So I was sick a couple of weeks ago. To be honest, it was pure exhaustion and a flare-up more than any sort of bug. I haven’t slept well all week, my pain in my legs has been consistently bad since Monday and then Wednesday night it was definitely gone 3 am by time I fell to sleep. I got up at half 7, managed a few hours of work and had to take a half day. My wife was in town grocery shopping anyway, so I just went home and went to bed.
I’ve taken the afternoon as annual leave instead of sick because I think work uses the stupid Bradford factor, and I’m disabled with a chronic pain condition and diabetes. I’m already on the edge of a warning or whatever they call it after toothache, a migraine and something else - I can’t remember what.
I joined the uni cause the money was better, but I was also kind of hoping the system would be a bit better for me as a disabled person than my old job had been at the charity. I mean, the charity had 20-odd staff members, the uni has hundreds, so surely I’m not the only person with fibromyalgia or diabetes or mental health problems. It didn’t quite work out that way.
When I started, I was struggling with the pain and my legs and also Dysmenorrhea and my diabetes still wasn’t under control. The only thing that was stable was my mental health (and by stable, I mean I was functioning). I had a uterine ablation six months into my first year at the uni, and basically sorted the dysmenorrhea. I was referred to the pain team around the same time, asked for some time off weekly for a pain management course but was denied this. I was working on hard on my blood sugar levels and changed my medication to something that ended up working better and generally had a hold of most of my mental health. All while housing my suddenly homeless mother with stage two dementia that my wonderful wife had to handle while I was at work.
Then, in December, the day my cat died no less, I was told that my sickness levels were a problem.
_my cat Wiggles who passed away a couple of years ago.
_
Now, you have to know that, on top my uncontrolled type 2 diabetes (I’ve got it sorted now) and my increasing pain issues that was diagnosed formally as Fibro only last October, my mental health issues (since I was 16), I’m not an overly healthy individual. I had whooping cough twice growing up, measles and rubella and basically catching a cough more often than not ends in a chest infection. I also have 2 children and children as basically germ factories. Then add in that my youngest is on immunosuppressants and catches everything (and is usually in hospital for something once a year, last time it was Scarlett fever), it just means I’m more vulnerable to catching the regular viruses that bootle about. Also I work for a uni, surrounded by students, who are also germ factories.
I was already pretty angry over other things that had happened (like the pain management course) and in a lot of pain because it was December and it hurts more when it’s cold and my seasonal affective disorder had kicked in. Also my fucking cat had died.
They set a meeting with the head of HR, no less, my bosses-bosses-boss (basically one stop down from the VC who leads the whole uni and three levels above me) and some random academic who was an expert in audiology.
I had a 5-page letter of why I was taking issue with this (like my health, the steps I had taken to fix things like the ablation and the steps I had been denied, like the pain management course. They reiterated that it was a supportive matter and I told them it was anything but supportive. Cried, cause fucking hell, and they kept the warning in place and I didn’t take a sick day for six months. I had actually already worked through 2 chest infections since starting, so I just brought all my germs to work, did subpar work on days I was having a flare-up and refused to walk down to campus at any point if needed because it would cause a flare up and everyone else in the office drives and has a car (I do not).
Since then, I’ve had a stomach bug, a migraine, a really bad period that came out of nowhere and also included a bloody migraine and a toothache (I had the tooth out the next day in an emergency dentist appointment). I’ve worked through all my colds, all my allergies, and flare-ups. I’ve limped around the office, overdosed on cold and flu medicine (and allergy medicine) and only taken days off when I’ve been unable to move (either from my bed or from my toilet). I’ve suffered through, taken annual leave when I could sense a flare-up coming and spent money on private physiotherapy and sports massages to help keep me working. All because HR and my old manager decided that my disability wasn’t really a good enough reason to have such a high Bradford factor score.
My new manager is a Union rep, UCU, I’m actually in Unison but considering leaving for Unite because Unison have not been overly helpful at this branch (the Leicester branch was amazing). He is supportive and wants to have a talk about it at some point but I’m a bit like, what’s the point, HR didn’t really care so why should I risk my job. No one is actually going to have my back. As it stands, looking back over the last 12 months, I have been off sick four times for a total of five days. My Bradford score is 80.
Five days. I think for a chronically ill person with two kids, that’s really fucking good. Wish other people saw it that was too.