6. The Truth about Returning to Work after Stroke or Significant Major Medical Life Event

Good Moning Everybody. My name's Willis and welcome back to another episode of the Lovable Survivor Podcast. In today's episode, we're gonna be talking about returning to work as a stroke survivor, hard true snow, sugar coating it. I will tell you right out the gate, everybody wants it to go a certain. And then there's, the way it's probably going to go, this episode, I'm going to do my very best to keep a level cool head. There's been a couple years since I was in the workforce. I did try to go back to work full-time after my stroke. And I will just tell you it's difficult. For lots of reasons. And I think there are two sides to every story. And the one thing I will say is that everybody says it is challenging, and that is absolutely true. I think there are some key points that I will bring up throughout this episode where yes, communication, I. Seems obvious to me, but it may not be obvious to everybody. And then there is like multiple levels of communication. There's multiple levels of planning. There is honestly, everybody's stroke is different. That is also a fact. Unfortunately, that makes it all the more difficult, both for the company that you work for currently and hopefully are still employed at and. Yeah, there's just a lot to it. So we'll jump in. I'm gonna, I think this might be two episodes, so we'll hit the main points today. We'll do the overarching high level stuff, and we can get more specific down the road. If this episode warrants being split into two, we can certainly do that as well. I'm happy to do follow up. Down the road as questions come in, if people have certain questions that I can lend some support to, or data I might have access to, or just, friendly advice. As always, it's, this is I'm going to share my take, what happened for me, what I wound up doing, and just the way I went about it and things I might do differently and certain things that I wish I did differently. And I will say from the get go, I hate saying things like this. This is why I struggled for a long time to work with survivors, because obviously I don't think it goes, it needs to go be said, but being said, I'm not a lawyer, I'm not an attorney. I've consulted some in the past. I have family that works in law just like I have family that are, professional medical doctors of various kind. People that work in the healthcare industry. I know a lot of people, I've spoken to a lot of people. I have my own team of various lawyers and attorneys and medical professionals. So nothing I say is actually medical advice or legal advice, and you should definitely seek your own counsel when you're growing through this. If you run into snags. That seems really obvious to me, but it's not always obvious to everybody, and I think I will tell you. When it comes to being a stroke survivor and going back to work, it is, there are a lot of moving parts and I think everybody needs to consult professionals cuz it is a difficult process and not every company or individual is equipped to go back to work. So again, the main point I think is that returning to work will be challeng. Both for you as the stroke survivor, probably your family, probably your caretakers, and definitely for your employer. So it is going to be critical that you work together. Now, I will say there is certainly a ton to that. If you are in a position where you're working with healthcare professionals, , maybe we're at an inpatient facility, maybe you're still doing outpatient. There are lots of resources. Some are good, some are not so good. That being said, I think you know, the first and foremost most important thing is you as the individual survivor, need to take care of yourself because if you aren't in a place that is stable, And you're working towards you may have some deficits, you may still be going to therapies, so you may not be a able to work full-time. And I do think there is my, my wise , not wise, sorry. My advice to any survivor would be to have these conversations openly and honestly with your employer, with some caveats. But I think you need to really take the time. During your rehab and any downtime while you are recovering initially and getting to what I call a stable phase where you're, maybe you're on medications and you've gone into therapy or you're through therapy and you still have time before you need to make a decision about work. I think you need to really take the time to assess your situ. It takes talk of your life where you want to go if you're even doing something that you want to do for the rest of your life, because this is not an easy process. So you need to have some things in place both for yourself and mostly for yourself, but also for your family, cuz you. Be in a position where you are the primary, insurance if you have a family that relies on your insurance, there's a lot of moving parts to this, so it is going to be challenging. Like I said, no two people are going to be the same and finding support and, accommodations. When I came out, just to give you a little context, I already worked for a company. At the time of my stroke where we were fully remote even prior to the pandemic, so that was not really an issue. There were other things that kind of became an issue and, I'll touch on that, but I don't want to get too deep into the weeds because it's been a couple years. And there are some, I don't wanna misspeak, but there's just a lot to this and it is not as simple as just you would hope and you would