Life on Hold

I had a little run in with a colleague this week...well turned in to quite a row after a couple minutes. Here's how it started...

Another colleague was pointing out that we didn't have enough staff in the company available to do certain specialised work. That kind of work can only be done by the people who have done a special one week course given in another country and it costs the company a fortune to send select few people there to take it.

I jumped in and told my colleague that I have a friend who did the course but that her expertise is gone to waste. I explained that she was planning for a while to try and get pregnant somewhere in that summer and she did, about 2 weeks after doing that course. Here's where it got bad... I said that she shouldn't have taken that spot in the course "knowing" she wasn't going to be using her expertise for the next 2+ years. I know this person very well and I know that the course isn't at all in her field of interest for advancement in the company. I said to my colleagues that she totally wasted the company's money and she took the place of somebody else who might have needed the course to advance his/her career.

One of my younger colleagues barked out : "Well it doesn't mean that you're pregnant that you have to put your life on hold!!!" and she left the room before I could say anything else. It's like she just lit a fire and left. What does a fire do? Well it burns, burns and burns...and it really hurts.

I felt so demolished by those words "put your life on hold", because that's exactly how my life has been since 2009...on hold.

There's a big difference between being pregnant and having chronic pain or a chronic illness.

Pregnant women are radiant and full of joy preparing for their little bundle of joy. They have regular doctor visits and their health is checked like clockwork for 9 months to make sure they and their fetus are lollipop perfect. Their doctors are happy to see them and give them a lot of needed attention and reassurance for things to come. Most importantly of all, pregnant women (most of them) are healthy, aren't handicapped or in constant debilitating pain and are functional. 

Their pregnancy is a choice they made to create a new chapter to their lives.








When you're a chronic pain/chronic illness patient, your doctor tries everything to get rid of you. They have no empathy and try to get you out the door A.S.A.P. to avoid hearing your pain problems. Some will treat you like a nut job or a junkie trying to get pain medication. Having chronic pain forces you to drop some previously enjoyed activities and there's a of grieving done about all that is lost (friendships, relationships, etc.) 








In this case, the book of life gets a bunch of pages ripped out of the previous chapters and the next chapters aren't solely written by the person... Mr. Pain/ Mrs. Illness decides to add some shit bombs to that book of life and the story completely loses it's appeal.  




It got me angry for the rest of my day because she made me look like a selfish person and the words "put your life on hold" rang in my head all day long. I wanted to talk to her, but she kept avoiding me all day and I finally decided to forget about trying to explain myself. Besides, she has no fucking idea what it really means to put your life on hold.

I do not believe that pregnant women have their lives on hold because they can do whatever the fuck they want as long as it doesn't harm the fetus. Most of them can work full time, do physical activities, do errands, keep the house clean, cook dinner every night, prepare a nursery, etc. Some even run in marathons, yes in fucking marathons! If you compare that with someone who has a debilitating chronic illness/chronic pain for years (maybe their whole life), it's not such a bad deal to have 9 months of pregnancy and you're life isn't on hold...you're actually moving on with your life by having children and starting a family.







I secretly envy pregnant women for having that sunshiny life...cause mine has a bunch of dark clouds full of pain that come out every single day.

My life has been on hold for long enough that I have had to re-think my future plans for what to do if my hip surgeries are successful or if they don't work to restore my mobility. I have to have a plan A, plan B, plan C, etc. for just about everything in my life. 






Healthy people don't have to use so many letters in the alphabet as people with chronic pain/chronic illnesses do... usually plan A works perfectly every time for em!  








~Klau