MLOA
Went to see my doctor today. Talking about emotions in person is fucking awful. Like I donât have time to formulate what I want to say or have the ability to get anything other than one word at a time out because I am instantly on the point of tears.
My doctors office is right across from the hospital. When he came in he asked why I was there and I said I was having anxiety issues and he half laughed and said arenât we all right now. Then looked up and was like oh are you still working next door. I said yes and he was like... oh, yeah thatâs not been good at all the past few weeks. Fucking understatement of the month!
I didnât go into the issues with management, just about how difficult it is to deal with such a high rate of patient death, plus the paranoia about getting sick or getting someone else sick and how living alone helps me isolate but is just so isolating. How normally when I have a bad shift once I leave work I can leave it at the door but it doesnât work that way in a pandemic. It was nice to have someone validate that all of those things were reasons to be having trouble sleeping and functioning normally. Â
He had me do an anxiety/depression questionnaire. He said I very much have some strong anxiety issues and likely some underlying depression. Both of which I agree with. He wrote me a note to be off work for all of June and gave me a PRN rx for Xanax. I am not sure how much I will really need it if I am not working, I am hoping now that I faxed over the note some of that anxiety will start to fade. Though in general for about 4 years now I have had health anxiety (kicked off by my mom having breast cancer) so I can imagine some of that will linger even with my exposure drastically lessened. I will go back in 2 weeks and we will talk more and see if maybe I should start on something routine. I have always told myself I donât need to, that I function ok and most of my problem is just laziness. But, maybe this is the time to give it a try and see if makes a difference.
While I was at the office I felt good about going on leave, but man pretty quickly after the guilt kicked in. Feeling like I am exaggerating things and should be able to handle this better. Itâs so easy to tell myself it wasnât that bad when I am not actively there. I for sure have dealt with this in the past where I donât know how to trust what I am feeling is legit and not just an excuse. Any friends/family I have told have been super supportive and wanting to know how they can help me out which makes me feel weird too because I canât really deserve/need that.
Then I got an email I was ccâd on from my union rep on about how the ICU is literally full and they are short staffed and the CNO response in not so many words blaming the nurses calling sick for all the problems. So that helped remind me why I need to get away. Â
I am not sure how this time off will go. I am hoping to use it to focus on my health in general. Get more active, major diet over haul, and just build up some good habits. I worry the days will just speed by with me doing nothing more than laying around messing about on my phone.














