Making Me Sick

OK, I'm going to go on about the state of my health again.  Having spent nearly three months off of work earlier this year due to extremely high blood pressure and the diagnosis of diabetes (both the result of work related stress over a period of years), there's no denying that I'm feeling a lot better.  I apparently look a lot better, not to mention thinner.  Unfortunately, this seems to leave management at work believing that I'm completely recovered.  Apparently if you can't see anything wrong with someone, they must be OK.  This week, I've had cause to point out that I'm not OK.  I am nowhere near 100% recovered.  I'm not still taking nine pills a day for fun.  Pills which still leave me with stomach upsets, fatigue and occasional spells of light headedness.  I'm afraid that having blood pressure as high as mine was (I was in imminent danger of suffering a stroke) isn't like having a cold: it isn't something you can take a couple of pills for and, after a couple of days in bed, it goes away and you can carry on as normal.  Its effects are long lasting - the damage it can potentially cause to your internal organs, even your vision, doesn't necessarily become clear for months after it has been reduced.

As I've mentioned before, the whole experience has left me physically weaker than I was before and getting back to my previous condition is proving a long and painful process.  I really wish that it was as simple as getting over a cold, but it isn't.  The fact is that, on a daily basis, I feel out of sorts.  On top of that, because of the diabetes, I have to be careful what I eat in order to keep my blood sugar levels down.  I'm also under medical advice to avoid unduly stressful situations n order to keep my blood pressure down, (just reducing my caffeine intake, which I have done, isn't enough).  I told my managers at work all of this before I returned.  I've kept telling them since.  But they apparently don't listen.  I'm still expected to fulfill my full regular duties, despite not being fully recovered.  As I pointed out this week, if you'd actually organised the assessment by occupational health I was meant to receive when I returned to work, you'd fucking know this.  But, of course, such an assessment might recommend medical retirement (I don't think it would, but it might) and my employers clearly think that simply forcing me out by making life increasingly difficult for me is a cheaper option.  Unfortunately, I'm stubborn and don't like being pushed around - I tend to shove back.  So, even in my weakened current condition, that's what I'm doing. At the very least, I think that they need to acknowledge some responsibility for creating the stressful work environment which contributed to my illness.  Of course, there is a limit to which I will further risk my health and at which I'll simply walk away.  But we're not quite there yet. I'm still determined to piss them off a bit more.