wish, as a stroke survivor, you're going through a ton of stuff, right? And some people will recover rather quickly. Some people do not. It takes some people longer. It just depends on the deficits that remained post-stroke and post rehab. And the first steps I really think are. Again there's the way you want this to go, and then there's the way it's really gonna go. And that depends on a lot of things. So if I could do it all over again, I think I would really try to assess and be honest with myself. Am I even in a career or a place that I feel like I want to keep fighting for at the time? It seemed okay, but I will remind everybody who may not know me personally. This was already my second, almost my third career, cuz my first career out of college was working in real estate and I went back to architecture down in Miami, where, which is the original thing I majored in college. When I became a developer, that was really because I was pivoting out of architecture after the first housing crashed in 2008. And architecture was great. I loved it, but I just couldn't commit to it. Back then, I was too young and I didn't know what the future held for, people working in architecture cuz of the housing market crashed and nobody wanted to build homes. I was lucky to hang on to my job for quite some time back. So I got into the web because I was really interested. I knew it was up and coming, this is like 2007, 2008. I was a couple years into web 2.0 I would say, but it still very early by, by all accounts. You think back to that and you look at some of those old Google pages. Mid to mid. Mid to , what do you call it? Like 2007, 2008 wasn't the end of the two thousands, but yeah, it's still very early days of Web 2.0. The things that I use today, some didn't even exist. That was only three or four years into Gmail really exploding. YouTube was only like a year or two old back then. Think about it, 2007 is when Twitter really hit the mainstream and. The original iPhone was 2007, 2008. So that's really, that was really the early days though. But that being said, all that to say, this was not my first choice necessarily. I got into the web because I was young. It seemed like a good idea. It was definitely the way things were moving. I'm not disappointed by the career that I had. Honestly, it was a great way for me in my ear, mid twenties to pivot. There was a lot of opportunity and if I worked hard, took some, back then I took night courses. I fell into to the WordPress community pretty early on. I got lucky and I was able to turn it into a pretty good career for a long time. One that I'm quite proud of. But that being said, it was. I loved the design part, but I was not passionate about writing code for other people 24 7. I even owned my own agency. I worked I did some freelance on the side, like I had a really good run there, but again, I wasn't super passionate about it. I was definitely going towards the people side of things. In fact, I had a promotion. In 2020 at the agency I was at when I had my stroke. And by all accounts I was really going towards the people direction of the company, less on the technical coding side. It all would've played out very differently, I think had an, had the stroke, but I would say, For me, very early on after I had my stroke, I got on short-term disability, which was an excellent way initially to cover some expenses. It was working really well. Things seemed good. I had the stroke. I was, I left inpatient at the end of January, 2020. This is pre covid, pre ms. It seemed okay, this is not the end of the world. I'll be okay sooner than I thought. And that turned out not to be true, because I then went back to the hospital thinking I had that second stroke in February of 2020, and then got diagnosed with ms. And like I said at the end, that last episode, and I got emotional in the last episode. That's like getting hit with the baseball bat, getting up and getting hit again. And that's really putting it lightly. It seriously almost broke me and it almost broke my family. And again, it was nothing I did really to bring that on. It just a really unfortunate situation. And that's where I think things took a turn. Both for me mentally. I think , I was communicating with my employer at the time. I think we were all remaining optimistic, but it was like, ooh, that's big. And one thing I do wanna mention, because I've not brought this up on this particular podcast before, but the year before my stroke in 2018, I actually lost my parents to a very sudden, very, weird, very strange story. My parents were retired and they were hiking as they did around the country. They often took trips around the country, around the world. Living their best life. They were retired. I have two sisters. My parents loved traveling and they went out to Amboy Crater. You can Google my last name, , and you can Google my parents' name. It's Bill and Susan. They they went out on a hike one day in Em, boy California, which is in the California high Desert. There is a volcanic formation out there. It's super hot, about 160 on the ground in the summer. No idea why my parents went out there for this hike. I think because it's is very deceptive and my mom had this weird fascination with volcanoes. Volcanic for formations. Why? I have no idea till this day why she was so into that. But yeah, they went out on a hike and they never came back. Essentially, we all believe it. They suffered a heat stroke. It was not the first time it had happened there on record out in Amboy, California. Long story short, the