I recon I could probably write a blog completely based on bus journeys and the bus travellers, 'The fascinating world of the bus journeys' it could be called. I swear I am attracted to drama, this week as I was standing at the bus stop a old man came and stood beside me and started chatting about the fact that he had mislaid a ten pound note, he felt sure it was in his flat somewhere but he has searched everywhere and checked his wallet a thousand times but he just couldn't find it, so he walked to the post office in case it had fallen out of his coat pocket when he went to buy his news paper this morning, but he couldn't see it. Clearly the loss of the £10 was really bothering him so I sympathised and agreed that its really upsetting when you loose something. Anyway, this meant that the old guy was going into town to the bank to with-draw £100.....Don't ask me why loosing £10 means you need to get £100 cash to replace it, but, hey, its none of my business. The bus trundles to our stop and we get on, I go to my usual spot, always toward the back of the bus, up the first step and the first row to the left...the old guy took the seat at the front. Off we go on the journey and I tune into a lady's conversation who was sitting in the seats in front of me with her mate who was sitting a couple of seats down, she was announcing to all who would listen that her husband had a stroke and couldn't be left on his own, and what an awful time she was having, bla, bla, bla.....the then points her thumb toward the old fella sitting next to her and says...yeah, I have to bring him everywhere I go now!! I felt my jaw drop open, the poor old man was slumped against the window, and his limp arm kept sliding off his lap and then he would spend five minutes trying to reach the limp arm with the good arm, as his Mrs sat happily ignoring him, I couldn't help wondering how many years they had been married, and my heart felt so heavy for him, I was so preoccupied with feeling sad that I didn't notice that the old fella from the bus stop had made his way up the bus and had sat next to me, saying....You'll never guess what my love?... I just took off my cap because it felt itchy and you will never believe it, there was £20 in it!!! So it wasn't £10 I had lost it was £20 and I hadn't lost it, it was in my cap all the time. He nudged me with his elbow and chuckled to himself all they way back to his seat...that it, where the hell do you find those magic caps that turn £10 in to £20?
By the time we had got into town and I had all this extra information floating around my head, I had no idea why I had gone in the first place, so I wondered around and brought some bread then caught the bus back home, walked through my front door and remembered I had gone for dog poo bags!
Last Sunday, I was desperate to go to disabled swim. so armed with my cane and my youngest daughter we braved it. I am so glad I did, I met a lovely group of people and it was a really relaxed atmosphere, we managed 20 lengths, which for me is really good and after I felt like I had done some quality exercise, this week its cancelled due to a swimathon, and everyone was having a right moan as they should slot disabled swim in else-where, I felt I didn't really have the right to give my view as it was my first time at the swim, so I left it to the others.
My Daughter and I went again on Monday morning but only managed 15 lengths as it was too busy. I have spent the rest of the week eating the calories I burnt off swimming!
Next week I have yet another trip to the Royal Albert Hall courtesy of RNIB Connect. Symphonic Rock, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, in return for a review. I brought my train tickets today, and now have a handy little blue pouch to put my ticket in, apparently according to the lady in the booth at the train station, I shouldn't loose my ticket if I am using the pouch...we will see!! Its a 3pm performance so going home will be rush hour(s) so Mum and I have decided to go to eat afterwards and let the commuters commute their way home without me getting in their way and cracking their ankles with my cane...kind ent I?
My poor little doggie has really struggled this week with the weather, Thunder terrifies him and he gets really stressed. We've had two really big storms which resulted in Ralph being shut in his crate with a blanket over it until he stopped shaking and panting, he has been a miserable bugger ever since and seems to be spending a lot of time curled up in his bed, following me around like a lost lamb, or standing on the patio outside looking up at the sky watching the clouds, however, he is eating much more than usual, comfort eating its called in humans!
