Hi friends, sorry for the long post but I need help 🥲
I am looking for some advice and I feel like this is the best place to ask. I currently work as an RN in a high acuity ICU. A few months ago I was diagnosed with relapsing remitting MS. I took about 6 weeks of short term disability immediately after my diagnosis due to generalized weakness, balance issues, numbness in all of my extremities and difficulty with fine motor skills.
Since coming back from short term I have had to call out 5 separate times due to relapse symptoms and there were many days that I should have called out but pushed through because I don’t have any more PTO and can’t afford to miss the paycheck. Stress is one of the biggest triggers for flares and I feel that the physicality, emotional and mental strain of this job is largely contributing to my frequent flares. I love my team and I’m sad because I genuinely don’t want to leave critical care but I don’t think I am physically capable of doing this job for much longer.
With that being said, I would really like to hear any opinions or thoughts on what sort of jobs might be a better fit for me. I’m a newer nurse and currently have about 1.5 years of experience exclusively in the ICU I’m currently working at. I have thought about potentially doing cath lab or OR nursing, but I don’t know truly what the physical cost is of those types of jobs. I’ve also thought about PIC nursing or dialysis but I feel like those specialties are difficult to go into without significant experience. A clinic/triage job would be fantastic but unfortunately very difficult to find because most clinics don’t hire RNs anymore.
I realize this was long winded but I would truly appreciate any advice or input because I’m feeling overwhelmed and not sure which direction to even start looking in at the moment. Thank you for reading ❤️