July!Phase 5

For months now I have been saying that I would go back to work part time in July. At first I had thought that maybe it was a little generous, but I never expected that when I told people that radiation would set me back how true that could be. SO, the reality is that July isn't as generous as I thought. Anyway, now here we are July 1, and tomorrow I start back to work albeit VERY part time and a lot of what I will be doing will be from home. Yet still there is something so real about having arrived at July. Four months ago when I targetted this as a return to work date, it seemed so far in the future, almost like the next decade. I who used to fight to secure time off from work have not really worked in 9 months. I never would have thought that possible. The other day I was communicating with a good friend and fellow neonatologist who is now looking at taking a prolonged time off for very different reasons and she was so unsure of how she would tolerate the time away from work without going crazy. I tried to reassure her that after a few weeks it gets much easier. Of course, for me feeling lousy made it easy to not miss work too. But now I don't feel so badly and there is so much I can do, (of couse, still a lot I can't do) and I feel like I still have so many things that I want to do. However, the truth of the matter is that I am truly not going to be working anything close to full time by anyone's standards for a while so it should be OK.

Thus, begins Phase 5- STEPPING FORWARD WITH TWO FEET