This week I have started to ease myself into a regular familiar routine, and am finding it really frustrating. Thursday I was on a complete high and came home full of energy, walked Ralph, did some washing and ironing, cooked tea and my brain was still functioning well enough to have an intelligent conversation with the family...Friday things were completely different, I came home feeling absolutely exhausted, Ralph assumed as soon as I walked in the front door that we would be marching off on a lovely long walk, peeing up every plant that he sees and exploring the marvellous variation of sticks one can find on a dog walk, he was in for a shock when I plonked myself straight on the sofa with my coat still on and fell fast asleep, when I woke up an hour later, the rain was thundering on the conservatory roof and I felt awful, my limbs felt heavy and if I didn't know better I would have said I was coming down with flu, for the rest of the day I dragged myself around the house, falling asleep every time I sat down, I couldn't make a simple conversation make sense so I gave up talking and went to bed. The next day I felt just as bad except I had a stonking head ache to go with it, I wish more people understood how exhausting life can be when your sight is poor, in fact I wish I could swap with a few people for a few hours so they see what I see, and feel the emotions that float around in my head each day, understand how exhausting concentrating is and feel my frustration when my brain freezes and blocks any other messages from anywhere because its still trying to make sense of the job I was doing two minutes before I started the next task or conversation, my brain and eyes are constantly battling against each other and a couple of times this week my brain has projected an image that isn't there, this is the first time this has happened for 'real'. I have heard of this happening in some sight conditions, and a long time ago I wasn't sure what I was seeing and dismissed it, but this week I had definite images of things and people that were definitely not there, which isn't so good when you are standing at the train station watching a train come in then you glance away, look back at the train and its not there, firstly it made me jump and secondly the feeling of sadness and foolishness is overwhelming, but most of all, how can I trust my brain to project truthful images? and what happens if it decided to remove images, what happens if I go to cross a road and my brain decides not to detect a lorry barrelling along, of course, my ears and hearing will counter out that possibility I suppose but its all a bit scary. A few times I have sworn that I have seen Ralph or one of the girls in the same room as me when they are actually not, and a peculiar thing happened in Asda that I still don't fully understand now, my brain seems to be pulling up images from years ago and plonking them in front of me, some of them seem to be connected with familiar smells others are completely random, and as there standing in the middle of Asda was my Dad, the mans been gone for 21 years, but there he stood, donkey jacket and all. Asda is having a revamp and everything is moved about so I wondered if that was what triggered the image, either way its all very odd.
Well, I am off to prepare and organise myself for the week to come, and will let you know if the little blue pouch helps to keep my train tickets from getting themselves lost!!
Sunday 29 April 2018
Sunday 15 April 2018
Peach Doughnuts
Well, tomorrow is the big day, 8.30am and I will be meeting the lady who has come to risk assess me at work. I cant tell you how many different scenarios and out-comes have been going through my head or the hours I have laid awake in bed worrying about the future, how I am going to pay my bills, and how the outcome will effect me emotionally. It feels a lonely world when all these feelings and thoughts are running around in your mind and there's nothing you can do about it. Just when you think you have a plan, a nagging doubt will wriggle its way into your organised and happy zone and the image you have created comes crashing down around your feet along with your mood, self-esteem and whatever that little thing inside us is called that makes us want to get up and fight each time we get knocked down.
So, the truth is I have no bloody idea what will happen, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it, all I can do is slow it down, enjoy each moment I am still able to be in school and try my best to be as honest as I can.....Like I have said before, pretending you can do something when you cant is a bit of a fine art that people with sight problems seem to naturally adhere to, I don't know why, pride or embarrassment maybe, or perhaps its easier to pretend than keep expecting people to remember.
I keep wishing I could just have a tiny peek into the future, not loads ahead, maybe just a year, just to give me reassurance that I will be ok, but that peek comes with disadvantages too I suppose and you might just be peeking at something that you really don't want to see, so its back to the here and now.
Yesterday the sun shone, for the first time in well over two weeks we had a full day without rain, freezing temperatures and grey skies, this helped with my overactive imagination as instead of sitting on the sofa eating chocolate and crap, then feeling guilty because I am becoming too fat for my jeans, so spiral into the familiar cycle of worrying about stuff that there's bugger all that can be done about, I went into the garden. Now I don't know if I told you about the day the fish pond emptied and left the fish splashing around in a tiny drop of water and the outside tap was frozen so we had a bucket relay from the kitchen through the house to the back door where someone took the bucket, stomped over the snow to the fish pond, This seemed a fab idea at the time, the first two buckets went off along the line ok, but the third one was less helpful, after I filled it to the top, lifted it out of the kitchen skin and discovered it had a big crack in the bottom sending very cold water all over me, Ralph (who was standing at my feet wondering what the hell was going on) and the kitchen floor....I remember shouting a warning for whoever dared to laugh would find themselves head first in the fish pond. It took ages to fill the pond, but eventually the fish were happy and the pump was turned back on, only to find the following morning the pond was completely empty again. This time, the youngest daughter filled a bucket, put the fish into the bucket and we delivered the fish to Mum's fish pond where the fish must feel like the have moved from a tiny cottage to a stately home.
