If you’re clicking on blogs titled ‘working alongside a chronic health condition’ then I know you’re already finding the two things don’t get on very well. Much like the game Duel on The Gladiators. There can only be one winner and it’s not usually your quality of life. Is it?
Working alongside a chronic health condition not only exacerbates your health issues, but also plays havoc with your mind and emotions, doesn’t it?
Guilt being one emotion that hangs about like a bad smell. Guilt that you’re letting colleagues down, letting your employers down, wondering what they’re really thinking when you ask for another day off, or to work from home a bit more. Do they even believe you’re ill if it’s a hidden condition? Your evenings are spent in an exhausted slumber, weekends are much the same. You’ve become somewhat isolated. Those friends were fine about you cancelling meet ups initially, but now the invites have reduced, or maybe stopped completely.
You know you deserve a better quality of life.
But you need to work, don’t you?
Not doing so can impact you physically, mentally and financially and have further life limiting effects, can’t it?
It’s been proven time and again that it’s much better for those with chronic health illnesses to be working, as it can contribute to your overall health and wellbeing, but it’s also causing you so many negative issues. To put it another way, working can affect your mental health, but we also need to work to improve our mental health.
There’s not only no cure for your health conditions, there’s also no end to the confusion.
How can we make things easier?
‘The Equality Act 2010 requires employers to make reasonable adjustments for employees with disabilities or chronic health conditions.’
I am more than sure you already know that, as part of The Equality Act 2010, employers must make adjustments for their employees with chronic health conditions. But even they have to limits to how much they can do before it gets too much.
So let’s keep this real.
Every business has to make a profit to enable it to keep going – I know you know that too.
No profit means there is no job for you.
They don’t have money to pay you, or themselves, and they too have personal outgoings like us.
Whether you work for the local chap who runs ‘Frank’s Paving’, and only operates in a ten mile radius 3 days a week, or a company worth billions, they have to make a profit. In fact, the company worth billions needs to make even more (not out of greed, it’s because the bigger you get the more help you need, which in turn means bigger premises, more reliable IT equipment, an IT department, and so it goes on).
If a company has an employee with a chronic health condition then it’s inevitable that, that employee will need more time off (hospital appointments, flare ups, fatigue, mental health collapses) than the employee who ‘hasn’t had a sick day in 25 years’. (Alright, Jane, no one likes a martyr!) It’s not your fault, it’s damn hard trying to manage every day life with the array of symptoms you’re carrying around with you.
I know. I understand. I get it.
I have chronic health issues too. I have been carrying around a recurring, aggressive, Pituitary brain tumour since 2011. I’ve had (to date):
- Four rounds of neurosurgery, that takes more away from my quality of life every time.
- Intensive Gamma Knife radiotherapy which created many long-term side effects
- Chemotherapy and I also have
- Addison’s disease so my immune system is constantly half asleep, at best. I cannot cope with any stress without my body wanting to shut down, literally, and I am constantly fatigued.
I get it, I really do.
After many months in bed after each of my surgeries, after my quality of life decreased to virtually worthless proportions towards the end of my chemotherapy in 2024, I understand how much we need a purpose. A reason to wake up every day. Whether that day is spent propped up in bed, or you manage to make it to the living room, or you have extra energy to venture outside, there needs to be a purpose that gives you a sense of achievement, a sense of contribution to society, a sense of joy.
If I’d not had that purpose during my months and months of being in bed, I know where I’d be now.
I also get that employment doesn’t work for us, no matter how many adjustments they could possibly make, not in a way that really makes a difference to our lives.
The alternative for many is to give up work and go on benefits. I considered it back in 2015 when just getting to work took everything I had for that day / week. Every morning I’d reach the security gate and it’d feel like I’d walked straight into a brick wall. If you decide, or have already decided, to leave employment and accept financial support through benefits, you’ll get zero judgement from me, because that’s what they’re there for! To help, to make life easier.
But I also know the government can’t add up very well.
‘Right, so. Let’s get local authorities to put council tax up by a couple of hundred a year. That combined with utilities increasing by around 30000% means the average outgoings for one person is (*bangs on calculator*) around £2000 a month, so we’ll give everyone who struggles with chronic health conditions and a poor quality of life, through nothing they’ve done, (*pulls out abacus*) £484 a month’.
Benefits can ‘help’ but not in a way that enhances your life.
So let’s add ‘money worries’ to your list of issues. So you’ve been in bed for six weeks, you’re stressing about going back to the office, which in turn is making your symptoms worse, they’re going to put you on reduced pay, in two weeks, because you’ve had so much time off. You HAVE to go back but you know that you’ll just be off again soon. But you still have rent to pay, bills to pay, maybe you’ve got children, pets, wife / husband / partner / two partners, three even? Whatever your life looks like, you do not need money worries and debt being on that list of ‘things that can fk off’.
