs a little more, when I have time and energy to cook healthy foods, when I exercise, when I do things I enjoy. Tonight I was in my backyard after dark for a while. It was the first time I've ever been in it at night and I've lived here 3 years. I couldn't even remember exactly where the switch for the porch lights are located.

I know that 10 days really isn't long to feel well, and therefore the 2 weeks I have remaining are quite reasonable (especially since even 3 weeks ago I was very, very ill) and that I'll probably be feeling even better in 2 weeks. But I'm feeling for the first time since this started a pressure(totally from myself) to get moving.

In so many ways I feel like a kid going back to school. (I even got some new clothes because some of my old ones are associated with too many bad memories). It feels a lot like going to college for the first time, when you know everything is going to change forever and it's really exciting, but you know you might not survive and just because you were good in high school you won't be in college. Frankly by this point in the summer before I went to college I was ready to walk there because I was spending 50 hours/week babysitting these boys who drug dead roadkill back to the house and picked the lock on their father's gun cabinet, and 10 hours/week babysitting 4 kids who had a reputation for being terrible kids but who were wonderful for me. College was a vacation after that.

I just hope I make it through 14 more days.