Why does everything seem to happen all at once?

Things just continue to pile up. We’ve had car trouble in the thousands of dollars, because of maintenance and accidents. Stuff is falling apart around the house. Jenny had a severe reaction to Arava which was very scary. My work is insane, and when I say insane, I mean crazy, like dressed up like Mayor McCheese shooting up a Burger King crazy. It’s all too much for me, I guess.

Knowing that it is never smart to ignore symptoms, I went to the doctor to see why I’ve been having chest pain. I went expecting to hear, “Oh, you are stressed out. You are fine.” That’s what I expected, but that’s not the answer I got. I got, “Oh, well, you may be having some issues. You need to go to a cardiologist.”

Seriously? Now? I don’t have time right now.

Recently, there was a comment left that I thought deserved a post of its own.

My wife has Lupus as well, she has had it since she was a child. So far it hasn’t been to bad, but since we got married 2 years ago, she has been having a sever pain in her side on the back above her kidney. So far no tests have shown anything, she is constantly in pain and on high levels of pain medicine. I am wondering if you could offer some advice to me on how you manage a job and caring for a sick spouse, if it is even an issue for you? My wife often asks me to come home early or take days off when she wakes up feeling unwell. My employers have been understanding, but they are starting to question how much time I am taking off. – Dave

I have had similar experiences at work. They are very understanding and I don’t have to do it too often, but they do question the time I take off.

I think that it’s good advice to be up front with your work about your wife’s illness. That’s made the difference for me. It can be confusing if people don’t understand that lupus isn’t necessarily an illness that affects someone the same way each day. There are good days and bad days. Seriously, most of the time Jenny doesn’t need help like that. She’s in a lot of pain, but she has a career and she makes it through her day as best she can, trying to stay ahead of the pain with medication. I don’t usually need to miss work. I choose to drive down with her to UCLA because I know that’s a rough drive for her and I like to hear what her rheumatologist has to say. She’s a great doctor and really goes out of her way for Jenny, so I try and schedule my vacation days around those visits.

When I do miss work, it’s usually because she’s so bad that she can’t get out of bed or I have to take her to the hospital. Unfortunately, that happens more often than we would like, but we do the best we can. Jenny’s sisters help out a lot, and we have some great friends who help as well.

You also need to keep your wife up to date on situations at work. I really suck at this. I just usually don’t want to talk about work when I get home, but if I don’t then my wife has no way of knowing why I’m stressed out or if I’m having to deal with situations caused by me taking time off.

Here’s my advice for dealing with the issue of time away from work:

• Make your boss aware of the situation and always try and make contact with them in times of trouble. That way, they will be more likely to be sympathetic to your situation.
• Get help from friends and family and make sure you have someone to call in case you need some emergency help.
• Make sure that you and your wife keep your lines of communication open so that you will know when you really need to stay home, and so that your wife knows that it isn’t always an easy situation to take time off from work.

Does anyone else have any suggestions?