Getting Fired May Have Saved My Life

If you’ve read my previous post about my illness and getting fired, then you’ll understand a little more about my health this past summer. I don’t remember much about the month of May (except I am still calling it “March”) before I woke up from my coma. Everything that happened before I woke up is so foggy that it seems like a dream.

The only thing I remember is feeling sick and having migraines. I worked through those migraines for years. I worked through being sick. Because I worked from home for several years, I worked through the flu and a severe respiratory virus that the doctor wanted me to spend every other hour in bed. I worked through what turned out to be anemia so severe I shouldn’t have even been conscious.

I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia eight years ago. I worked with severe brain fog and possible temporary cognitive issues that are now permanent due to my illness. I never once said, “hey, I have an illness that causes severe pain and my brain to stop working.” No, I showed up to work every damn day because I was taught to work hard and never give excuses.

Most people wouldn’t work through migraines and nausea. Most people wouldn’t stay at work even when they had to run to the bathroom and throw up, because the pain was so intense. I did.

I may have been suffering from hypoglycemia for at least two or three years. I worked through that with the nausea, headaches, and tremors. I pushed through it because I had to work and had no clue it was happening. I’ve spent most of my life feeling like crap and chalking it up to fibromyalgia that I never considered something else. I didn’t know it was hypoglycemia or I would have paid better attention, because I know it can hinder brain function. It seemed like if I said, “of course my work is suffering. I feel like I’m about to drop,” then someone else would simply say, “join the club.”

It was two weeks after the fact before I completely understood what happened to me when I collapsed. I only survived because my mother took me to the ER. I would have been fired that day if I hadn’t been admitted to the ICU.

After being discharged from the hospital, I wasn’t even sure I could do my job again. I still have trouble reading and with number sequences. I was going to ask to be reassigned to another department that pays less, because my doctors felt I would qualify under disability. They wanted to discuss it with human resources.

The fact that I didn’t get the chance to show I can no longer do my job because of my current state, I can’t even file for disability. I’m even ineligible for compassion or retraining programs under disability laws, because I never had the option to say, “hey, I was sick for a really long time before my liver failed; possibly two years. I might have had a stroke. The wasn’t able to come back to work anyway. You could have let me say I couldn’t perform my job because of a disability so I could file for disability.”

I didn’t get that option. I don’t look like the bad guy. I was fired because I struggled with my job. My work suffered, because I was physically ill. The more stress they put on me, the worse I got physically. Ultimately, I ended up in organ failure.

I believe without the stress of my job, I can do something more fulfilling. I don’t have to worry to the point of getting critically ill. This isn’t the first time a job has made me sick. It is the first time I faced organ failure. I do feel less stress knowing I don’t have to make a decision about my job. They made the decision.

Learn more about my former employer in my new blog, Stealers Not Healers.