Work

So now, three weeks after that hospital appointment when I was told that Billy had leukaemia you are probably wondering what i was doing about work.  Well the simple answer at this point was nothing! I had been signed off for 2 weeks when Billy was first diagnosed and then after going to the doctor again was signed off for another 3 weeks.

This is standard procedure when you have a child who is diagnosed with something like Leukaemia.  When Billy was transferred to Piam Brown to have it confirmed Dr Martin had already contacted my GP and organised that I would be signed off.  It enables you to have the time off with worrying and hopefully with getting paid as well.  It is such a stressful time you know that if you had to worry about what you were doing for work you would lose the plot!

Now I work for a big, big company.  They are a multinational company who turn over millions every year.  I had worked there for over 3 years when Billy was diagnosed.  Although my colleagues and my immediate manager were fantastic the rest of the company weren't great!  I appreciate that it is a unique circumstance that I was in but I was quite surprised about the way things went.  I was always there, never off sick, always punctual and not to be big headed good at my job.

When Billy was first in hospital I had quite a lot of phone calls from work asking various things about clients, bookings etc.  Sometimes i was getting up to 20 calls an hour, I even wrote notes on everyone and what to do to try and help.  I understood that they needed to know how to cover my job and I was more than prepared to help them.  Sometimes it was difficult to talk but I made sure I called back.

My lovely colleagues send me a card which I still have to this day and most of them contacted me either via text, facebook, card or phone.  It was nice to know that so many of them cared about us.  A lot had met Billy and the cards he was sent was so lovely.  I was quite upset that our section manager, a lady I had worked closely with for years, was one of the few who didn't contact me.  It was quite a shock as she always seemed to like me, although she was quite brash and had tendencies to bully other women she worked with.

After I was signed off for the second time the attitude of the senior managers started to change a bit.  Although I do appreciate that it was difficult for them me being off, my son had just being diagnosed with leukaemia and I was still waiting to find out a bit more about what his treatment was going to be and how long etc etc.  Our big boss had a nephew who had actually died from ALL a few years before so I was hoping he might understand. He even knew a few of the oncology team from when his nephew was ill.

I got a phone call saying that the personnel manager and our big boss would like a meeting with me, at this point I had only been off 2 and a bit weeks.  I agreed that they could come round to our home the next Tuesday.  I didn't know but this was actually against the staff handbook!  I was so scared though, my son was ill and I didn't know 100% what was going on and work were asking for a meeting.  I knew what my contract said but I didn't need any hassle at this point in our life.

I was so petrified about what they were going to say, although everyone told me they couldn't force me to come straight back and that I had to put Billy first I was nervous about it.  The consultant and the outreach nurses were fantastically supportive and Pippa even rang in to speak to the big boss to try and stop me worrying and make things easier for us.  The big boss even told Pippa how he would do everything he could to help.

The day of the meeting came, looking back now I should have cancelled it as Billy was getting really bad with the side effects of the steroids.  But truth be told I was too scared to.  They came in and I made them a cup of tea and tried to talk to them, but as Billy was feeling both unwell and very insecure with strangers being in his home wanted my attention.  He then was starving as the steroids were doing their worst.  At this point he had put on a lot of weight and the poor little boy was struggling to walk so I was carrying him.  These two were sat there giving me a hard time as I was trying to cope with my son being so poorly.

It was like they had no compassion at all, they really couldn't have cared less.  They kept asking me when exactly I was planning to come back, a question that I couldn't answer.  At one point I was even asked if I would be better not coming back.  This is typical bullying tactics but at the time I was scared to death, what was I going to do, it sounded like If I didn't go back full time soon then I would lose my job and there where would i be?    I had a home and bills to worry about but they weren't my top priority Billy was.  How could they be this cruel when they could see how ill my son was?

After they had left I phoned my mum in tears, she was actually really shocked at the way I had been treated and wondered if I had taken it the wrong way.  The next meeting would prove to her that I hadn't though!!

One more added bit of stress in our lives.  The one thing I hadn't bargained for was the support of friends and family who researched and looked into and found that actually they couldn't do what they were trying to, but more of that another time.......