company I worked for, for seven years so in 2018 when I lost my parents, that was really tragic and honestly, I had no idea I had to deal with it. Did the best I could. My, the company I worked for was super supportive. They gave me a couple weeks off to get things in order, get things figured out. I can't thank them enough. But that was a really weird thing. And that was even before I had my stroke. But I got back to work. I, sucked it up. And for lack of a better term, I just got back to work cuz that's what I wanted to do. And I think that's what my parents would've wanted. If anything they would've been annoyed by then. Them inconveniencing me, in my life. As silly as that may sound, but yeah. My parents passed in 2018, tw end of 2019, I have a stroke. That's strike two September, or I'm sorry, February, 2020. I'm already still on short-term disability, so it's not a big deal, but the MS kind of knocks me out and by all accounts, I seem to go back to rehab and things seem to be okay and we all agree. I'm gonna start up part-time. It's a couple weeks into Covid, it's April. Things are quiet around everywhere and I figured I could sit part-time at the computer and do some work and I'd love to get back to work because she's, truthfully, I think every stroke survivor really just wants that sense of normalcy and they want to get back to work. And I thought, okay, let's go back to work. And I think my employer at. Also agreed that, let's see how it goes. And we went from there. Now I was doing rehab outpatient during covid there, even in the lockdown. Very lucky that was available to me here in Florida. And I started work part-time. I started to get back in the flows, talk to people, things were a little tough at the beginning, but I made it work. I got very involved with talk to type on my computer, thankfully, to working with Apple products. It's built in. I got on calls, I got caught up. I got up to speed for about a month. It was pretty clear that my role, I needed to take a step back and this was where it got, things got a little weird and it was I was asked to take a step back and I also agreed that perhaps the new role I had just gotten into was more than I could handle the time. Looking back on that, I maybe wish I. Go take that step back so easily. However, if I'm being honest, and I'm being levelheaded now, a couple years later they didn't reduce my pay. It was the same pay. So they weren't re they, they really were just taking a title away, which at the time, Correct. It seemed like somebody needed to fill in for me and take more of that full-time role. I think I could have got back into it cuz it really was a lot of people management, less writing code and that's where things got weird. Not initially because I just jumped in and I started to help people, started running the teams again. Everybody's excited to see me. I was excited to see every. I wasn't, I worked my way up 20, 30 hours a week for the next six months while I was still in a lot of therapies and rehabs and by all counselors running pretty smoothly. And it wasn't really until the end of that summer where I started walking a little bit and I, I got to a spot where I was doing better. We. Because of Covid. We did a company-wide retreat on through Zoom, which was weird, but it actually worked out. And, teams were going things were running successfully. I was able to do a lot of work. Not nearly as much coding as I would've liked to have done, but I didn't seem to need to do that at the time and. I thought things were going good. I think other people thought things were going good. I thought there was clear communication, as it wound up being later on, apparently that communication wasn't really being communicated throughout. I think some assumptions made on my parts, some assumptions made on other people's parts. In hindsight I don't. You work for a small company, you work for them for a long time. You just think people have your back and you think you're doing everything you can to get their back. It's not like I had only been working there for a month. I'd been there for a long time. And a pay , when you take the six foot eight guy, I don't care if you're a remote company or not, when you take the six foot 8, 325 pound guy out of the mix, that is a big piece of the puzzle that is moving. And I'm, I. What you would call your normal developer. So a lot of our clients loved talking to me back then because I was the voice of reason. I would also probably bend the rules and break the rules quite a bit. I've never been one to be quiet when I don't want to be, and I think that was used against me points and these are things I knew for years. And I don't wanna get too deep into it. I knew how I was, I knew how they were. These are conversations you need to have with yourself when you're going back to work as a stroke survivor. Ask yourself, do you really, it's hard to, it's hard to be you want to get back to, to work because you want normalcy and you think you can do it, and you think you've earned it, and you probably have. Be weary because I think I got pushed around a little bit more than I would've liked to admit. Some things I was willing to bend on cuz I didn't really care to a degree. However, if the six foot 8, 325 pound guy with three kids, parents passed away the year before, got a daughter going to college. You're, in 2021. So I thought I was doing everything right. In my first couple it should have been a red flag when I was asked to take a step back. However, looking back at that, I didn't fully see