Comments on: Second Shift for the Sick

By: Yes I am « almost normal

Yes I am « almost normal — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:09:50 +0000

[...] and so a routine trip to one of my doctors takes the best part of a day. I’m angry because being sick is a full-time job and there aren’t any days off. I’m angry because I have to work twice as hard as any [...]

By: Robyn

Robyn — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:59:50 +0000

I just related to this post so strongly. Even though you wrote it a long time ago, I’d like to thank you to putting words to some of my frustrations. I realize that everybody has their own burdens, I appreciate that, I really do, but I often bristle at the assumption of well people that their wellness is their own making and not, in many ways, a luck of the draw. I’m back in university after a year off being sick, and I have a particular professor who seems to take my most recent flare and a subsequently late paper as a personal affront to him. After lecturing me about how everyone has problems, he then chewed me out about sending the paper to him by email instead of dropping it off in his home mailbox, which is apparently his personal preference. I assume it’s meant to be punitive, but I live an hour away, I barely get out of bed most days, he knows I’ve been sicker than usual, and I just spent the last 3 days fighting my illness to finish this paper. I feel like the inconvenience to him– having to print out my paper– is so much less than the inconvenience to me. I just wish that some people would think before they continue to heap shit upon your head. Just to be safe, I sent him a hard copy via snail mail. A little much? Anyone?

By: Annie

Annie — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 01:31:15 +0000

This pretty much blew my mind to read. I am also currently disabled (but without any papers to show for it) but you wouldn’t know it from my outside. But this description made me actually recognize how much WORK I do to do simple basic procedures for anyone else.

Yet the system treats me like it’s all my fault. I am in complete poverty and without money coming from my parents I would be dead.

Just one more thing to add on top of a sick person’s problem pile. Nice world.

You should come visit my website – It’s Time To Get Over How Fragile You Are – sometime. Incredible article.

By: Taylor Serenil

Taylor Serenil — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:53:40 +0000

I am legally disabled. 99% of the time if you just look at me you wouldn’t know it (I’m bipolar and I have a seizure disorder as well).

But: I have to schedule time with my psychiatrist every three months or so, which tends to mean a long wait in his office as well as a long roundtrip. I put up with it because a) good shrink and b) takes Medicare. I could be definitely be doing something more productive (or even just taking a nap) with that time.

Also, the fact that I really do not have steady hands 100% of the time disqualifies me from some of the jobs that my college degree would potentially qualify me for, and means that that same degree in some ways overqualifies me for many of the office type positions I’m trying for instead.

The depression isn’t fun either, and the fact that enough stress will just about guarantee a nice case of tremors–well, that’s something the theoretically normal aren’t likely to have to deal with either.

So I definitely agree with the “second shift for the sick” you describe so well.

By: FWD/Forward » Second Shift for the Sick

FWD/Forward » Second Shift for the Sick — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:21:31 +0000

[...] (Originally posted November 2008 at three rivers fog.) [...]

By: Liz

Liz — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 05:36:54 +0000

Thanks! Yes all of this! I really like the end of your post – valuing interdependency.

By: Tori

Tori — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 04:43:09 +0000

I know you wrote it a while ago, but thank you -- today -- for this. I'm at the end of a week where I'm tired of explaining to people why their perception of my condition Does. Not. Work. Why "exercising to get rid of [my] cramps" is laughable at best and dangerous at worst. Why trying that OTC pain reliever instead of this one really will help me because it really is better for Stranger Who I Don't Know. (Never mind that in reality, I've tried them both too many times to count.) Why "it doesn't hurt today as much as it did yesterday" DOES NOT EQUAL "there is no pain today." And also? I am tired of being publicly optimistic and philosophical about hurting.

By: pgdudda

pgdudda — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:37:28 +0000

+100000000000

THIS. SO MUCH THIS, that there is not enough THIS to sufficiently cover the THIS-ness of this post.

By: What Does Health Care Reform Really Mean to American Fatasses? Part 2: Working Us To Death « fat fu

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:14:21 +0000

[...] else they have to do to survive. People with disabilities get worked to death too, what with second shift for the sick and [...]

By: Jesse the K

Jesse the K — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:51:08 +0000

Outstanding! The effort expended to put these ideas into eloquent words is now, and will be, appreciated.

By: three rivers fog » Take the hit to make the play

three rivers fog » Take the hit to make the play — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:01:06 +0000

[...] that’s watered-down and half the quality of what an abled person can access in one step. This is the second shift for the sick. It is very hard for many abled people to understand exactly how much we take on when we become [...]

