Lyme Disease and Your Job
If you work full time and have a bad case of Lyme disease, you have a few options - sick leave, short term disability and long term disability. Of course, you’ll have to use up all of that sick leave you’ve saved up before moving on to the next step. However, you get at least part of your income if you choose any of these options. For people who work part time, the options aren’t as nice - quit your job or take unpaid leave under the family medical leave act.
What do you do to make ends meet now? Well, there aren’t really many options. I’m fortunate enough to be able to freelance when I can’t work out of the house, but I still had to turn down quite a few freelancing jobs when my brain wasn’t functioning at peak performance. If you are looking at a month or two of unpaid leave, try:
- Cleaning out your closets. Resale shops and eBay have saved more than one person from living in the dark during lean times.
- Taking on low stress odd jobs at home. Sometimes, you can’t get off the sofa long enough to work four to eight hours a day on your feet, but you can hem pants or edit a paper.
- Discussing work from home options with your boss. If you have a job that could actually be done at least part-time from home, it is a win-win situation. You can rest part of the day and still be paid a partial salary and your boss isn’t buried in a pile of extra work.
If you have any hints on dealing with job issues while you have Lyme disease, I’d love to hear them.