Jared had planned to return to work part-time on February 6th, two days after the baptism. The seizures added the complication that he couldn't drive for another 3 months. Luckily, at least for the first week, he worked just a few miles from home, so I could take him and pick him up.
It was definitly weird dropping him off. I felt like a mom dropping off my Kindergartener for the first day of school. I was worried about how he would tolerate being back to work. To make matters worse, he was working at a bank in the State Prison, so to get past the gate I had to have ID, which I didn't bring (because it was so close to the house). So they made him walk the distance from the gate to the bank with his heavy backpack! And he wasn't very stable, even without the heavy backpack throwing off his balance! I tried to explain to the guard, but he didn't budge. Jared had to walk.
Being back at work made an enormous difference! There was a huge change in his demeanor, even the first day. He felt like he was finally contributing again. I actually missed his company, but I was SO HAPPY for him to be able to get out of the house!
The few hours of work every day definitely wore him out. He was still getting light-headed and dizzy. He was also on strong oral antibiotics for four weeks (another precautionary measure for the infection) that made him nauseated and gave food a weird taste, so he didn't eat much. This was again something we just decided to re-evaluate every week to see how much work he could handle.
Week two was in the office downtown. It was a little harder to take him and pick him up. On Wednesday of that week, I had dropped him off, and about two hours later he called and told me I needed to come get him right away because he'd had another seizure. This one was pretty long, he again didn't pass out, but was more humiliated than anything. I arranged for someone to get the older kids from school and I went and picked him up.
I started getting overwhelmed at the thought of taking and picking him up every day, so I was so grateful when I had help! When he was working part-time I had to do a little more because someone could usually take him or bring him home, but I usually had to do the other trip. When I look back at the months he couldn't drive, I really didn't have to do all that much considering the length of time he was unable to drive because of all the help. His brother, Neil, took him when he could (this required Neil to wake up extra early to swing clear out of his way to pick Jared up and drop him off at work way out of his way, and also made his nights later - a big sacrifice for someone recently engaged!) Other times if he worked in Provo or American Fork, a co-worker from Salt Lake would stop and pick him up. For those acts of service, I will ALWAYS be gratful, because the days that I did have to drive were exhausting and difficult.
Jared started to work full-time again in March, and has ever since that time.