We turned off the pump and ignored the pond for the rest of the winter, yesterday however, as the warm sun shone I noticed a nasty smell coming from the pond and on further inspection I realised that there wasn't a hole in the lining as the pond was half full again with a grim foul smelling stagnant water so the problem must have been with the pump. So I dismantled the pump, emptied the disgusting water and cut out the pond liners with a Stanley knife (only one slice to my knuckle) and began to empty all the old soil out of last years pots into the empty fish pond. This took me literally hours and was a very welcome distraction from wallowing in my bleak looking future, youngest daughter came out to assist, which meant sitting on her backside barking orders on how to be more careful while balancing on the edge for the fish pond with a Stanley knife, but as usual she came out top as she suggests we plant a tree in the hole. I finished the day covered in dirt, old fish poo, pond weed and there was enough twigs and leaves in my hair to make a small fire but I felt good. This Moring (Sunday) the happy content feeling was still there so I decided Ralph and I would walk to the garden centre to look for trees to go in our fish pond. I fancied a Cherry tree, one daughter wanted a cherry blossom and the other wanted a Olive tree. One day of sunshine and I had forgotten how much rain we have had over the last free weeks and wearing white trainers on our walk wasn't the best idea, avoiding mud and really big puddles meant it took us twice as long as it usually would to walk the three miles from my house to the garden centre. I didn't think about work or anything much all the way there, I focused on where I was walking and enjoyed looking! As we turned into the garden centre, the first thing I noticed was that the car park was full, I hesitated for a few seconds, then thought, Noooo, I;ve been here a million times, how bad and busy can it be???? VERY bloody busy actually, I put Ralph on a short lead, much to his disappointment as he likes to pee up against every plant he sees regardless if its in someone's shopping basket or not and tried to make my way to the 'Bargain bench' this is the 'safe' place, I know these fair-weather gardeners will be looking at all the fresh new plants and the old pot bound plants wont be getting so much attention, I phoned home to request rescuing and told them I would be hiding with my back against the crowd pretending to be engrossed in the curious, half dead looking plants on the bench. From the entrance to the bargain bench is a wide straight path, today filled with what felt like a million obstacles and hundred people. Totally focused on reaching the safe place I made my way slowly though the people, half way along the path I head a very familiar noise which could only be made by a familiar young lady, before I could see her I knew who it was and I knew she would be with her family. I don't think I have ever been so pleased to see this young lady and her Mum, it took a few minutes for her to remember my name, but instantly I had been distracted and inwardly comforted by people who know me, people who understand . Those few minutes standing talking completely settled me. I want to thank you for that, you don't know how much you helped me this morning. I walked to the bench and spent the rest of the time as Ralph and I waited for our rescuers smiling as I remembered all the lovely times I had experienced working with the young lady I had just been speaking to, what a fantastic group of children I have worked with over the years and what an amazing bunch of staff too, nothing will take those memories away.
The daughters arrived and we went to look at the trees....we wondered up and down, again no-one really wanted to be looking at trees so we were able to have a stroll, we discovered Peach trees, YES Peach! So we will be purchasing a peach tree in the near future to be planted in the middle of a ex-fish pond, its blossom is beautiful and has a faint niff, and the fruit it produces in late August is flat peaches...sold in Asda as Peach Doughnuts!!
Well, cross everything for me for tomorrow and I will let you know how it goes.
Oh, before I go, I took a photo of Ralph deciding that daughter number two's hoola hoop now belongs to him! See, this is what I have to put up with...Small dog, big ideas!! xx
So, the truth is I have no bloody idea what will happen, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it, all I can do is slow it down, enjoy each moment I am still able to be in school and try my best to be as honest as I can.....Like I have said before, pretending you can do something when you cant is a bit of a fine art that people with sight problems seem to naturally adhere to, I don't know why, pride or embarrassment maybe, or perhaps its easier to pretend than keep expecting people to remember.
