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Argh

Hello fellow Crohnies!
I'm not doing so well right now grr. I was told yesterday by my boss that the company I work for may lay me off because of me missing work. He's a good guy and its coming from higher up in the food chain. I'm just so pissed that people can't seem to understand that I'm sick. My boss is being good about it because I had warned him when I came back that I wasn't fully well and that were going to be days were I'd have to mail it in and not be able to come and he understands that.

On top of it my parents all over me. They're frustrated that I'm not getting better and I'm frustrated I'm not getting better and it feels like things are just spiraling out of control =\ I've been referred to a new GI so we get to start fresh which I'm looking forward to.

Just had to let out a little bit. I'm just so damn stressed about everything is driving me bonkers :ybatty:
 

Kev

Senior Member
Hey drew, sorry to hear about that.. if its any consolation, from a much older mans perspective, jobs come and go. Even if it should come about, its not the end of the world.. the stress associated with the prospect of losing it is probably doing more harm than actually losing it. And, the new GI may be able to do something to turn things around for you.. make the possibility of losing your job disappear. I won't beat the subject to death, but this may be a great opportunity for you and your new GI to look at alternative, like maybe LDN. At this stage, all you can do is roll with the flow, take it easy, hope for the best.
 
Thanks Pen. My parents understand but they're upset and because of that they're putting it on me. If I eat something and suddenly its because I snuck a blizzard or something you know? I ask them what the hell they expect me to do? I have no defense, if I eat poorly I deserve it but thats not the only thing that causes me to flare. And god forbid I do anything on my off work days because if I'm too sick to work I shouldn't ever go out.. its like I should be a damn shut in. I've tried to explain to them I try and take advantage of any days where I actually feel well and that includes getting to work which is about 4 out of 5 days a week right now. I've been hit with the fatigue bug bad lately, sleeping 10-12 hours a day .. it totally sucks

I'll fight work if I'm let go because of my illness. They'll claim its due to attendance and I have a slew of emails and such that show they forced me back with veiled threats of being let go if I didn't come back when they wanted and my doctor didn't feel comfortable letting me come back but signed a release because I asked him to. So we'll see what happens. If I get laid off I'll take the severance package and use it to hire a lawyer!

[edit]
@Kev
I'm going to put together a folder with everything I can find on LDN and take it to my new GI and try and get him/her to let me try it out, I've failed just about everything else. I haven't been on the biologics yet but I'd really like to try LDN first.
 

Kev

Senior Member
Drew.. keep it short and sweet (KISS principle) the eye opener for most docs is the printout from the American Journal of Gastro-enterology.. here is the link..

http://www.amjgastro.com/showConten...1-477EF5B87543&id=ajg_104542007&type=abstract


And, you can do some legwork on what pharmacies compound it close to you via this link

http://ldn.proboards3.com/index.cgi

Like, its working for me, I'm guessing that it worked for killerzoey as he hasn't come back to the forum... Dan seemed to be OK on it, tho he wasn't overally symptomatic.. I know its pretty early, but check in with Katiesue to see if she is having any problems with it.. no news is better than bad news.. it took me a period before I had concrete evidence it was going to work.. thats the hard part.. sweating out the early, indeterminate stage.. are you in the lucky percent group or not.. Still, it has darned good numbers.. keep positive thoughts. OK?
 
aw Drew, sorry to hear all this :(

work don't seem to be particularly sympathetic, do they?? if you think you have a good case against them, and importantly - evidence, then yes, i would say take it through legal channels, but maybe not if it's going to be another big stress in your life.

i hope things pick up soon for you, with your symptoms, your parents and work. i think Pen has hit the nail on the head regarding frustration - it must be so hard for your parents to watch you suffer with ill health & pain, and not be able to mend things for you. Crohns doesn't just stress us out, it stresses our families out too.

keep your chin up, and we're all here for you.
 
Thanks Ding and Kev and Pen and everyone else. This is the one place where I can vent about these things and feel just a little bit less alone and its so nice.
 
Yeah Drew, right there with you, same issues: Parents, work wanting to sever ties with me (they'd love to), symptoms, the fatigue, the whole 9 yards...

I don't know how effective it actually is, but I try to repress my stress and think of it as temporary, and then think of what good would come of losing my job (not much to it, but I CAN think of some)....

I'd say get your/a GI to write up some documentation, or attain some medical records that document the time span of your absenses...for fatigue I'm downing cautious amounts of flat, caffienated pop with some capsules of simethicone to help with any carbonation, and as for my parents, I end up flipping out at them when they get too on my case...I feel horrible living at home at this age, it's depressing but there's nothing people like us can do when cards are dealt in a game like this. I often end up having a "fvck the world" mindset and remember that I am dealing with much more than joe schmoe who's complaining about a long line at the bank or traffic.

