I thought I’d gotten this post out for Monday but didn’t realize that my server wasn’t working right!

So, let me take you back a few days on the tour and tell you what’s coming

Monday Nov 17 — We were at Shauna’s Life In Pain. I wrote about how people seem to respond to a new diagnosis and how this affects their career plans. This was in response to an interesting new study on children with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.

Tuesday Nov 18 — We were at Free My Brain From Migraine Pain.  I explored the inherent conflicting needs we face when we’re trying to take of our bodies, our jobs and the rest of our lives.

Wednesday Nov 19 – We’re scheduled to be over with Lisa at RestMinistries but she’s been quite sick and not sure she’ll get the post up today. Lisa interviewed me with 3 questions and just to get you interested, here’s one: The title seems to be telling women they have to work. Do you believe that?

Thursday Nov 20 – We’re scheduled to be at Being Chronically Ill Is A Pill where Maureen asked me to explore this issue: What happens when you hit the wall and can’t keep working at what you’ve been trained to do?   I reiterate a lot of the things I discuss all the time but offer a new way to look at this. Don’t miss this – would love to hear your thoughts on it!

Friday Nov 21 — We’ll be at the ICIExperience where Sherril will be reviewing the book. It’s wonderful to get all these perspectives on what we’ve done!

Monday Nov 22 — We’ll be at Down the Rabbit Hole: Journey of a Migraineur where Debbi is running a contest (the book being the prize) and I’ll be responding to some of her questions.

Tuesday Nov 23 – We’ll be at Living with Fibromyalgia - where she’ll be posting a book review and asking me some questions.

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Though she’s worked hard and gotten an MBA, she’s starting to think about finding work that is also good for her soul and her body. She’s concerned too. She’s not sure what to tell prospective employers about this jagged fork in her career road, or just how she’ll make it all work. She reminded me how important it is to share our stories, and to talk to someone who understands.

Some of what she told me reminded me of an article I wrote years about 8 years ago in which I chronicled the highlights of the first 8 years of my journey figuring out life with Crohn’s Disease. Having come from years of training in which the predominant thought was “you create your life,” I had a very interesting time reconciling this new body reality with that premise, and so I sought all sorts of remedies in the pursuit of health. I share it with you today, uncensored.

JOURNAL ARTICLE – What Can Your Health Tell You About Your Career?

Until 1992 I had been, by all accounts, healthy. I am sharing my story with you in hopes that you can use it to make a difference in your own life.

In 1992 I suddenly developed a severe gastrointestinal illness, Chrohn’s disease, which can be very debilitating. The cause of the disease is unknown, and there is no “cure.” This is my eighth year with Chrohn’s and I have been completely symptom free for 7 months, without taking any medicine.

7 months is not forever, but I can tell you this wellness comes with a certain degree of confidence. (While I tell you this, I mentally knock on wood and give thanks, and probably will for the rest of my life.)

My illness has been a tremendous teacher. I have used it to learn about my values, where my integrity’s been out, and to make choices more truly aligned with who I am, and what I am here for.

I had met and heard about people who were far more disabled by this disease than I ever was, and others who claimed to had gotten rid of it. When I fell ill, I vacillated between feeling lucky it wasn’t worse, and feeling like a victim, not so masterful after all. I learned that we each have our own process and learn our lessons in our own time. Click here to read the rest.

Joan

P.S. Have you caught Rosalind’s Virtual Tour? Check it out now.

Next stops:

• Wed Nov 12 – despite lupus, asked me to respond to this question: Why do you give so much attention to the issue of talking about chronic illness and do you think this is more difficult for women than men?

• Thursday Nov 13 – Fighting Fatigue asked me for to write about raising a family, working and living with chronic illness. I offered one “big idea”- a strategy – that I found really helped us.

• Thursday Nov 13 -Yes, we’re appearing on two sites in one day! Read a review of the book on Stuff and Nonsense.

• Friday Nov 14 – My Life Works Today — I’m writing in response to a reader’s question: What happens when you’re too sick to work?
• Friday Nov 14 - Getting closer to myself interviews me asking such questions as: what do I think about the universal issues women with chronic illness face, what should women in their 20′s & 30′s be thinking about as they look ahead and what can women do as a group to face these issues.

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Nuggets of info at each site on the appointed day!

The Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep Working, Girlfriend! virtual book tour is happening. For those who don’t know, a virtual book tour means that the book will be featured on different blogs over this month (see a list here).

• Monday, Nov 3 – Rhymes with Migraine, I wrote a blog post on the Top 5 Things You Should and Shouldn’t Do to Manage your Chronic illness at Work.

• Tuesday Nov 4 - Somebody Heal Me, Diana Lee, interviews me asking why we wrote the book and specifics about communicating at work.

• Thursday Nov 6 - Muchtomysjogren, asked me to write about how I handle disclosure at work and personal — and how much is too much.

• Fri Nov 7 - Howtocopewithpain asked me to respond to a reader’s question: How do you explain an apparent lack of ambition or lack of enthusiasm for the job?
  