I keep wishing I could just have a tiny peek into the future, not loads ahead, maybe just a year, just to give me reassurance that I will be ok, but that peek comes with disadvantages too I suppose and you might just be peeking at something that you really don't want to see, so its back to the here and now.
Yesterday the sun shone, for the first time in well over two weeks we had a full day without rain, freezing temperatures and grey skies, this helped with my overactive imagination as instead of sitting on the sofa eating chocolate and crap, then feeling guilty because I am becoming too fat for my jeans, so spiral into the familiar cycle of worrying about stuff that there's bugger all that can be done about, I went into the garden. Now I don't know if I told you about the day the fish pond emptied and left the fish splashing around in a tiny drop of water and the outside tap was frozen so we had a bucket relay from the kitchen through the house to the back door where someone took the bucket, stomped over the snow to the fish pond, This seemed a fab idea at the time, the first two buckets went off along the line ok, but the third one was less helpful, after I filled it to the top, lifted it out of the kitchen skin and discovered it had a big crack in the bottom sending very cold water all over me, Ralph (who was standing at my feet wondering what the hell was going on) and the kitchen floor....I remember shouting a warning for whoever dared to laugh would find themselves head first in the fish pond. It took ages to fill the pond, but eventually the fish were happy and the pump was turned back on, only to find the following morning the pond was completely empty again. This time, the youngest daughter filled a bucket, put the fish into the bucket and we delivered the fish to Mum's fish pond where the fish must feel like the have moved from a tiny cottage to a stately home.
We turned off the pump and ignored the pond for the rest of the winter, yesterday however, as the warm sun shone I noticed a nasty smell coming from the pond and on further inspection I realised that there wasn't a hole in the lining as the pond was half full again with a grim foul smelling stagnant water so the problem must have been with the pump. So I dismantled the pump, emptied the disgusting water and cut out the pond liners with a Stanley knife (only one slice to my knuckle) and began to empty all the old soil out of last years pots into the empty fish pond. This took me literally hours and was a very welcome distraction from wallowing in my bleak looking future, youngest daughter came out to assist, which meant sitting on her backside barking orders on how to be more careful while balancing on the edge for the fish pond with a Stanley knife, but as usual she came out top as she suggests we plant a tree in the hole. I finished the day covered in dirt, old fish poo, pond weed and there was enough twigs and leaves in my hair to make a small fire but I felt good. This Moring (Sunday) the happy content feeling was still there so I decided Ralph and I would walk to the garden centre to look for trees to go in our fish pond. I fancied a Cherry tree, one daughter wanted a cherry blossom and the other wanted a Olive tree. One day of sunshine and I had forgotten how much rain we have had over the last free weeks and wearing white trainers on our walk wasn't the best idea, avoiding mud and really big puddles meant it took us twice as long as it usually would to walk the three miles from my house to the garden centre. I didn't think about work or anything much all the way there, I focused on where I was walking and enjoyed looking! As we turned into the garden centre, the first thing I noticed was that the car park was full, I hesitated for a few seconds, then thought, Noooo, I;ve been here a million times, how bad and busy can it be???? VERY bloody busy actually, I put Ralph on a short lead, much to his disappointment as he likes to pee up against every plant he sees regardless if its in someone's shopping basket or not and tried to make my way to the 'Bargain bench' this is the 'safe' place, I know these fair-weather gardeners will be looking at all the fresh new plants and the old pot bound plants wont be getting so much attention, I phoned home to request rescuing and told them I would be hiding with my back against the crowd pretending to be engrossed in the curious, half dead looking plants on the bench. From the entrance to the bargain bench is a wide straight path, today filled with what felt like a million obstacles and hundred people. Totally focused on reaching the safe place I made my way slowly though the people, half way along the path I head a very familiar noise which could only be made by a familiar young lady, before I could see her I knew who it was and I knew she would be with her family. I don't think I have ever been so pleased to see this young lady and her Mum, it took a few minutes for her to remember my name, but instantly I had been distracted and inwardly comforted by people who know me, people who understand . Those few minutes standing talking completely settled me. I want to thank you for that, you don't know how much you helped me this morning. I walked to the bench and spent the rest of the time as Ralph and I waited for our rescuers smiling as I remembered all the lovely times I had experienced working with the young lady I had just been speaking to, what a fantastic group of children I have worked with over the years and what an amazing bunch of staff too, nothing will take those memories away.
