Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's back to work I go
I returned to work yesterday, albeit only for a couple of hours. It was really nice to be back amongst my colleagues and coworkers, but more than that it was nice to start living a normal life again.
A life without cancer.
I was off work for almost a year. Three hundred and thirty-four days to be exact. That is a LOT longer than I originally thought I would be off for treatment; the original plan was surgery only and back to work in three months. Six months at the outside. And looking back, I likely would have been just fine to return to work about four months after my surgery (three months was a little overly optimistic), but then that pesky but ironically good-news positive lymph node cropped up on pathology and that plan was shelved in favour of plan B. I was to receive 5 weeks of radiation and oral chemo, followed by the balance of six months of oral chemo alone.
I would probably not have been able to work during my radiation, but aside from a bit of fatigue and some minor - at least, what I now see as minor - chemo brain, I would have been able to work during the oral chemo portion of my treatment. That meant that I would have been off work for about five months allowing for a couple of weeks recovery post radiation therapy. But then my oncologist threw me a curve ball and switched me from this oral regimen to a more intensive intravenous one. The new regimen would last the same length of time as the oral one, but it would be much, much harder on me.
Yeah... I've written a lot about just how hard it was. And even though things were looking pretty grim near the end, I survived my chemotherapy and had my PICC removed.
Easy peasy. Back to work, right?
Um... no.
The IV chemo was much harder on my body than the oral alternative would have been, therefore recovering from it would also be that much harder. I had a lot of lingering (and pretty serious) gastrointenstinal side effects from the fluorouracil, but those were pretty much finished about a month after my chemo finished. My diet has improved, I have put on all the weight that I lost after my surgery and during my treatment (I lost about 10% of my body weight through it all), and I no longer have any serious GI side effects. So score one for recovery.
I still have some troublesome neuropathy in my hands and feet from the oxaliplatin that may go away, although there is a less than 5% chance that it will be permanent. It affects my manual dexterity and it wakes me up at night sometimes, but for the most part it's mildly annoying rather than truly bothersome. I may never get used to it if it is permanent, but on the grand stage of life it is not something that will affect my performance in nor my enjoyment of life significantly. That's not exactly a win for recovery, but it is at worst a push - no winner but more importantly no loser.
I'm still experiencing some cognitive and memory-related lapses cutely referred to as chemo brain. This is the single biggest hurdle that has stood in the way of my return to work because the work that I do is largely cognitive in nature. I read information, digest it, and then synthesize a response to a question or problem. Not being able to read, not being able to remember the question I am trying to answer, not being able to articulate a response to a physician or nurse or patient or their loved ones... well, that wouldn't really come across as highly professional. It's also exhausting - struggling to find a word that I know I know is like running a mile through molasses. There is no way that I could work a full shift at the hospital that way.
Fortunately, I have seen some signs of recovery over the last few weeks.
I still can't read recreationally which makes me a little sad. But I can read news article full now and can even retain the message of the article and relate it to others. I've been practicing this skill with my wife and kids and although it was hard at first I think I have gotten much better. I also encounter fewer word-finding lapses each day, and there are even some days that I don't have any. That is WAY better than the ten or so daily events I was having a month ago. It really does seem that I am on the mend.
So I returned to work.
My GP is amazing and is fully supportive of my return to work, but she wants to make certain that I succeed in this return. She has asked that I only work two hours a day, three days a week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to allow for recovery between workdays) for now. I have an appointment scheduled with her next Wednesday to see how I am doing. I am keeping a log of the hours I work, how many extra breaks I need to take and why (like, am I getting a headache from trying to read something for example), and the relative productivity that I can achieve in the hours I am at work. This log will help me see any improvements I am making and it will also help my GP see if my return to work needs to be increased or whether it should be kept where it is - or even stopped for a time. If all goes well I should be back to my regular rotation within about six weeks, but it's too early to say that I will be back to normal in this time.
I have amazing support from my supervisor, my manager, and all of my colleagues who are happy to see me back at the hospital. My wife and kids and friends and extended family are all supportive as well. I am going to advocate for myself as best I can, but if it looks like I am pushing myself too hard I have no doubt that one of my army of angels will talk tough with me to tell me to SETTLE DOWN!!
I've got a long way to go before I will be back to the way I was before I was diagnosed with cancer. In some ways, I will never be the way I was before I was diagnosed (and that's a good thing!!), but I will eventually be able to do the same things and provide the same services that I did before my treatment journey began.
