Good news/bad news

[lstrl]

I applied for LTD in March and also applied for a job with an insurance company shortly after. I had a phone interview maybe last week, and I thought it went terribly (it never sounds like a good thing when the interviewer says you need to google behavioral interviews because she can tell you don't have much experience with them). Then I got home yesterday and she had left a message stating that she wanted to set up a final interview with the hiring managers. That does still mean one more interview, but I'm thinking that means I've got a really good shot at this.

The only problem is, I'm not exactly thrilled. Yes, it's a paycheck, and I desperately need one, but the closer I get to this job, the further I want to push myself away. I don't know if it's because I'm nervous about switching career fields or going back to work after being home for so long with MS, or if it truly is because I really don't want to do this type of work. Every step I take, I get more upset that I'm not going into another nursing job.

The thing is though, I did nothing but complain about my nursing jobs as I had them. I got sick of drs pushing me around and thinking they're way better than me when they couldn't do their job without me. It was also frustrating when management didn't care at all about their staff. All everyone wanted to do (no matter where I worked) was get patients in and out as quickly as possible with no regard to quality or safety, as long as there was no risk of being sued. I hated that. On the flip side, it's not the job that was bad, just all the politics surrounding it. I would much rather do a job like that than work in a call center type environment. I was really good at what I did too, and everyone (except those at my most recent job because I wasn't there long enough) knew it.

As for the LTD claim, I just looked online (since they can't call for anything, even when I leave them messages) this morning and it says I was denied. It doesn't state anything about what backed their decision, so I'll have to wait to find out. Whatever it is, I really get the feeling I could fight it and eventually win, but that takes time and I may have a job offer soon and don't know if it's even worth it. Ultimately, I'd rather get the LTD with the hope that I could eventually find a nursing job, but it doesn't exactly look like that'll be happening.

It's just so frustrating that I spent all this time to go to school and get my bachelor's degree, only to be pushed away from the one thing I was good at and possibly take a stupid job that I really don't want. I imagine it would be less stressful, and I know they provide opportunities for advancement (which I wanted in my nursing career but because I wasn't a suck up like some of the others, I didn't get that), but I still don't want it. Nothing has made me feel good about this, and it is also extremely embarrassing knowing that they'll be calling my old work references and they'll end up seeing that because of my failure, I can't even do the one thing I'm good at anymore.

I'm not going to lie, when I look at all this crap I'm dealing with right now, I really wish it could have been one of those horrible people in management at one of the hospitals I worked with that got stuck with this instead of me. They didn't care about what really mattered, while I always did. I always did the best job I could, while they never cared. Yes, they are much more deserving of MS than I am, so why did it have to hit me?

[Temagami]

You need to give yourself some time and space to adjust to this enormous blow. I read that it can take 5 years to fully digest the enormity of a MS dx. I felt like I was doing okay after two weeks, then I read that tidbit, so I took a deep breath. You need time to grieve the loss of your professional life and all the dreams that went with it. I am two years into this journey and have figured out how to move that imaginary stone that was on my chest and literally making it hard to breath. What lifted the stone was hope. Yes, hope allowed me to lift the stone and toss it off to the side. I firmly believe that stem cell research is the ticket for us and that it will come in time. They are already at Phase III trials and Northwestern University is leading the way with stem cells from the blood and a less damaging chemo rx than for cancer. At first grief is the predominant feeling and bit by bit, hope dances into your life and pushes the grief aside.
Thinking of you,
Temagami

[Milhous]

I agree with Temagami and one does need too take the time and grieve. It is a process that we all go through that is not one any time table and every exacerbation you have sets one back.
prayers
milhous

[Nabbosa]

Other kinds of nursing?

I'll agree about the grieving. It too me about 2 years, and I've heard that's a pretty common amount of time.

Would it be possible to look for a different kind of nursing than you were doing before, if the MS was interfering with your job? My mother was an RN, and changed over her career from OR to ER, and then to school nursing when my older brothers hit school age. After I was old enough, she worked in a nursing home on weekends, and later did home care on a temporary basis, as well as doing temporary assignments in private practices. And ultimately she returned to being a school nurse again.

I switched careers myself, because the non-political parts of the job didn't make up for the political nonsense. Now I'm in a field that I can take the political nonsense because the rest is fulfilling enough to make up for it. But maybe keep in mind that the office job doesn't have to be permanent. Think of it as a time to recover and reorient yourself until you can figure out the next step. That can make a not-so-ideal job bearable, too.

[LisaL77]

There are contract nursing jobs, too.

For example, I work for a company that manufactures blood pressure monitoring kiosks and we hire a nurse from a outsourcer to help roll out a new machine at a pharmacy and help patients use the machine correctly and answer hypertension questions.

Something to consider.