The daughters arrived and we went to look at the trees....we wondered up and down, again no-one really wanted to be looking at trees so we were able to have a stroll, we discovered Peach trees, YES Peach! So we will be purchasing a peach tree in the near future to be planted in the middle of a ex-fish pond, its blossom is beautiful and has a faint niff, and the fruit it produces in late August is flat peaches...sold in Asda as Peach Doughnuts!!
Well, cross everything for me for tomorrow and I will let you know how it goes.
Oh, before I go, I took a photo of Ralph deciding that daughter number two's hoola hoop now belongs to him! See, this is what I have to put up with...Small dog, big ideas!! xx
Sunday 8 April 2018
Assessing Risk
I feel like I should apologise to you all for not blogging for a while, but I'm not going too! The truth is I am caught up in 'change' at the moment and the whole point of writing a blog is to help others who are going through the same sort of things feel like they are not alone, and for me to download and try to make some sort of sense of the things that are happening.
I am not sure how much I can share with you but I have reached a really scary point in my life and I just want to fast forward it. As you know I have lost more of the vision in my good eye, have a big black floater which distorts the vision I do have and a small hole has appeared in the retina since last September. This has meant that I have been signed off unfit for work since then, I have spent the months since then going to Moorfields for check ups and readjusting to the new level of sight and dealing with this stupid floater. To start with I was very nervous going anywhere other than my home and I had some really nasty headaches, but gradually as time has worn on the head aches have grown less frequent provided I don't 'over-do' activities during the day and don't get too stressed out. The thing that has been the hardest is every day is so completely different and I just cant seem to keep up with it. Before the floater dull days used to be perfect light for me outside, now they have become dangerous as added to the dull, there is the black smudge which means parts of my vision is missing, making crossing the road dangerous and basically doing anything where there is lots of movement almost impossible. I manage by weighing up the importance of doing an activity..like going to the bank, or doing the shopping...with weather conditions, how I am feeling on the day and what the public are doing outside of my nice safe house, so, I wouldn't go shopping into town or to a big supermarket on a Friday or a weekend, I am happy to go into a small supermarket or into town provided I can leave if its too busy and have nothing specific to buy, that way the pressure for actually looking is off. I also wouldn't go for a swim during school holidays or weekends but I know that Mondays at 12 noon are usually the perfect time to go. All this learning what I cant and can do and predicting the best time to do things just doesn't come easily and has taken the best part of six months to regain some confidence in trusting myself to do things safely.
As my confidence improved so did my need to get back to work and get back to what I used to be able to do, so I spoke to my Doctor and I had a meeting at work with my boss and my representative from RNIB, and it was agreed that I could be signed back fit to work, I would have to have a risk assessment so I wouldn't be able to work with the children until after the assessment had taken place, I found this hugely frustrating, slightly demeaning as I felt that after working with these children for fourteen years I was suddenly some sort of terrible risk to them, I went home feeling crushed, however my boss agreed that I could go into school an hour before the children got in to the classrooms in the mornings to reacquaint my self with the building, my classroom, the staff and actually the whole procedure of getting myself from my warm cosy bed to work, which was exhausting in its self.
The first morning was so exciting, I caught up with everyone and disappeared as the buses brought the children in, when I got home I went back to bed and slept for three hours because I was so tired. The second day was much the same, walking around the corridors and chatting to people, this time when I got home I had the worst headache ever, so back to bed I went again. I carried on and did a couple more mornings building up the time so that I was staying until after the children had come in and then leave once I had said 'hello' to them. On the last day before the start of the Easter holidays, I stayed a bit longer, I think I was expecting school life to be much the same for me, but it wasn't. I came home in a foul mood, feeling light headed and sick, my heart beating in my throat and just wanting to cry. So, once again I took myself to bed and cried until I fell asleep. The next few days I slipped into a bit of a depression and I just couldn't figure out why and it took a very wet day and a 'talking-stick' session with the family (we have to use a talking stick in our house, which isn't really a stick, we use the remote control for the telly, otherwise everyone just screams over everyone else) to fully understand what I was feeling, it also took me those few days of sitting on the edge of my bed staring in to space to accept that I was the one who had changed and not the environment around me, work was no more challenging than its always been but I am just unable to keep up with it now. It has taken a lot of soul searching to admit to myself that I may not be safe in the role I used to do, it has also been a struggle to accept that there are no other roles that can be offered to me within my present employment.
