Career Advice

[ElementalFlower]

Hey all!

Been a while since I have been on here as I have been in the midst of the semester. I was hoping for some guidance on some decisions that (I guess) I have to make soon.

So, if all goes well, I will be graduating with my bachelor's this summer or this fall depending on how I spread out the classes. I want to get a masters, but I think I will take a year off to save before attempting that. It also gives me time to think about the direction that I want to go in. To get to the point, my question is: how much, if at all, should fibro play a part into my future career choice?

I recently shadowed a speech pathologist in a children's hospital, and I loved it. However, throughout the day, I frequently pondered if I would actually be able to perform the activities. Since they were working with children, the activities varied from painting, basketball, physical playing including lifting (and working on sounds for the really little kiddos like "wee" and "go," in case you're curious), and tons of paperwork. This was in a hospital, though, so I'm not sure if I am limiting my imagination here by thinking it would be similar everywhere.

In recent months, my pain has spread elsewhere. I already had wrist/hand pain and now have hip and knee pain. The hip pain is super bad. It led to me missing a few days of school and my parents having to drive me places. If I had a flare like the one I just got over, there would be no way that I could lift kids onto slides or get onto the floor with them. Any advice?

As a side note, I recently heard about FMLA. I know that it's like way too early for me to be thinking about that, but does anyone have any familiarity with it and fibro? Knowing that it's there may help me open up my options, but maybe it's not good to rely on that.

 

[sunkacola]

I think the most important thing is to do what makes your heart glad. If you have a passion for your work, that passion and the joy and sense of purpose it will give you will inevitably be very good for you, and this can help keep your symptoms down. Not a guarantee that it will work that way, but if you have a source of happiness and fulfillment in your life it will be highly beneficial to you in many ways.

You can be upfront and transparent with any prospective employer, and find out ahead of time how much physical activity will be involved. Being a speech pathologist doesn't necessarily involve a lot of "heavy lifting" type of activity, and you should be able to find work that doesn't involve things you are not sure you can do.

I also think it's important for us not to limit ourselves ahead of time. While we need to be realistic about our abilities, there's value in forging ahead in order to find out what our true limits are.