Last week I had to go into work to fill out new leave of absence forms. Before moving away for nursing school, I was a cashier at a large supermarket chain. The pay wasn't great but I generally enjoyed the work and had fun with my co-workers. That being said, I didn't want to be a cashier forever and my history degree was more like a degree in unemployment. And I had already known for a while that the aspirations I had at the start of university had changed - I wanted a skill and a job that would help people in my community, not an office job researching historical topics that nobody would ever hear about anyways. Nursing was the perfect fit.
The company I worked for has a policy that allows you to take a leave of absence to pursue post-secondary education. I jumped at the chance, knowing it would be a security blanker in case I wouldn't get a job offer between graduating with my nursing diploma and writing the certification exam. If I hadn't gotten sick, I would be finishing off my last semester at school right now and perhaps planning on returning to work as a cashier depending if I was offered a job or not from my final clinical placement (there are rules about being able to work before you write your certification exam). Obviously, things haven't worked out in my favor and I have been on leave from school for the last six months with a giant piece of metal stuck to my leg.
Although I was originally told that leave of absence forms are valid for a full calendar year, this turns out not to be true. Now I have already had problems with this form - it was lost after I submitted the original copy, then there was something wrong with it over the course of the summer and I had to fill it out again. Last week Tuesday I found a message on the answering machine informing me that I had to hand in a new form by the end of the week or I would be let go... except they didn't say let go. They used that dreaded f word, fired. Obviously I didn't want that. If I were to leave, I would want to do it on my terms. Resigning and getting a good reference looks much better than being fired when looking for a new job. And I have always been a hardworking, reliable employee and friendly co-worker. Plus, the customers loved me - I was always smiling. Being fired wouldn't do.
So I called the store and asked to be put through to the front end. One of my favorite co-workers, C., answered. She didn't know what was really going on but she did some digging and figured out what it came down to. I did, indeed, need to fill out the leave form much more often. No big deal. She asked how I had been doing so I told her a bit about what had been happening and that I had been off of school since the end of August. She ended the call by saying I should come visit the store sometimes and that she missed my lovely smile.
On Thursday, after physiotherapy, I managed to pop by the store to fill out the new papers. I honestly didn't think that it would so that hard to go in, but it was. A lot of my old co-workers recognized me. As I made my way to the cupboard where the forms are kept at the other end of the store, they one by one came up and asked how I was doing. Many of them were shocked when they saw the fixator and I briefly explained what happened. C., had told some of the other employees that I had been ill and word had gotten around. Nobody had really known that I was ill before that. Everyone asked questions about school or how I was doing. These questions where difficult enough to answer as is. But then people started asking How is your new life? That was even harder, more challenging. How do you explain to people that things had not gone as hoped. That I wasn't in school at the moment, that a serious chronic infection had relapsed, that I had already had two major surgeries with more two come, that I had spent the better part of the last twelve months on antibiotics and lost a large chunk of my tibia?
Harder still was having to think about all the things I was missing out on. I wasn't in school or working. Meanwhile, my former co-workers lives continued. My classmates where well into their pre-grad placements and preparing to graduate and write their certification exam. Meanwhile, I was just stuck at home, doing nothing, up to my eyeballs in pain medication and trying to get through each day. By the time I got back into the car, I was well and truly spent. I miss my old life. I want to be able to get up in the morning and think that each day is full of hope and possibility. I need to be doing something with my life, not doing things that no 23 year old should ever be doing, medical things that people older than me by at least forty years do. At the moment I am stuck in this weird place, a place where everything is suspended and you couldn't do something productive to save your life. I don't know how to describe it. It just sucks.
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