Hows about a fist bump buddy? :ycool:
 
I'll chime for a '3rd'. All the same problems. My wife's at my throat for being lazy, I'm a laughing stock at work because I can't work as quickly as the others thus I go home late most of the time, and I feel horrible enough that I'm getting into the 'I'm going to be hospitalized or die soon' mentality.
 
Hey Colt,

I can see why you are frustrated with everything. I'll tell you what my wife and I do when we are having problems. We send each other an email. This way there can be no argument, no interruptions, and no saying something you'll regret later. Our true feelings are expressed and we are usually calm and can have a real discussion later after we've read each others email. It doesn't solve all of our problems but it re-opens the line of communication which is important in any relationship.
 
KCMike, that's actually very ingenius, I may just suggest that with the gf for the future, just hope we don't end up sending emails about me suggesting sending emails...lol
 
Nah. That takes too much planning. I usually don't hear anything about it at all until she's charging me with some sort of weapon. It's pretty unpredictable in large part because it depends on when her mother decides to insult and humiliate her for not making me stop being a bum. Frankly I'm just too sick to do anything other than my job, and even that I can't do as well as I should. She knows that but then it ends up with the ol' 'You're always sick. You can't use that excuse forever.' So my wife gets set off by my mother-in-law whom she's unable to defend herself against and then the next time she sees me she takes it out on me because it's ultimately my fault for giving her mother yet another thing to attack her with.
 
They both know plenty. I tried to get my wife to use this forum but she's not interested. I think she'd like to forget I have the disease at all. She gets jealous that I'm always sick and seeking attention (help/support).

Even though they know about my illness I don't think people can break the idea of you not being sick when you're sitting at the computer typing on a forum or playing a game.

I think having computers, which finally provide weakened people the ability to do things despite physical limitations has done a lot to hurt us. Before people would believe you were sick because you would spend all day staring at the walls from your bed. Once the ability to watch TV or use a computer to keep your mind healthy from that bed became available all was lost.
 
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I'm sorry to hear your wife won't use the forums Colt. I was mentioning to someone else the other day that our illness aren't the type that people can really see on the outside so therefore we're not really sick until we end up in the hospital or whatever and it completely sucks.
 

My Butt Hurts

Squeals-a-lot!
AHHHH!!!!! Drew changed his picture!!!
That's it - I quit.


(Hey -did you put a girl in your pic so I stop flirting with you??)
 
Thanks ladies, that photograph is only a couple weeks old, taken on my vacation to arizona.

And an update on work, I found out through the grapevine they were going to lay me off however, thats been shelved, I think they realized that they'd have a hard time justifying laying off someone who is ill. However they've taken a new tactic of knit picking every choice I make and basically are making my life hell. I am very close to quitting. As Kev said .. jobs come and go and I don't need this crap while I'm trying to get well, this stress has made things worse recently.
 
B

Babe123

Guest
they cant make your life hell for the sake of it. its like they are discriminating against you. they cant just nit pick things you do you need to have a meeting with your bosses and tel them to sort thing out.

thats what i did with my boss and she isnt as bad.. stil points out bad things i do but its far better than she was with me.. although i am the sort of person that if my boss wants me to leave.. i wouldnt just to be awkward

but if the stress of the job is making you ill then you have to leave. your health is much more important.

:)
x
 
If you quit this job, how long would you have to go without money before you found something else, and even if you found something else, would you be too sick to work that job as well?
 
Well right now I'm living with my parents because I was on disability. I would be able to go quite a while with no income because I did the smart thing and paid everything off with my disability payments in case I lost my job. I'm not sure if I'd do any better at another job or not. I just know the stress I'm under right now is not helping for sure.
 
It sounds like you're resigning to be supported by your parents until the problem goes away. That's fine in itself but parents usually don't get along with their adult children well enough for long periods of time for that to be sustainable. I'd just hate to see you in a position in which I've found myself a lot where you're stuck living with people whom you're feuding with ever more strongly while having no chance of escape. It's just a quick way to permanently ruin your relationship with your parents.

I've been a lot happier being miserable at work and being independent than living at home supported by a relative who can't help but resent it.
 
Quite a bit of similarities here, at least on the disability front, the living with parents, and the having a rough time at work aspects at least. I haven't figured out too many solutions in my position just yet, so I can't hand out much advice Drew or Colt....but it sounds like you Colt have experienced two scenarios I ponder about (living with relatives who give you a hard time vs. living on your own with some more suffering)...