But now I get it, I really do get it. My usual reaction to anything that I feel I am failing at is that I am clearly not trying hard enough to achieve what I want and failure has never been an option, I have always pushed myself to my limit but the limit has been moved and I didn't see it coming at all!! (excuse the pun) The problem is, my brain as soon as I got into work, was screaming at me to perform at my usual speed, to work as the 'guide' of our classroom staff and to generally get back to bossing the hell out of everyone...staff and pupils included. But I hit a brick wall so to speak, I just cant perform at a level that I am comfortable with, I cannot track the movements around me quick enough for them to register in my brain and so it was making me unsteady on my feet, I couldn't cope with the noise level at all and so I was in danger of shutting down or having a complete panic attack, I couldn't hear what people were saying because I couldn't filter out all the unimportant noises like normal people do, I now fully understand the need for a risk assessment and to start with I felt a complete useless failure.
Then someone told me that I had shown great courage to even consider going back to work, to instigate the return to work procedure but it takes an even greater courage to acknowledge the fact that I am not the person I was and I cannot do the things I once could do. I am happy doing things slowly and comfortably and I know deep down inside I wont pass any risk assessment and for the most part now I have to prepare myself for the future. I cannot feel sad or bear any grudge for what is being mapped out for me because as they say one door closes and another one opens.
Like I say, I feel in a very hard place at the moment because I feel that I should be sharing these thoughts and feelings with you as some of you may be going though the same things, but I am not sure how much I can say. If there is one piece of advise I can offer, its stay honest with yourself and go with those gut feelings, mostly they are right! Treat your employers like friends not enemies, no one knows what people are really thinking, but you have to look at the bigger picture, consider the people around you in your work-place. Because of the person I was, the willingness to step up and take the lead and the speed in which I worked makes me a risk, I will never be able to slow down or take a back seat and that will cause risk to the ladies I love to work alongside, the children who have become part of my heart and a risk to myself.
I don't want to finish on a heavy note, so let me tell you about these pebble things I discovered, well, I didn't discover them, they were some one else's idea, all around the country people are painting pebbles or rocks and leaving them in places for people to find, when you find one you either pick it up and re-hide it or take it home, paint a new one and replace the one you took home, I am thinking about getting someone to help me paint two..one with the RNIB logo on and the other with Moorfields logo on and see how far they travel, look out for my rocks everyone!
I found (well Ralph found it really, sniffing it thinking it was something delish to eat) this one on a wall xx
I am not sure how much I can share with you but I have reached a really scary point in my life and I just want to fast forward it. As you know I have lost more of the vision in my good eye, have a big black floater which distorts the vision I do have and a small hole has appeared in the retina since last September. This has meant that I have been signed off unfit for work since then, I have spent the months since then going to Moorfields for check ups and readjusting to the new level of sight and dealing with this stupid floater. To start with I was very nervous going anywhere other than my home and I had some really nasty headaches, but gradually as time has worn on the head aches have grown less frequent provided I don't 'over-do' activities during the day and don't get too stressed out. The thing that has been the hardest is every day is so completely different and I just cant seem to keep up with it. Before the floater dull days used to be perfect light for me outside, now they have become dangerous as added to the dull, there is the black smudge which means parts of my vision is missing, making crossing the road dangerous and basically doing anything where there is lots of movement almost impossible. I manage by weighing up the importance of doing an activity..like going to the bank, or doing the shopping...with weather conditions, how I am feeling on the day and what the public are doing outside of my nice safe house, so, I wouldn't go shopping into town or to a big supermarket on a Friday or a weekend, I am happy to go into a small supermarket or into town provided I can leave if its too busy and have nothing specific to buy, that way the pressure for actually looking is off. I also wouldn't go for a swim during school holidays or weekends but I know that Mondays at 12 noon are usually the perfect time to go. All this learning what I cant and can do and predicting the best time to do things just doesn't come easily and has taken the best part of six months to regain some confidence in trusting myself to do things safely.