that. I saw that as, at the time, I saw it as a helpful way for me to get. Didn't think it would be what it became, which was eventually led to me walking away from the company that I worked for seven years and had a goddamn stroke while I was, an employee there. I put a lot of blood, sweat, tears into my career at that point, and I had made. By all accounts, I was not your traditional developer. I, there were people that were often, I'm not trying to blow myself up here, but people, clients, when we had issues, who would they call? They, people would call and ask for Will, like, where's Will, can we get with Will? Where's Will? What happened to Will, like there's a reason I was moving up and there's a reason. People requested, we wanna work with Will. I won't say who, what the companies were, but there were more than one companies that we worked with at the agency level where I specifically was requested because people enjoyed working with me. I could tell you that the teams enjoyed working with me, which is why I was made the engineering manager in 2019. because I had become a leader there. I was a big presence both, physically and online. When somebody had a question, I was the person to go to. When somebody came on board and was new person, who did they go to? Ask Will ask talk to Will, this is not me saying this is actually, and I would say you could take this to the bank. Here's the deal. Things got weird in 2021. Enough was enough. I had decided that I was fighting for my life and I was making changes that, I don't expect companies to change overnight, but I was making changes and things were getting weird, and I just we were ha, When you have a stroke, you have a different outlook on life and it's fine. I understand people aren't going to see eye to eye and people aren't going to agree with what I necessarily think, but I was doing a lot of bending and pushing and I was doing a lot of work to continue to get back to work, to make other people a shit ton of money. And I think at the end of the day, it speak. I don't know how to say anything else because I walked away in May of 2021 and I had a daughter going to college that fall, and I walked away from that job, and I had no health insurance. I had a stroke in 2020, or 2019, and started 2020. I had diagnosed with Ms. Me walking away, I think showed a lot of people and it's, you could see it, the people that worked there when I was there, 90% of them no longer work for that company. And I think that tells you everything you need to know about how it can go sometimes. And I'm not saying, I'm not to blame, I'm not saying that anybody to blame. It certainly is not what companies are used to because let's be honest. The average age of a stroke survivor is 65 years old. 65 year olds are rarely still working. 65, majority of 65 year olds are retired working part-time or no longer working whatsoever. So I understand companies aren't necessarily prepared for this. That's okay. But when I think I'm communicating with. And there is communication happening, and then at that, like at some point it can't all be on me. I understand. As a stroke survivor, it is my duty and my job, it took me a while to wrap my head around this. I have to be open and honest about where I'm at with my abilities. I have to communicate that to people so that they're aware because I might need accommodations. I might need to shift some things around. We might need to try to see if we can work a different, There is a lot of give and take in this process, and employers are under some obligation to make a reasonable effort. However, none of that was ever discussed. I didn't realize that really until later, because I didn't think I needed it and nobody told me I should go asking for it. That's not necessarily anybody's fault, but that is problematic. And if I'm telling you if I am six foot eight and 325, I don't care if we're working online or in person. If I'm getting railroaded, that means every motherfucker out here is probably getting railroaded. And that's not necessarily true, but I'd certainly believe if I'm having a tough time, other people, other stroke survivors are having a tough time and that's, that is an education. I will say one of the disappointing things to me was that one of the owners of the company was formerly a nurse, apparently. Allegedly. I don't actually know that. I'm sure she was. Why would she make that up? However, you can't be a nurse in the last a hundred years and not have seen a stroke survivor or No way. They go through and have some sort of idea like you, here's the other. I didn't have all the answers. They know my parents have passed away. They know at the very at best, I have supported my wife, who they know is deaf. They are aware. I have three kids. They at least know of one of my sisters because one of my sisters was helping me communicate at points. Never did anybody come talk to me and approach me about really anything. Nobody even asked me how I was. The two owners of this company, one is a former fucking head of a department of nurses on a, at some hospital or some floor. She's a nurse manager for years, and then opens up an agency, the other person was a Marine. What happened? Like where is that mil? Like I'm working, like I'm in the military, given everything I got. And then , to be honest, it was really disapp. It was really disheartening. I, at the end of the day, I walked away. I didn't give a shit, and I really didn't wanna take this path cause I wanted it to be polite. I want it to be nice. And I'm sure they see it