To work or not to work that is the question
I have finally stacked up more than 1 whole week at work. I did a week and a day! Now I have a few days off for the next round of chemo. Oh joy. I am in a bit of a conundrum as to what to do when I have radiotherapy. My work is in the Mexico City equivalent of Heathrow and I live in Brixton. The equivalent hospital where I will have radiotherapy is St. Georges in Tooting. The radiotherapologist said that he thinks I could work whilst having daily treatments for six weeks. He said that the traffic would be the thing that would make me tired not the radiotherapy. He assured me that the only side affect would be a bit of a tan… not sure that I believe him. So the plan would be to leave me house at seven o’clock each day as usual and go to work, teach 20 three and four year olds all day, then drive pretty much past my house to the hospital to have radiotherapy. Then drive back to my house and get home around six or seven o’clock just in time to make tea, check homework and do bath, book and bed with my small sons. I will have driven for almost three hours, worked outside the home for seven and seen my kids for two. I will not have had time to stop for lunch (Mexicans eat their main meal of the day at about three in the afternoon when I would be driving to the hospital) or anything much else and I guess I will go to bed at the same time as my kids and not see very much of my husband unless he gets home early. Am I being a lightweight or should I take some time off? The principle of the school where I work is fighting cancer too and, a far as I know, she has not had a single day off work. However, she has been incredibly supportive to me and has never once made snide comments about my seeming part time status at school. No, really. My direct boss looked after my class and even wrote my reports for me. The owners of the school continue to pay my insurance and everyone else gives me smiles, hugs (not too tight, still a bit sore) and prayers (I have not yet found religion but I do accept good vibes from all denominations). The parents have also been wonderful and even gave me a teacher’s day (I guess an American invention but as far as I am concerned a very good one) present and flowers even though I was not actually at work at the time. They sent it to my house. Therefore I don’t want to push my luck but think I may need to take time off during the radiotherapy or I feel that I might finish my treatment and collapse from the stress of crossing the city twice a day, everyday for six weeks. Even if it is only to go to a sun bed session. I can’t work a few days a week because the government won’t pay my incapacity benefit unless I take the whole time off. School has offered to put a supply teacher (trusted and lovely colleague who is trying to retire but has agreed to stay on for a bit) into my class for the first six weeks of term, should I accept the offer and concentrate on my own kids and the treatment? Actually I think that writing this has helped to make my mind up. I know that people say it is important to work and keep up a normal life but I do have pretty much a full time job at home anyway with the two little terrors of my own. I did think that the radiotherapy would be straight after the surgery and then the chemo to round things off but it seems that I will have my three remaining chemotherapies before the radiotherapy. I am not sure if that is normal but I did think I would spend the summer in radiotherapy and then chemo at the beginning of next term. However, I am quite looking forward to having at least some of the summer hols when I feel almost normal.
