Believe me, I could do it: Back in the classroom (sort of) …

Hey! Hey!

Now, if you would have told me 21 months ago that I would be sitting (lying) here and typing this post I would probably have launched something at you for winding me up! I don’t think anybody genuinely believed I would make it through everything and be in a position to be preparing to be responsible for my own (shared) class again.

For those who are new here, hey! I’m Lucy. A 28-year-old who has been something of a medical mystery for over 12 years now. For some reason, my body likes collecting chronic conditions like they’re Pokemon! Whilst I can think of greater things to be achieving in my 20s, if some good can come from me yapping about my experiences then I’d say that’s a win!

Dumping the trauma …

Since January 2024, so many things had changed … I’d had more hospital admissions than first dates (ever). My hours spent in bed were greater than the previous 5 years combined. Any hope of being able to exercise again shattered into irreparable fragments. That light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a fix was being drawn further away from me. I’d had more needles in my spine than seemed humanly fair. Not to mention having witnessed sights no 20-something-year-old should have to witness. Then just to finish it, and me, off, I no longer had a mom.

Sorry, I’ll pause the trauma dumping there! Well minus the one topic that is missing from the above paragraph, but was never missing from the back of my mind. Work. Now, I loved (love) my job and was absolutely not ready to consider the possibility that at the age of (then) 27 with close to £100k with of university debt that I might not be well enough to return to work. As the days turned into weeks in the hospital, and those weeks turned into months in bed, the reality of returning to work continued to pull from beyond my grasp.

Losing control …

I frequently found myself crying about the unfairness of the situation, and exclaiming hysterically that there was nothing else I could do with an undergraduate degree in physical education and a PGCE in primary education. It didn’t take long before I found myself on the receiving end of comments such as “it’s not the end of the world,” “there’s more to life than work,” “why not just apply for a job where you are office based/sat down for most of the day.”

While yes, I know it technically wasn’t the end of the world, and that there is definitely more to life than work, for me in that moment it wasn’t as clear cut as that. To me, in my head, my job was another element of my life I was losing control of, and if there’s one thing I hate, it’s not being in control!

Impossible to understand …

The thing I started to realise was it is practically impossible to understand a situation that you don’t find yourself in. I was venting to people who had never been on the receiving end of conversations about quitting their job because of ill health, so how could they possibly understand how I was feeling. They can try to understand, but it is frankly impossible to actually understand.

Dealing with an inner turmoil …

Over the proceeding months, I started to deal with an inner turmoil. Determined to prove I was well enough, I pushed my body to the absolute limits mentally. In return, it retaliated in the form of progressively worsening daily symptoms.

I remember reaching a breaking point in the April, but thankfully on the receiving end of that breaking point was a nurse who knew me better than most.

She reminded me that, whilst it didn’t feel like it, “doing nothing” was the best thing for my body. That if I continued to push as hard as what I was then I would end up doing more harm than good. She understood that resting and doing nothing could not be further from my genetic instinct to want to be moving at 100mph, but reminded me that even tiny steps forward are steps in the right direction.

I remember smiling subtly as I looked at her with tear-glazed eyes as she went on to tell me to be kinder to myself because even though I can’t see beyond the immediate, I still have so much life ahead of me and its okay to feel that everything isn’t fair at the moment because it isn’t and that’s the truth. To me, this was (and is) the definition of using your words perfectly.

The plot twists just kept on coming …

The next big smack in the face from reality came just 7 days after losing my mom (you know as if losing my mom at the age of 27 wasn’t a big enough reality check!). Hearing my neurologist explain that there was nothing else they could do as a department to try and find the leak felt like any remaining strands of reality I’d been clutching too had now been snatched away.

Again, the thought at the forefront of my mind was what about work, and somehow, amidst the waterfall of tears, I managed to blubber out this exact question. The words that followed this I simply didn’t process, but after a few minutes, two works hit me like a truck.

Medical retirement …

I know it didn’t, but it felt like those words hung in the air for an eternity before the silence was broken. I couldn’t. They couldn’t. In my eyes, I’d lost so much already; too much for someone who was only 27. I’ll be honest, I don’t remember any of the words that were said for the following 10 minutes, but I do remember tuning back in to reality to hear the words “it would be very hard for me to say for certain that you will never be fit to work again.” That was hope. Of a delusional level maybe, but it was still hope.

Another few months passed, and the most the medical professionals could recommend was an occupational health referral. Now, if you’ve seen the Disney film(s) “Inside out” then you will understand when I say my control panel was very much being ruled by little “anger” emotion. The amount of control I had over any part of my life by this stage was accurately comparable to well I don’t even know, insert you own worst case control comparison!

What do I want to do? …

The question I was asked by the occupational health doctor was simple … “What do you want to do?” to which I responded with an equally simple “I want to work.” Unfortunately, my situation couldn’t be further at the opposite end of the simple to complex spectrum. After much deliberation, a skim read of alllllllllllllllll the collated medical evidence so far, and a few more tears for good measure he agreed to a significantly reduced return to work on a 3 mornings a week basis.

For these 3 morning, I would not be class based; instead I would be timetabled to work with and support small groups of Y6 children in the build up to SATs. It wasn’t what I wanted in the sense that I wanted to be a class teacher, but it felt like a sensible compromise. Something I started to learn would become a common occurrence thanks to the seemingly long-termness of this situation.

Enjoyment to pain ratio …

The level of enjoyment and fulfilment I experienced from my 3 mornings a week was off the scale, but so was the pain it caused me. It was also only 2 months before I ended up back in hospital (that’s a whole different story and there may or may not be a post dedicated to this admission already if you scroll back!).

Determined to not be defeated by this (if you haven’t already worked out, stubbornness is one of my main character traits), I returned to work after the Easter break to complete the final term of the school year down in EYFS on my significantly reduced contract hours of 3 mornings a week.

As we approached the latter part of the summer term, questions (as they always do) turned to the new academic year. Unsurprisingly, I was still hanging in nomansland, but desperate to be back in a classroom of my own.

A slight bend of the truth …

Knowing I was in the process of switching neurology teams from Stoke to London meant that my decision regarding work would be based entirely upon the beliefs of my current neurology team at Stoke, and it seemed like the decision would ultimately come down to how much my body could cope with.

Armed with that vague response, but also the fact I hadn’t been explicitly told it would make me worse, the decision was made that I would switch from 3 mornings a week supporting to two full days a week as a class teacher.

A class teacher!!

I’d done it. I’d defied the odds. How my body would respond remained harder to predict than the winning lottery numbers, but I didn’t care about that. I could officially be called a class teacher again!

Maybe I really do have my mom’s stubborn traits after all!

X O X O,

Your favourite headache!

Next time ~ the reality of being back in the classroom

Believe me, I could do it ~ Tolerate it, Taylor Swift, Evermore