![\"\"](\"https://renfys.micro.blog/uploads/2026/69ab0d37-cd9b-4e94-b2ce-9a02b9245a51-2048x1536.webp\")
\n_my cat Wiggles who passed away a couple of years ago.\n_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.
\nI’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.
\nI 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.
\nWhen 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.
\nThen, in December, the day my cat died no less, I was told that my sickness levels were a problem.\n\n_my cat Wiggles who passed away a couple of years ago.\n_
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.
\nI 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.
\nThey 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.
\nI 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).
\nSince 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.
\nMy 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.
\nFive days. I think for a chronically ill person with two kids, that’s really fucking good. Wish other people saw it that was too.
\n", "date_published": "2026-08-12T11:10:21+01:00", "url": "https://renfys.micro.blog/2026/08/12/i-just-come-to-work.html" }, { "id": "http://renfys.micro.blog/2026/08/10/an-unexpected-part-of-supporting.html", "content_html": "An unexpected part of supporting your trans child, is that the cis child gets her ideas from her big sister, and while everyone should be supporting kids figure out who they are - regardless of their gender identity - it does mean you have to have the same standards for both kids, despite their differences.
\nShe’s a better big sister than I ever was. I would’ve pulled my sister into a ditch and no further.
\nMy eldest is currently picking a middle name. We discussed changing it legally but after we go abroad this summer at the very earliest because I am not paying another 80 quid for a passport that only has a year left on it. Even if she does look like a Victorian waif in the picture. She’s keeping the first name that developed from a nickname but wants a middle name too. She’s leaning towards something Welsh.
\nThis does mean however that her six year old sister also wants to change her name. At the moment if changes from day to day, and is usually something you would hear on My Little Pony (like Sparkle) or names I definitely could imagine a stripper would use (no shade, but that’s the vibe I get).
\nI’m fine with them changing their names - legally or otherwise. I grew up surrounded by people who had either changed their names or went by nicknames. My uncle Andrew was Jacko, my mum’s best friend from school was Biff, her long term partner was Jay, my dad had a cousin called Elaine who had changed her name five times before I was even 18. My mum responds more to her surname than she does to anything else and another of her friends changed her name in her 20s, then changed it back in her 60s. Dad frequently drank with people who all had nicknames (my dad’s was Phil the Fit cause of his epilepsy in case you’re wondering) including Rollsey (he had a glass eye) and Kiki (no fucking clue) whose actual names I’m unsure of (though, thinking about it, Kiki might have been called Owen…).\nJackson and Jacko
\nMy own grandparents went by different names. Everyone called my gramps Bill. Everyone, even my nan. It’s written on the back of old photos, me and Bill in Skegness, Bill and Dick (his brother Richard) and me at the house. I didn’t really think much of it as a child until I realised his name was Charles Henry and no one called him either of those names. I assume the name Bill came from his surname - Williams - but I never thought to ask before he passed.
\nMy nanna was known as Nita. What I assumed was a perfectly normal nanna name growing up. And it definitely is, but that wasn’t her full name. This very white English woman who was born in Coventry and died in Coventry was actually called Juanita. Everyone pronounced it Ju-nita (hard J) because these are a bunch of white people and I didn’t know it was supposed to be pronounced Juanita until I was older. But that was 100% her birth name.
\nNow, as the theory goes, my great grandad was a race car driver - my dad has a couple of his winning medals and a pic of him and his car. He raced all over Europe. When he came back from a race in Spain, my great grandmother was pregnant and he’d fallen in love with the name and so she was called. Me and my sister joke that he probably met a woman over there called Juanita.
\nI too have changed my name, have never really liked or felt like it fit me. I went by one nickname or another from the time I left home until I changed it a few years ago. I had already taken my wife’s surname at that point - there are enough Williams’ in the world without me and I wanted to share the same last name of my kids (something I found difficult growing up with divorced parents).
\nSo, the kids changing their names - doesn’t bother me. Something may fit now and they’ll keep it for the rest of their lives. Something may only fit for a few years.
\nNames are a gift. A gift my children are not expected to keep, a gift to use how they see fit, a gift that does not come with strings, just acceptance from the people who love them the most.