As my confidence improved so did my need to get back to work and get back to what I used to be able to do, so I spoke to my Doctor and I had a meeting at work with my boss and my representative from RNIB, and it was agreed that I could be signed back fit to work, I would have to have a risk assessment so I wouldn't be able to work with the children until after the assessment had taken place, I found this hugely frustrating, slightly demeaning as I felt that after working with these children for fourteen years I was suddenly some sort of terrible risk to them, I went home feeling crushed, however my boss agreed that I could go into school an hour before the children got in to the classrooms in the mornings to reacquaint my self with the building, my classroom, the staff and actually the whole procedure of getting myself from my warm cosy bed to work, which was exhausting in its self.
The first morning was so exciting, I caught up with everyone and disappeared as the buses brought the children in, when I got home I went back to bed and slept for three hours because I was so tired. The second day was much the same, walking around the corridors and chatting to people, this time when I got home I had the worst headache ever, so back to bed I went again. I carried on and did a couple more mornings building up the time so that I was staying until after the children had come in and then leave once I had said 'hello' to them. On the last day before the start of the Easter holidays, I stayed a bit longer, I think I was expecting school life to be much the same for me, but it wasn't. I came home in a foul mood, feeling light headed and sick, my heart beating in my throat and just wanting to cry. So, once again I took myself to bed and cried until I fell asleep. The next few days I slipped into a bit of a depression and I just couldn't figure out why and it took a very wet day and a 'talking-stick' session with the family (we have to use a talking stick in our house, which isn't really a stick, we use the remote control for the telly, otherwise everyone just screams over everyone else) to fully understand what I was feeling, it also took me those few days of sitting on the edge of my bed staring in to space to accept that I was the one who had changed and not the environment around me, work was no more challenging than its always been but I am just unable to keep up with it now. It has taken a lot of soul searching to admit to myself that I may not be safe in the role I used to do, it has also been a struggle to accept that there are no other roles that can be offered to me within my present employment.
But now I get it, I really do get it. My usual reaction to anything that I feel I am failing at is that I am clearly not trying hard enough to achieve what I want and failure has never been an option, I have always pushed myself to my limit but the limit has been moved and I didn't see it coming at all!! (excuse the pun) The problem is, my brain as soon as I got into work, was screaming at me to perform at my usual speed, to work as the 'guide' of our classroom staff and to generally get back to bossing the hell out of everyone...staff and pupils included. But I hit a brick wall so to speak, I just cant perform at a level that I am comfortable with, I cannot track the movements around me quick enough for them to register in my brain and so it was making me unsteady on my feet, I couldn't cope with the noise level at all and so I was in danger of shutting down or having a complete panic attack, I couldn't hear what people were saying because I couldn't filter out all the unimportant noises like normal people do, I now fully understand the need for a risk assessment and to start with I felt a complete useless failure.
Then someone told me that I had shown great courage to even consider going back to work, to instigate the return to work procedure but it takes an even greater courage to acknowledge the fact that I am not the person I was and I cannot do the things I once could do. I am happy doing things slowly and comfortably and I know deep down inside I wont pass any risk assessment and for the most part now I have to prepare myself for the future. I cannot feel sad or bear any grudge for what is being mapped out for me because as they say one door closes and another one opens.
Like I say, I feel in a very hard place at the moment because I feel that I should be sharing these thoughts and feelings with you as some of you may be going though the same things, but I am not sure how much I can say. If there is one piece of advise I can offer, its stay honest with yourself and go with those gut feelings, mostly they are right! Treat your employers like friends not enemies, no one knows what people are really thinking, but you have to look at the bigger picture, consider the people around you in your work-place. Because of the person I was, the willingness to step up and take the lead and the speed in which I worked makes me a risk, I will never be able to slow down or take a back seat and that will cause risk to the ladies I love to work alongside, the children who have become part of my heart and a risk to myself.
I don't want to finish on a heavy note, so let me tell you about these pebble things I discovered, well, I didn't discover them, they were some one else's idea, all around the country people are painting pebbles or rocks and leaving them in places for people to find, when you find one you either pick it up and re-hide it or take it home, paint a new one and replace the one you took home, I am thinking about getting someone to help me paint two..one with the RNIB logo on and the other with Moorfields logo on and see how far they travel, look out for my rocks everyone!
I found (well Ralph found it really, sniffing it thinking it was something delish to eat) this one on a wall xx
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