Now that I've perfected my drug cocktail

Hopefully I will start feeling better - a little Mucinex, a little Advil Cold & Sinus. Maybe I'll throw in a little Sudafed cold and Alkaseltzer cold, you know, to catch every symptom - cause I have 6 products on the counter. Just kidding. If I'm not better by Friday morning, I'll go to the doctor I suppose. The Mucinex is working already I think. The thing is, I don't feel terrible, I just don't feel good. I feel pretty bad, but how bad is bad enough to not go to work? That's always the question and my meter for that is not calibrated correctly. Today I had a deadline that had to be met - so both the partner and I came in sick. Deadline trumps illness. I am one of those people that will work no matter what basically (obviously, as I worked full-time through cancer treatment). In fact, I've actually said, "I would have to be at least half-dead to not go to work." I probably shouldn't stay stuff like that.

Anyway, I left work at 4:15. My new thing, these days, is not feeling guilty anymore. I'm no longer going to feel guilty about leaving work when I'm sick, or even about leaving when I'm not sick - but can leave just because it's slow and I don't have a deadline. It's important to take advantage of those days because, well, they aren't that common (I'm rarely slow) and there are lots of days when I stay late. No more guilt.

My other new thing is not feeling anxious - about anything - about my job, my hours, my bank account and my health. These are the things that cause me the most anxiety. Well, I'll let you know how this goes. Not feeling guilty and and not feeling anxious are always on my agenda and I'm rarely consistently successful at it.

There are a lot of reasons why I feel guilty about not working "enough." Mostly though it is because they paid a hefty fee to my headhunter to hire me and three weeks later I was diagnosed with cancer. But the thing is, anyone will tell you that I've more than made up for this. I know, I say it a lot, but I really did work 50 hours a week through cancer treatment. And I only billed 50 hours under the requirement that year. And I was the most profitable associate in the group. And on and on. In fact, I worked so much during all of that, that the people I work with sort of thought I was crazy. So for how many years am I going to feel bad about this and feel like I have to continually and repeatedly prove myself? I mean, I think I have actually. It's actually a combo of guilt about having had cancer and feelings of unworthiness. I have such a great job and I don't deserve it. I'm working on not feeling that way too.

I thought I had gotten over it, feelings of guilt and unworthiness, but then two weeks ago, when the ordeal happened (the breast cancer scare I just had is now referred to as the "ordeal"), all of the guilt came back and I thought, oh no, they are going to regret hiring me. It isn't true. It's all unfounded fear on my part.

So I left early, ran a couple of errands, promptly put my pajamas on and here I am. Happy to be blogging and next I'll post some photos!