Today, we’re pleased to present our guest Rosalind Joffe, author of the new book Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep Working Girlfriend! (Demos Medical Publishing, 2008). Along with Joan Friedlander, Rosalind offers this book as a resource for those of us who are struggling between choosing to continue working and the necessity to manage our health and wellness.
As a Chronic Illness Career Coach (in addition to having lived with autoimmune illnesses for 30 years), Rosalind knows how difficult the decision to maintain our careers and employment can be when our bodies can no longer burden the load of a typical work week. As mentioned in other reviews for this book, Rosalind offers us a spotlight on how integral work is to our identities - be it through employment, as mothers and caretakers or through volunteer opportunities. Finding purpose and affirmation in our lives after the diagnosis is just as important, if not more so, when we are faced with new limitations and restrictions resulting from chronic illness. Be sure to visit her blog regularly for quick points and more information about working through illness.
We will be reviewing the book more in-depth in the next few days. Today, however, she provides us with her straight-forward response to a common question that we have also come across in speaking with those of you here in the PNW:
“What do you do when you find that you are too sick to work?”
One reader commented that although he (yes, men read Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep Working, Girlfriend! ) liked the book, he wonders: what happens if you can’t get employment because you’re too sick?
Here are three common situations I’ve come across in which people find themselves unable to work:
A client, who lives with multiple sclerosis, didn’t have the physical stamina to finish getting the advanced degree that she needs to get her dietician certification and without that can’t find work that pays her a living wage.
A client who lost her full time job as an administrative assistant because she was unable to do the work but finds she can’t doesn’t have the strength for the part time work that she has found – even if she could afford to live on it.
A reader who is periodically too sick to do anything other than take care of himself, lives on SSDI, but wants to work at something, but wonders what?
I’m sure there are many other scenarios that have happened to you or someone you know. It’s easy to imagine how chronic illness can lead to unemployment.
But what do you do when you don’t want to accept that as the “answer”?
First, if you’re considering self employment, read Chapter 7 in the book because there’s great detail about the things you should consider. But unless you’re highly accomplished and already have a roster of clients from your last job, you need a certain level of health to create and run a new business. And you need the funds to tide yourself over while you’re launching.
In the examples I cited above, both clients found employment but not for long. Client #1 is committed to creating self employment and is taking online courses to develop a new skill. She’s fortunate to have a spouse who can support their family until she can develop something. But that’s not financially sustainable for the long term.
Client #2 took a part time job which lasted one month because she couldn’t fulfill the hourly requirement. She’s applied for SSDI. She’s looking at options for earning small amounts money to supplement disability, if she gets it. Her hope is that SSDI is a short term solution and eventually she’ll find a part time job that she could do, get well enough to go back to work full time or move to a part of the country that has better employment opportunities.
The 3rd scenario is the toughest. I wish I could offer answers to the dilemma of employment with poor health. But I don’t have a magic box. Living with chronic illness makes you more vulnerable. But you can move beyond that.
Find something that you care about doing. And do it regularly. Make sure it gives you interaction with others and, if possible, try to do something that offers you a new skill or training. And then work hard (within your ability) to get as good at that as possible.
Maybe this skill will eventually lead to paid work. There are no promises. But if nothing else, work of some kind (and I’m talking about non paid/volunteer work) will keep your mind engaged, keep your “resume” growing, increase your desirability to possible employers and open your network to possible employers. And having to “show up” gives you a reason to get out of bed every day.
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Rosalind Joffe, the co-author of Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep Working, Girlfriend!, is founder and president of cicoach.com , a resource for professionals who live with chronic illness. Rosalind is a career coach for people with chronic illness and has a blog, Working With Chronic Illness.