differently. They're entitled to their opinion. I just think, I think people really write people off when something like this happens. Yeah. Nobody's expecting. I will say not many people know how to deal with this. And then again, that's not necessarily on them, but I'm working to educate myself and change myself. And I'm the one finding out information and I just felt like I was putting a lot of effort in and I was getting nothing back really at the end of the day. And I think, I just walked away cuz I wanted to wash my hands of it. I was sick of it. I wanted nothing to do with it. I basically, I let them off hook. I honestly, I did consult people and at the end of the day I just said, you know what? I'm not, when I left, I did not care anymore. I did not need them. I did not need that job. I certainly wasn't gonna take it for that., like what I had been. Believe me that I wasn't, I was being underpaid in the industry. Everybody who's left there since will tell you that it is a well-known fact. There's tons of data to prove to back that up. It said honestly because I would've done a lot for them. And I did for a long time. The fact that I lost my parents in June of 2020 and took two weeks off to figure that out because it was fucking weird. Let's be honest. Then I returned to work as if nothing happened. It's crazy. So just be careful when you're returning back to work. I think we'll do another episode where I'm a little bit. Succinct here, but I think, returning to work is going to be difficult. If I face challenges, I can only imagine what other people are facing. And I was in a spot where I was able to walk away and I just washed my hands of it. And like I said, I think that me walking away was tip of the iceberg. Cuz I think you saw 20, 30 people over the course that, that following year walk away. Some I think were let go, but many walked away and went else. And they'll tell you a different story because I've heard the stories they told people and it was yeah, no, I just decided one day I went in, I talked to somebody in HR and I said, bye, . Done. This is no longer for me. The sad thing is here I am in 2022, I am probably in the best shape I've ever been in. To be quite frank, I, yeah, I'm not typing 90 words a minute, but I guarantee you, I, I have a lot to offer. It's fine because I've gotten my time back. I've got my businesses, I'm able to lead the life that I wanna lead. And I'm not making other people money and, I hope they're doing well. And I was quiet about this for a long time because a lot of people still work there that really liked. And, some remain good friends. And so I think to the employers out there I encourage you to really. Shit, just make an effort. If one of your employees has a stroke and you don't have things in place, take the time to talk to that individual. I think you got 10 minutes for an employee a couple years. Even if somebody's an employee for a week or a year, and they, something like this happens they can get on the phone with them and talk to them., I can see how you can help, because. Yeah, it's weird. There's, there, there are a lot of details there. I've left out for various reasons that, might tell a little bit of a different story. But I think I've summed up what can happen and I think employers should learn because I think, I think some people are not necessarily. Able or going to walk away the way I did. Some people are gonna fight and it's just, it seems like a needless situation to be in for anybody. Because here's the thing. I did walk away and I didn't make a big sink about things because I knew other people were also dependent on that job and that company. And for me, just like when people ask me why I didn't do something when I had my stroke in the hospital, It's somebody's fault at the hospital that I had the stroke in the hospital. Yeah. Do I wish somebody caught it? Sure. But it also was like the two days before Christmas. It was the day before Christmas Eve on a Sunday. The doctor watching the floor is just like there to make sure. That things like that probably don't happen. But he's, the doctor that was on the floor, the main doctor at the time, like just there as a body during the holidays, was not qualified to, to determine whether or not I had a stroke. That's unfortunate and it, I'm okay with it because I'll be better for it in the long run.. Yeah. Yeah. When I think about it, yes, of course I'd rather have less deficits. I don't think anything could change. And there's no reason to be hurting other people that might, you know the resources for the hospital are not something I'm looking to take, I there, there's a whole thing about medical stuff, but like peop, other people need those resources. The hospital needs exact resource, those resources they can pay their employees, and I'm so grateful and glad I didn't have to go that route. But to, to my fellow subscribers and caretakers and family, just know that, and employers, like employers I think can benefit from hiring, disabled or handicapped people. I use those words cuz I don't mind them. A stroke is a disability. I, it's a brain injury.. I do have moments, but yeah, we're on year three and I'm getting a lot better and I dunno, just don't worry people off. Cause yeah, it might take some time and it may never go back to the way it was. And I think it'll work itself out like it did for me where I just wash my hands of it and said, fuck this shit, I'm out again. Not everybody is like me, but I encourage you not to write people off and just keep communication and planning