Yesterday marked ten months to the day when I broke my spine (among other injuries) in an RTC at work.
As is natural with such an injury I have been off work for a long time with both the physical and psychological impact of such an event, and due to the nature of emergency services work, I have had my progress reviewed several times with the work's doctor.
My medical certificate from the consultant runs until 19 April, however, by mutual agreement with the doctor, my return date was changed to yesterday, 15 March. I think part of getting him to agree to the early return was the fact I explained how have been keeping very active and improving my health and fitness.
The agreement was that I would work in the office, until such a time a course becomes available for me to enrol on, for my annual fitness test and personal safety techniques annual re-certification, which had long since expired.
By pure chance, I managed to gatecrash on a course at short notice today, well ahead of schedule, and passed them without any problems.
So tomorrow is my first day back out on the roads
Work have insisted on a phased return, so this set I will do 50% of my usual hours, next set 60%, and so on, until I am back up to my normal hours. There are a few other supportive measures in place, for example I will not be expected to crew alone etc, until we know I am coping OK with everything.
Nervous, excited, happy, never thought I would see the day! Still yet to be seen that I will cope with all of the physical demands and carrying the kit for the full hours, but, as I said to the doctor, I will never know until I try - and try I am ready to do.
I don't start until late afternoon tomorrow, so a couple of real ales are coming out to celebrate
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Topic: No longer a man of leisure! (Read 3530 times)