  

• Mon Nov 10 – celia chicks are hosting a contest and giveaway

• Tues Nov 11 – achronic dose, Laurie Edwards interviews me about the book’s focus, the warrior spirit and more.

• Wed Nov 12 – despite lupus, asked me to respond to this question: Why do you give so much attention to the issue of talking about chronic illness and do you think this is more difficult for women than men?

I’ll update you on the future posts next week – but you can also check out the calendar on the blog tour page.

Rosalind aka cicoach.com

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Are you finding that looking for a job when you live with a chronic illness is daunting, overwhelming, depressing . . .

• “… Enter work gradually and with honesty to your employer about your health needs” .   YES!  If you don’t give yourself time to ramp up because you worry about what “they’ll” think of you,  you’re setting yourself up for failure.  Monitor and watch how work impacts you isn’t necessarily a bad thing.   I think high energy is an over-rated qualities.  Also, if you don’t tell your employer what you need, it’s unlikely you’ll do the job well.  Why set yourself up for failure?

• “… Find something that you feel passionate about so it’s a balance to your health…”   Hmm, passionate.  Let’s face it, few of us get to work at something we feel passionately about. But you can and have to find something that you care about in your job/career, whether it’s what you do, who you’re doing it for or just the folks you see every day.  Otherwise it’s just a job.  And when you’re struggling with chronic illness symptoms, that’s not enough to counterbalance the  struggles.

Rosalind Joffe  aka cicoach.com

Don’t Miss This!    MONDAY, November 3

THE FIRST DAY OF OUR VIRTUAL BOOK TOUR!

Check out the bloggers and their dates!

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We talked about her situation, and this overwhelming feeling she had that she didn’t want to return to her job. Though she had the skill set (she does IT work for one of the big consulting firms), she was not excited about returning to “the job,” and to the high-stress environment. But, as many people are when they’ve been on a particular track, she was uncertain about her ability to do anything else.

To compound her dilemma, she’s here in a work visa (from Canada) and even though she’s married to a U.S. citizen, any employer who would hire her would have to sponsor her, which means that they have to bring her on board for her special skill set. So, she’s got some extra constraints. But that didn’t stop her from dreaming. I loved her attitude.

I recommended 2 books that really helped me figure out what I really wanted to do with my life and for work, Do What You Are by Paul and Barbara Tieger, and How to Find the Work you Love by Laurence Boldt. About a week later, I received the following email (edited for relevance):

I  had a great week…  You are right I’m still coming to an ending and can’t wait for the beginning of exciting new times.  After we spoke last week I went to the small library near my home.  In the library there is a second hand bookstore that I checked out.  It was probably my third time there and they were looking for some volunteers to work 2 hours on one day a week.  So I signed up and did some training last week.  It’s really not very hard or super stressful and the people are very nice.  Plus it gets me out of the house into a new environment.

I did plan to look for the books you suggested in the library but got into the training at the bookstore first.  Then as I was helping to shelve some books these 2 books were staring me in the face… It was like it was meant to be and you can’t beat the prices for the second hand books which is great for us right now.  I was so into the training and helping out and wasn’t even thinking about the books at the time.

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE the Boldt book!!!! It’s so applicable and I feel like he’s really talking to me since I can relate to everything he mentions or even what the greats over time have known. It helps me to feel more hopeful about the future.  But at the same time I’m really looking forward to the future and working towards a new type of work and a new me!

Thanks again and have a fantastico week!

Can you feel her the shift in her outlook? Though it may take her a while to figure things out, especially with her potential visa constraints, I have no doubt she will. If you were talking to her, what would you tell her? Do you have resources that have helped you through similar transitions?

Joan

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No, it’s not Kansas and this isn’t your parent’s book tour. These days, no publisher spends money sending their authors (certainly not first time non-fiction authors) to brick and mortar book stores around the country.

The good news is that this doesn’t require any travel – for you or for me! This virtual book tour will be on our favorite disease blog sites. The format varies – some bloggers will interview me (podcast and print), others will review the book and still others have asked me to write a post for the day they’ve signed up.

You can see which of your favorite bloggers have signed on– and make a note to go to that site on their selected date (check the calendar on the page).

Although Joan and I have each done “old fashioned” book readings (I read recently at Newtonville Book Store an independent book store in Newton MA) and enjoyed the experience, this is a much more effective way to reach a larger audience. Joan is busy with other things and won’t be participating in the tour.

FYI — Do you know any bloggers who aren’t signed up whom you think might want to participate? Email me (rosalind@cicoach.com) so I can contact them. Or send them this post.

Look forward to being there with you. More updates as we get closer.

Rosalind akacicoach.com

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If there’s anything my illness taught me, it was to pace myself and know when enough is enough, and that all will be ok, even if I don’t always do what I planned to do. About an hour ago I was sitting in a cafe plugging away to prepare for my Dare to Automate teleseminar tomorrow, and I ran out of steam. So I stopped. I felt my body say, “OK, that’s it Joan!” (Have you noticed greater atunement to your body too?) I packed my stuff and came home.

And, then I remembered I told Rosalind I’d post tonight. So I sit with my laptop back on my sofa and write what’s on my mind and share what’s going on at this moment rather than craft the message I had planned.