\n![\"Two](\"https://renfys.micro.blog/uploads/2026/20260706-195346.jpg\")
\n",
"date_published": "2026-08-10T12:09:37+00:00",
"url": "https://renfys.micro.blog/2026/08/10/an-unexpected-part-of-supporting.html"
},
{
"id": "http://renfys.micro.blog/2026/08/10/names-are-a-gift.html",
"title": "Names Are A Gift",
"content_html": "An unexpected part of supporting your trans child, is that the cis child gets her ideas from her big sister, and while everyone should be supporting kids figure out who they are - regardless of their gender identity - it does mean you have to have the same standards for both kids, despite their differences.
\n![\"Auto-generated](\"https://renfys.micro.blog/uploads/2026/befd0d6c4d.jpg\")
\nMy eldest is a better big sister than I was. I would've pulled my little sister into a ditch and left her there.\nMy eldest is currently picking a middle name. We discussed changing it legally but after we go abroad this summer at the very earliest because I am not paying another 80 quid for a passport that only has a year left on it. Even if she does look like a Victorian waif in the picture. She’s keeping the first name that developed from a nickname but wants a middle name too. She’s leaning towards something Welsh.
\nThis does mean however that her six year old sister also wants to change her name. At the moment if changes from day to day, and is usually something you would hear on My Little Pony (like Sparkle) or names I definitely could imagine a stripper would use (no shade, but that’s the vibe I get).
\nI’m fine with them changing their names - legally or otherwise. I grew up surrounded by people who had either changed their names or went by nicknames. My uncle Andrew was Jacko, my mum’s best friend from school was Biff, her long term partner was Jay, my dad had a cousin called Elaine who had changed her name five times before I was even 18. My mum responds more to her surname than she does to anything else and another of her friends changed her name in her 20s, then changed it back in her 60s. Dad frequently drank with people who all had nicknames (my dad’s was Phil the Fit cause of his epilepsy in case you’re wondering) including Rollsey (he had a glass eye) and Kiki (no fucking clue) whose actual names I’m unsure of (though, thinking about it, Kiki might have been called Owen…).
\n![\"\"](\"https://renfys.micro.blog/uploads/2026/2023-10-011.jpg\")
\nJackson and Jacko\nMy own grandparents went by different names. Everyone called my gramps Bill. Everyone, even my nan. It’s written on the back of old photos, me and Bill in Skegness, Bill and Dick (his brother Richard) and me at the house. I didn’t really think much of it as a child until I realised his name was Charles Henry and no one called him either of those names. I assume the name Bill came from his surname - Williams - but I never thought to ask before he passed.
\nMy nanna was known as Nita. What I assumed was a perfectly normal nanna name growing up. And it definitely is, but that wasn’t her full name. This very white English woman who was born in Coventry and died in Coventry was actually called Juanita. Everyone pronounced it Ju-nita (hard J) because these are a bunch of white people and I didn’t know it was supposed to be pronounced Juanita until I was older. But that was 100% her birth name.
\nNow, as the theory goes, my great grandad was a race car driver - my dad has a couple of his winning medals and a pic of him and his car. He raced all over Europe. When he came back from a race in Spain, my great grandmother was pregnant and he’d fallen in love with the name and so she was called. Me and my sister joke that he probably met a woman over there called Juanita.
\nI too have changed my name, have never really liked or felt like it fit me. I went by one nickname or another from the time I left home until I changed it a few years ago. I had already taken my wife’s surname at that point - there are enough Williams’ in the world without me and I wanted to share the same last name of my kids (something I found difficult growing up with divorced parents).
\nSo, the kids changing their names - doesn’t bother me. Something may fit now and they’ll keep it for the rest of their lives. Something may only fit for a few years.
\nNames are a gift. A gift my children are not expected to keep, a gift to use how they see fit, a gift that does not come with strings, just acceptance from the people who love them the most.
\n", "date_published": "2026-08-10T12:15:00+01:00", "url": "https://renfys.micro.blog/2026/08/10/names-are-a-gift.html" } ] }