open and available and try hard to work with the individual who suffered a major life event. I think people, this is a clear example of companies that treat people like resources and yes yeah, you can get rid of me or I'll get rid of myself, but. I dunno, I don't see how that works out well in the long term for the company or the brand. I hope it does work out cause I know they still employ people. So I think to that end, I do want to say maybe they learned the lesson. Maybe I was, some help into, to opening eyes. Maybe I wasn't. I'm not gonna say you shouldn't work there or shouldn't be a part of that team. There's no reason for that. I'm just saying I no longer in my heart of hearts, it just wasn't for me anymore. I loved everything about being a developer, but at the end of the day, I don't really care about agency work. Like I worked with really cool brands. But I think about all the pain points I had over the years, when we get into squabbles with clients about certain things and it's does that really matter in the grand scheme of things? And I think you have to ask yourself, does it to you? If it does, keep at it, keep going, keep fighting. But if it, you get to a point where you can't think about ways to get out and what you could do in the future. Cuz I, I guarantee you have a lot of valuable resources. If you have the stroke and you're able to overcome it, yeah, it might take some time, but there is I can't explain it. There's nothing like this, so if you're able to fight back and come back from a stroke, it may take a while. You may be slower. That might be frustrating for years. It may never change, but As long as you're alive, as long as you're still breathing. This sounds corny as shit. You still have a ton of value to provide for the world. It's different, unique skills and perspective now than it might have been before. But I guarantee you'll find it and it'll be worth, just taking care of yourself, doing the best thing you can do for yourself, because that's just gonna allow you to live a successful and fulfilled life at the end of the. And the job is important, but don't tie your entire worth of the job. And if you feel like you're trying to make it back and you're not making progress, just have those conversations because if you don't have them, it's just gonna keep getting worse. You're gonna be in a, in not such a great spot, and you can do some like I did where I just walked away after almost eight years. Like it's, I didn't give two weeks notice, didn't do anything. I just . I literally just walked in and said, fuck the shit. And how's Anne? So don't be like me. But to that point again, stroke sorry, survivor science. The community is being built as we speak. I am doing the early groundwork there. You could sign up for the community and get on the list for when we are ready to launch. You can go to vip dot stroke survivor.com, or I'm sorry,. B p survivor science.com is where you can sign up for the list for survivor Science. The community I'm building with friends for things exactly like this for support groups for learning new skills. It's really a place for survivors who are looking. Get back to it get back on top of their game. Just, I think we all know as survivors, things are different for us. And finding that kind of common ground and. Sharing information, what's working for you, what's working for somebody else, let's learn from each other. And then I did launch the new website for the podcast that, which is podcast dot lovable server.com. And there you can check out other episodes of this podcast. Definitely check out the previous episode from last week where I was pretty emotional, although I'm pretty emotional. About just how difficult overcoming a stroke can be. The last 10 minutes, I re-listened to the podcast myself a couple times, and the last 10 minutes is, it's hard for me to even listen to, but it's I don't know. I'm not gonna say my own podcast is gripping, but is definitely emotional and I think a lot of people resonate with it, especially if you've been through. And let's see. I think that is it on the happenings. Oh, on when you do, go to the podcast website now. Podcast global strive.com. It's in the show notes. You can sign up for the newsletter. That is going to be things that I missed from the podcast or things that I will bring up later on, future episodes that I should have brought up during the episode. Things like that. A little behind the scenes. Really trying to start the newsletter. Get some traction there. I've avoided newsletters for a really long time. I think they are worth it. I've certainly read some that are much better than the newsletters of the early two thousands and 2000 tens. Yeah, so newsletters available coming soon. And then, yeah, if you go to vip dot survivor science.com, that's simply just sign up to let you know when I launched the community, because early participants will definitely see the benefits of joining early like most communities. So yep, that's it for this episode and I think probably talk about going back into the workforce. I definitely have some friends who. In different areas and I think it's an ongoing conversation cuz not everybody's gonna have the experience. I had plenty of good companies out there, including the one I used to work for. They're not a bad company, it's just things got weird. Very particular to my story and my circumstances. I don't think it goes that way for everybody, but I will say this, it is, it's really hard. So keep at it. Keep strong, stay strong, and bye for now.