When your body says “no more,” do you pay closer attention than you used to? I’ve learned that needs tending will be there when I’m ready, and some seemingly pressing commitments often fall away.

Joan

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One of our basic tenets in Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep Working, Girfriend! is that it’s more difficult to get back to work once you leave for any period of time. Your skills are likely to become obsolete, you will have taken yourself off any career path you may have been on, and you may not be taken seriously by some. Plus, you’ll be older!

The author of the magazine article, Rebecca Berry, in briefly sharing a couple of the stories, mentioned the following “success” factors:

1. Confidence in your ability to be successful
2. Networking to meet people who can help (when you’re ready to go back)
3. Ask for introductions from your friends
4. Volunteer first; then start looking for a job
5. Do whatever you can to be involved in extra-curricular activities to combat isolation during the time you’re not working.

Can the above success factors also apply to women who had to stop working due to illness? What’s different about our situations? I think you might agree that factors 1-3 can certainly be applied, but I’m less certain about suggestions 4 and 5. It’s certainly not easy to volunteer or engage in fun activities when you can barely walk due to pain, fatigue or diminished physical capacity, but would factors 4 and 5 be good bridge-builders once you feel well enough to make social commitments, but before you’re ready to get back to work?

As I write this I remember that, even when I wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t do a lot of things that required any amount of physical exertion, I sometimes attended seminars I was interested in. I brought my soft cozy blanket with me so that the air conditioning didn’t aggravate my symptoms, sat in an aisle seat near that back of the room and let the course leaders know I might have to take more frequent bathroom breaks. I also didn’t attend anything that started too early in the morning.

If, in caring for your health, you have been out of the workforce and are feeling discouraged, you might get inspiration from Emma Gilbey Keller’s The Comeback. You can also check out an action-oriented job finding book, Get Hired Now! ™ by C.J. Hayden and Frank Traditi. it will guide you to identify your “stuck area,” to select projects to help you get unstuck, and to create an action plan of your own design, that can help replicate the success factors above.

Joan

P.S. Last week Rosalind wrote a great post about our invitation to discuss what you agree with and don’t agree with regarding our posts. I ditto that!

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As Joan Rivers so famously said, “Can we talk?”

Neither Joan nor I earn money from this blog. We each have other blogs, primarily directed toward our separate businesses and neither of us earns money – at least directly – from those blogs either. You might ask, so why do we bother?

Well, as we set out to write and publish the book, Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep Working, Girlfriend!,  we thought a blog would give us feedback on our ideas. Although we don’t get many comments, and usually they’re affirming, we thought that at least it’s a way to let people know about the book.

But we could do that with a newsletter and, at the least, in our websites. A blog is intended to get reader interaction.

YOU CAN COMMENT. And we welcome your thoughts, even more so when people don’t agree with us or each other. (As long as you don’t get nasty of course).

Early this week, I posted a column on my other blog, WorkingWithChronicIllness, about the current presidential campaign Sarah Palin’s stand on chronic illness. The post is, Sarah Palin’s stand on chronic illness. Only two sentences directly mention Palin — and I did cite an article written by Gloria Steinem about her which is negative about Palin. Two thirdsof the post is more generally about the fact that chronic illness is simply never mentioned any campaign speech or literature. And why this election should matter to people with chronic illness. The last two paragraphs urges people to vote for the democratic ticket.

The post hasn’t gotten a single comment. But, there was reaction. Four people unsubscribing with this reason: offensive, strongly disagree or disapprove. And one of those persons unsubscribed from this blog as well for the same reason. No one has ever unsubscribed for that reason.

Now, I don’t blame anyone for responding negatively to what I say. Quite the contrary. I don’t think I’m “right” – I’m just trying to stir things up so people talk about chronic illness more — and don’t sweep it under some rug.

I’m glad to see that people read what I write. And think about what I say. But hey, voice your thoughts and opinions — so we can have conversation — and stimulate more.

I can’t help but wonder, Do people worry that if they post, someone at work might find out that they have a chronic illness and “out them”?

If so, what a shame. What a bad world we live in that we have to work so hard to hide an important part of who we are. But, hey, I do know that’s a fact of life. So why not use another name – a pseudonym?

So please, let’s talk about it.

Rosalind aka cicoach.com

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We’ll also talk about why it’s a woman’s issue and some of the particular concerns for women in the workforce.

If you’d like to attend and have a chance to say hello and ask questions, too, you can! There’s no charge to attend. Just visit Futures in Motion to register. I’d love to meet some of you who we’ve only been able to write to through our blog.

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Notes

A special thanks to the author of How to Cope with Pain for her fabulous review of
Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep, Working, Girlfriend!

Anecdote: here’s a great example the incremental value of your network and support team. I’ve met Markell in person. As is rarely the case these days, she actually lives in the same County I do. I first met Rosalind by telephone about 3.5 or so years ago. I’ve been working with my Virtual Assistant (VA), Angee Robertson, for 6 years. Angee introduced me to Rosalind way back when, and it turns out that Angee is also Markell’s VA. Wild, huh? How has your network worked it’s magic for you?

Joan

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