I sat in A&E. Waiting. My wonderful physiotherapist had sent me straight there when he realised that I couldn\u2019t focus or control my eye movements. I\u2019d gone to see him because I\u2019d been feeling dizzy and thought I might have a trapped nerve in my neck. I\u2019d been away for the weekend and had felt out of sorts the whole time. Queasy and unsteady. I thought I\u2019d eaten something bad or maybe I was just tired from the travelling. Or from work. Things had been intense – weren\u2019t they always? – as we tried to produce a strategy document signed off by multiple Ministers. It was my first role in a really senior grade. A major step up that came hot on the heels of a high-profile project I had led. There hadn\u2019t been much time to rest in between.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But now I was forced to wait. I couldn\u2019t look at my emails because my eyes wouldn\u2019t follow my instructions. The physio had said this was a sign of a neurological issue. But he said it calmly and gently sent me to where I needed to be, without scaring me about just how serious this could be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What followed was very frightening. CT scans, lumbar punctures, a night in the geriatric ward alongside a disoriented older woman who kept calling out desperately for her mummy. Medical students trooping in and out to take a look at this mysterious case and asking the same sets of questions over and over again. By now the symptoms had developed. I had lost strength on one side of my body, had a burning sensation in my skin and, oh my, the headaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At first they said it was a stroke. I was 31 years old and \u2018fit and healthy\u2019. Eventually I was moved to what I found out later was a world-leading neurology ward in London. The verdict was in \u2013 an inflammation in my brain. It might be a one-off or it might be Multiple Sclerosis (MS), they said. We won\u2019t know until and unless it happens again. The doctor said not to worry: it was \u201can exciting time to have MS\u201d because of all the advances in research and medication. It didn\u2019t necessarily mean ending up using a wheelchair anymore. Exciting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My boss sent a message saying I should take all the time I needed to get better. In truth I didn\u2019t have much choice because it took a few months for my eyes to get back in order. Reading was kinda important for my job. I was grateful then to be in the public sector, with solid sick leave policies, including the option of coming back part-time to gradually build my stamina back up as the symptoms subsided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Until that point in my life, work had taken pole position. I thought nothing of the late nights, weekends or other \u2018extra miles\u2019. It was worth it. I loved my job. I was building my career, and with the classic arrogance of youth, I thought I was invincible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019d like to say that what followed was a transformation story in which my \u2018wake-up call\u2019 turned me overnight into someone with zen-like work\/life balance and that we all lived happily ever after. But the truth is it was grindingly hard to change the habits and patterns of behaviour I had got into over the first 10 years of my career. Luckily for me, some of the constraints were physical. I simply got too tired to work as hard as I had before. Then I had Sam, my husband, to police me and help me stick to the rules I had set but struggled to keep. There were no laptops or blackberries (remember those?) on in our house in the evenings. There were also a couple of bosses who made it possible for me to turn up differently (sadly, there weren\u2019t many of them and I had to change jobs to find those who went beyond the rhetoric to actually support me to work in a different way). And then there were the amazing team members who stepped up to lead and proved to me that letting go has value beyond managing your own time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That was all more than 15 years ago, and I\u2019ve definitely fallen off the balance wagon multiple times since then. But overall I think I\u2019m doing OK. It helped that two years later I got taken off the MS watch-list. It turned out that my illness was a one-off encephalitis whose defining characteristic is that it never happens again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To this day, I don\u2019t know if work made me sick \u2013 I caught a virus that inflamed my brain. Maybe I wouldn\u2019t have caught it if I had been less run-down. Or maybe it would have happened even if I\u2019d been on a beach somewhere with my feet up. What I do know is that it made me change my relationship with work. I am still passionate about my career and the difference I make, but I understand that without my health I can\u2019t do any of that, so looking after myself and making sure that my teams look after themselves is part of my job too. It changed the kind of leader I then strived to be. And that seems to have made an even bigger difference in the end – just last week someone I worked with nearly a decade ago shared how impactful it was for him to see me set boundaries on collecting my children from school back then, something that he now does every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I share all this not to be a harbinger of doom or to scare you into taking a break. Or, come to that, to pretend that I\u2019ve got it all sorted. This is still daily work. My question is this: what more could you achieve if you took care of yourself too?<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Can work make you sick?<\/p>\n
Sixteen years ago I found myself in A&E. My vision was blurred. I couldn’t focus or control my eye movements. <\/p>\n
What followed changed my life and my approach to leadership forever. It was frightening and hard and still takes effort every day, but I think it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. <\/p>\n
I\\’m sharing this now, not to scare you into taking a break, but to ask what more we could all achieve if we all took care of ourselves too? <\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,26],"tags":[45],"class_list":["post-2266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-resources","tag-balance-and-burnout"],"yoast_head":"\n