By: three rivers fog » 2SftS

three rivers fog » 2SftS — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:22:32 +0000

[...] it’s an acronym, but it sounds like a snake. Ffffsssstttt. OK, I am easily [...]

By: On heart, strength, endurance and engagement, or, a 2008 review « Zero at the Bone

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 05:28:33 +0000

[...] personal and the political came together for me more than ever before, and I learned so much about reframing language relating to disability, about rape apologism in the legal system, about honouring our menstruation. And there was much by [...]

By: amandaw

amandaw — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 13:50:24 +0000

Bene – I’ve purposefully trained myself to stop buying into the artificial separation of mental/physical illness, much as though dental and vision aren’t important parts of bodily health. Mental illness is/can be a form of disability exactly as physical can — if it, or society’s way of dealing with it, prevents you from full participation on society — ie access. And many illnesses have both mental and physical components.

And the second shift is all the more exhausting when it comes to mental illness — my severe social anxiety was not at all aided by that sheer exhaustion when it came to fighting for access. You are already fighting just to keep yourself going in everyday life, and then you have to fight with your phone company, your landlord, your pharmacy, your boss? You get tuckered out really quick with all that going on. And healthy folk rarely see that side of things – they don’t realize. It’s not just a minor stress that we should be able to “think positive” our way through. It is an all-encompassing burden, one we never really escape. Maybe once in awhile their bank gives them trouble — but we face that EVERY day, in EVERY effort in EVERY area. What you feel during that occasional stress does not equal what you feel during that chronic stress.

So… ya. I get you. I hate it when people don’t seem to get why I seem so tired, when I haven’t been doing anything that they can see. Sometimes it’s just the fm (comes with the territory) but sometimes it’s emotional exhaustion. And it keeps me from even being able to chat with a friend for five minutes. It’s not a small thing.

By: annaham

annaham — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 04:20:34 +0000

I’m so glad you posted this. I’ve been recovering from an unfortunate ER visit (and recovering from all of the meds I’ve been on for the past couple of days), and I *needed* to read this to know I’m not alone. I’ve been just barely making it–took some time off from school/work/other commitments, but getting back on that horse has been tough.
Long story short, I’m totally exhausted (more so than usual), and it’s nice to know that I’m not the only one. (Also, thanks for linking me!)

annahams last blog post.."Traditional Marriage," My Ass

By: Bene

Bene — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 01:28:35 +0000

While I’m not certain if you meant this only in the context of physical illness and disability, it speaks to me from the mental illness POV also. This expresses all the things I haven’t been able to say when people ask me why I’m so tired, why I can’t seem to summon the energy to ‘be productive’. And thank you for helping me gain some context for the POV of people with chronic illness/disability.(via Hoyden)

By: Book Girl

Book Girl — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 09:50:50 +0000

I needed to read this today, a day where I have yet again been worn down to the bone, and then some. I haven’t been able to write anything coherent about how hard things are for a long time, they have been to hard to let anything else through. Thank you for writing what I can’t.

Book Girls last blog post..How is it possible…

By: Dave Bath

Dave Bath — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 09:13:28 +0000

The “second shift” metaphor is brilliant! Or perhaps “third shift” if you are working and a parent. (So, just as the third shift is finishing, it’s already time to start the next first shift…. aaaaaaaah! So relieved I’m over that stage!)
I hope that you get the same break I did: every decade a new type of drug (or treatment / aid / technique) is developed that means the second shift is a shorter one.
I always remember an anecdote my pharmacology lecturer told us, about a young woman back in the 1920s with malignant hypertension, with the only available treatment something that nearly wiped out response to things like adrenaline, almost immobilising her. By the late 70’s, when I was at uni, this lady was having a “wonderful life”, that the “decades of hell” were worth it, because the drugs had become more specific every decade, and her capacity to do things was now on a par with everyone else her age. Nice story. I didn’t know then I’d be needing it a decade later to cheer me up.

Dave Baths last blog post..Revenge of the Nerds

By: shades of blue

shades of blue — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 07:31:29 +0000

Thank you. I’ve spent today practically in tears trying to convey to my concerned loved ones just how exhausted I feel, and why, so this post has rung very, very true for me.

By: lauredhel

lauredhel — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 07:13:00 +0000

This is a bloody marvellous post.