Best of wishes to us all...
 
I

Isla

Guest
I truly believe we can do anything we put our minds to. Not only do I live on my own I care for my daughter on my own, I own and operate a business, and have a household to run - all by my lonesome. You just have to really take a hard look at your priorities.

If I thought material possessions were important I wouldn't have that impressive list above. I went about 5 months in my current apartment without a couch. So you know what I did, I turned it into a positive and said "at least it prevents me from being a couch potato" a few months after I got my couch my tv broke, so for over a year I said "hey again, it will prevent me from being a couch potato." I say all this because I see people saying I wished I could make enough money from working at home - and you can as long as your take on "enough" is flexible. I do not need much to be happy - in fact I hardly need anything at all. So enough is always more than I need. I make more than enough to meet my basic needs - so as long as we have a place to live, food in our bellies, and clothes on our back we are living like kings. My social status of "poor" is very rich in other countries and I will not take for granted the things I have... because by my standards I am truly a very rich and lucky lady, crohns and all!
 
Isla said:
I truly believe we can do anything we put our minds to. Not only do I live on my own I care for my daughter on my own, I own and operate a business, and have a household to run - all by my lonesome. You just have to really take a hard look at your priorities.

If I thought material possessions were important I wouldn't have that impressive list above. I went about 5 months in my current apartment without a couch. So you know what I did, I turned it into a positive and said "at least it prevents me from being a couch potato" a few months after I got my couch my tv broke, so for over a year I said "hey again, it will prevent me from being a couch potato." I say all this because I see people saying I wished I could make enough money from working at home - and you can as long as your take on "enough" is flexible. I do not need much to be happy - in fact I hardly need anything at all. So enough is always more than I need. I make more than enough to meet my basic needs - so as long as we have a place to live, food in our bellies, and clothes on our back we are living like kings. My social status of "poor" is very rich in other countries and I will not take for granted the things I have... because by my standards I am truly a very rich and lucky lady, crohns and all!

Thats a very positive attitude Isla. I'm not into material possessions, never have been which is good considering the circumstances.

I'm just trying to focus on my health right now. If I resign from work then I have to make decisions regarding insurance, the financial aspects otherwise can be worked out and don't scare or bother me.
 
No unemployment possibility if you quit. If you get fired there is a good chance you could collect unemployment.

Hope you can improve your current condition.

Dan
 
I used to work with another crohnie who was 'asked to resign' and he gave in and did it. He lost everything and considers it the one major fuck up he's done in his life. He lost his insurance, couldn't work for a very long time and had to take charity, etc. I worked with him after he had finally started working again. All he managed to find was a near-minimum wage job that he hated. The job he did like and was capable of supporting him was gone and he'd never get it back. Nor his insurance which covered his crohn's. Now he will never have insurance covering crohn's again because it's a pre-existing condition.

It's up to you what you want to do. I'm just trying to help.
 
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I've pretty much lost everything already. This is like the dagger at this point. I'm not going to just give, at least not yet. I have a meeting with the HR department this morning to talk about everything. I asked to be laid off but that was denied based on the belief they can't back fill my position. I'm looking into either private insurance or possibly state help. If I can get some damn relief I'd be happy to work, thats not the damn issue as I'm sure you all who are going through this know very well.
 
Oh, I know. Except you can forget about insurance because the crohn's disease is a pre-existing condition. If you're in the US you can forget about State help too. You're an adult male without a developmental disability. Apparently no one in the entire country wants to help people like us. Children, absolutely. Women, ok. Men? We have too many of those evil things anyway. The public opinion on providing us health care is so bad I can't see government health of any sort covering adult males for at least another 100 years.

Colt - Forum Pessimist
 
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Well was terminated today. I worked out my final day to be the 2nd of September so that I would have insurance through the end of that month. Needless to say I'm bummed ... but at least I have insurance long enough to go to my appt at OHSU on the 26th of August and I have an appt with my GP on August 27th.
 
Sorry to hear it. Is there any way you could get help to cover your Cobra payments? It's expensive but your company is required by law to offer it to you. If you could afford to do it at least for a few months, it could give you time to find a new job. There may also be some state programs.

When I was in a similar situation I looked into private insurance and nobody would take me because of crohn's. They referred me to the state programs which were not much help either. But each state is different. If it all possible, though, you don't want to have any gaps in your coverage.

I know it sucks, but it helps to keep plowing forward and trying and doing everything you can. I've wondered what it would be like to have cancer, or something, that required expensive treatment and how I would get by. It could always be worse.
 
sorry to hear Drew, that is all so damn unfair for you!!

how much burden does one person have to carry?????
 
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