A comfortable income is a must for those of us with chronic health conditions, not least because of the ever increasing cost of living, and those prescription charges which they put up every time you step foot into a pharmacist (unless you’re lucky to be on the medical exemption list), travel to and from hospitals / doctors, adapting other things in your life to help you feel ‘better’, cope day-to-day. Perhaps your medication has meant unavoidable weight gain, perhaps you’ve been using food as a way to just get through a day, if so, there’s new clothes needed to make you more comfortable. Then there’s the investment in little adaptations to your every day living to make life easier (maybe a Gousto subscription, a cleaner once a month). Not working doesn’t only hit you financially, but it can result in a feeling of limited purpose, and because of the massive effect from the isolation, symptoms of the condition/s, side effects of drugs, etc, our mental health suffers beyond anything we were ever hoping for in our adult life.
Stay with me, because I’m going to get the negatives out the way and then I’ll share with you something that turned everything around for me, and others. It won’t work for everyone, but it’s something to consider.
Chronic health conditions slowly blow out your candles and relighting them becomes an arduous task.
One you can’t do because of the damn fatigue, right?
We’re forever on a badly designed road diversion.
You do know you don’t have to live like that, though, don’t you? You do know there are other viable options for a purposeful life. One that I chose in late 2015 and one that many others have taken to improve not only their quality of life but also – in many instances – their income too.
They robbed a bank – on a good day, when the fatigue was in the bin!
Lying, obviously.
In late 2015, as I said, just getting to work was me done. Being in an office from 9-5, five days a week, was awful. Absolutely awful. ‘If I could just work from home’ I thought. ‘If I could just work a couple of days a week but not lose money’. ‘Maybe if I do a degree in something I can do that, but how will I manage studying? I can’t remember things too well anymore?’. Ugh. Everything would just come back to ‘you will just have to suck it up and wait for retirement’.
Great! I have no pension, no savings, so my years in retirement are going to be a blast too. If I ever get there.
Things needed to change
I sat there at my desk one day after wasting another weekend catching up with household chores and sleep. And that’s when I thought ‘I could do all this from home’. I knew my employers wouldn’t go for it, but I was pretty sure other business owners would jump at the chance of support in their business without having to find me a desk, buy me tea bags, etc.
I was at that time an Executive Assistant, so I Googled the words ‘Virtual Assistant’ just to see if it was a thing and, oh my God, it was! I
A Virtual Assistant is a self employed business owner who supports other self employed business owners with various tasks and services they are confident and competent at.
Being a Virtual Assistant was, back then, in its infancy somewhat, with advice mainly being US based. But, I read and read and read until I could no longer justify calling it a scam and decided to ‘have a go’.
At that time, as an employee, I was earning around £10 an hour (after tax). As a Virtual Assistant I was charging £20 an hour (it’s £30+ now!). That’s before tax but even so, that’s double! And as you can see, that meant… to earn the same as employment I could work less hours. It was already sounding made for me.
But wait, is it an MLM? Do I have to share my income with someone at the top of a pyramid?
Nope! The only person you share your money with is HMRC.
How about this as a career option?
I know that in an ideal world this is how your working life would look:
- You’re the boss
- You charge upwards of £30 an hour
- You work the days and hours you need to (check how many here)
- You spend half an hour (maybe an hour on good days) to promote yourself and build a relevant audience
- You take breaks when you need them
- You work from where you choose (I can often be found in my bedquarters!)
That’s how mine looks, that’s how many women’s lives look and I want you to have that too.
A career that has a huge impact on the economy as you support other small business owners to keep going, to grow and help them avoid the burnout you can relate to so well.
Work that fits around life and not the other way around.
Shall we find out if it could be possible?
Step one is to work out what services you’d offer with my free download: www.catherinegladwyn.co.uk/va-services
What’s the catch?
There isn’t one. But, you must be mindful that being a VA is running a business. You’re selling services and to sell anything you need to constantly market yourself to an ever growing audience.
And that’s exactly what I did. And I now help other women (with or without chronic health conditions) do the same. But I could say anything, this is my website, so let’s hear from two VAs who also happen to be navigating life with long-term health issues.
If you’re ever feeling like life is getting a bit too much it can sometimes help to share it. The Samaritans are there to listen and not judge. It’s like having a mate you can share things with, but you don’t have to listen to their stuff in return. There’s more info here: https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/. Your GP may also be able to refer you to local support services.