A business owner with a brain injury hides severe headaches, spasms, and vomiting from her crew because she fears losing clients and employees if they see her suffer. Flare-ups knock her out for a day or two, leaving her in a hangover-like state that makes work impossible.
They don't know I'm suffering and I'll go around the corner and sometimes I've thrown up and things like this. And so the brain injury, the aftermath of it, which includes like severe headaches, crippling body spasms, vomiting, losing control of my bladder sometimes.
Most people, if I walk into any business that did $100,000 last year in revenue, the first thing I'm trying to push the owner to do is like get out in the field and do as much work as possible. In this case, there's limitations emotionally and physically that we cannot cross because it would cause the business owner to want to quit. What are the limitations because of the injury that, like, physically you can't do?
If I go down for a day or 2 days, we lose my labor. Okay. But the team can still function and things like that.
When you have those flare-ups, can you still do admin and sales, or is it just physical work, like exertion, that's tough? Or is it like you kind of just need to check out for a bit?
It's almost like a horrible hangover the next day. Like, you can't really Figure out what you're supposed to do. So there is like a day recovery. So looking at a computer and things, not so great. There are times I'm out on the job and I'm trying to hold it together for the crew and they don't know I'm suffering. And I'll go around the corner and sometimes I've thrown up and things like this. And so trying to make sure that you can protect yourself in a way where your injury is not going to spill out and taint maybe client retention or even employee retention, it has been a tricky independent challenge that I faced that one else understands.