I just have to take it one lily pad at a time.
A life without cancer.
I was off work for almost a year. Three hundred and thirty-four days to be exact. That is a LOT longer than I originally thought I would be off for treatment; the original plan was surgery only and back to work in three months. Six months at the outside. And looking back, I likely would have been just fine to return to work about four months after my surgery (three months was a little overly optimistic), but then that pesky but ironically good-news positive lymph node cropped up on pathology and that plan was shelved in favour of plan B. I was to receive 5 weeks of radiation and oral chemo, followed by the balance of six months of oral chemo alone.
I would probably not have been able to work during my radiation, but aside from a bit of fatigue and some minor - at least, what I now see as minor - chemo brain, I would have been able to work during the oral chemo portion of my treatment. That meant that I would have been off work for about five months allowing for a couple of weeks recovery post radiation therapy. But then my oncologist threw me a curve ball and switched me from this oral regimen to a more intensive intravenous one. The new regimen would last the same length of time as the oral one, but it would be much, much harder on me.
Yeah... I've written a lot about just how hard it was. And even though things were looking pretty grim near the end, I survived my chemotherapy and had my PICC removed.
Easy peasy. Back to work, right?
Um... no.
The IV chemo was much harder on my body than the oral alternative would have been, therefore recovering from it would also be that much harder. I had a lot of lingering (and pretty serious) gastrointenstinal side effects from the fluorouracil, but those were pretty much finished about a month after my chemo finished. My diet has improved, I have put on all the weight that I lost after my surgery and during my treatment (I lost about 10% of my body weight through it all), and I no longer have any serious GI side effects. So score one for recovery.
I still have some troublesome neuropathy in my hands and feet from the oxaliplatin that may go away, although there is a less than 5% chance that it will be permanent. It affects my manual dexterity and it wakes me up at night sometimes, but for the most part it's mildly annoying rather than truly bothersome. I may never get used to it if it is permanent, but on the grand stage of life it is not something that will affect my performance in nor my enjoyment of life significantly. That's not exactly a win for recovery, but it is at worst a push - no winner but more importantly no loser.
I'm still experiencing some cognitive and memory-related lapses cutely referred to as chemo brain. This is the single biggest hurdle that has stood in the way of my return to work because the work that I do is largely cognitive in nature. I read information, digest it, and then synthesize a response to a question or problem. Not being able to read, not being able to remember the question I am trying to answer, not being able to articulate a response to a physician or nurse or patient or their loved ones... well, that wouldn't really come across as highly professional. It's also exhausting - struggling to find a word that I know I know is like running a mile through molasses. There is no way that I could work a full shift at the hospital that way.
Fortunately, I have seen some signs of recovery over the last few weeks.
I still can't read recreationally which makes me a little sad. But I can read news article full now and can even retain the message of the article and relate it to others. I've been practicing this skill with my wife and kids and although it was hard at first I think I have gotten much better. I also encounter fewer word-finding lapses each day, and there are even some days that I don't have any. That is WAY better than the ten or so daily events I was having a month ago. It really does seem that I am on the mend.
So I returned to work.
My GP is amazing and is fully supportive of my return to work, but she wants to make certain that I succeed in this return. She has asked that I only work two hours a day, three days a week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to allow for recovery between workdays) for now. I have an appointment scheduled with her next Wednesday to see how I am doing. I am keeping a log of the hours I work, how many extra breaks I need to take and why (like, am I getting a headache from trying to read something for example), and the relative productivity that I can achieve in the hours I am at work. This log will help me see any improvements I am making and it will also help my GP see if my return to work needs to be increased or whether it should be kept where it is - or even stopped for a time. If all goes well I should be back to my regular rotation within about six weeks, but it's too early to say that I will be back to normal in this time.
I have amazing support from my supervisor, my manager, and all of my colleagues who are happy to see me back at the hospital. My wife and kids and friends and extended family are all supportive as well. I am going to advocate for myself as best I can, but if it looks like I am pushing myself too hard I have no doubt that one of my army of angels will talk tough with me to tell me to SETTLE DOWN!!
I've got a long way to go before I will be back to the way I was before I was diagnosed with cancer. In some ways, I will never be the way I was before I was diagnosed (and that's a good thing!!), but I will eventually be able to do the same things and provide the same services that I did before my treatment journey began.
I just have to take it one lily pad at a time.
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