a workaholic! Who, me?

Yesterday, Kristy (my supervisor) and I were discussing short term disability and that I needed to call Human Resources no more than 2 weeks before my anticipated leave of absence to get the paperwork started. She suggested that I call Dr. Helvig again to try to get a better picture of how much time I would have to miss from work, not just recovery after the surgery. At about 4:55 this afternoon I finally got a call back. Here's the latest ... I can expect to be in the hospital for approximately 3 days after surgery, then it could be anywhere from 6 to 7 weeks before Dr. Helvig will release me to return to work. I was told that I might feel up to going back to work 2 weeks after surgery, but by week 4 hypothyroid will kick in to full drive and I will be extremely tired and weak (plus a laundry list of other symptoms that accompany it), plus I'll start the radioactive iodine shortly after that.

Evidence that I'm a workaholic was that I almost cried when she said that I'd probably be out that long. Since I've been with RCIS for 16 years my short term disability covers up to 21 weeks at 100% pay, so that wasn't the issue. It is going to be very difficult for me to sit back and have someone else do my job for me. Consider this, normally Kristy has to remind me that I need to start scheduling days off and I almost always have 5 days to carry over to the next calendar year, so you should be able to surmise that I don't like taking time off work very often.

There may be a blessing in all this though. I've been feeling more and more burned out at work and since I tend to not take time off on my own, maybe forced time off will be good for me. I've got lots of pictures I've been meaning to get into scrapbooks, I've got 2 unfinished afghans that I might finally complete. Then there is an offer I was given recently to design a web site for a local family owned business, maybe I'll get to work on that? Who knows what I'll wind up doing, but it could be good for me to be away from work for that length of time.....