u/KatieTheCrazyCatLady

Thanks in advance for hearing me and any input you can give. I think I just need to hear from others in a similar situation.

I'm 37F diagnosed about 3 years ago with PsA. I have always been a good worker with a great work ethic, and always worked full time for financial reasons as well as health insurance. Starting last year, the fatigue and malaise got too extreme and I probably missed about 20 days of work intermittently. This year so far I've missed probably 5 on paper, because my boss let me take a week of PTO last minute in March instead of counting as absent, so really about 10 days year to date. I work from home so most days I can struggle through at my own pace, and I'm still getting good reviews. However, HR has cautioned me a couple times that work performance is separate from attendance and I can still be fired. I am in the process of getting FMLA for absences but my workload isn't really able to wait around for me to have good days, as I have constant deadlines.

In addition to feeling like I'm no longer able to be reliable, my brain fog is getting worse, fatigue is worse, and pain comes and goes still. I can struggle through most days at a slower pace but I can't choose which days are good or bad, and I just recently missed a very important day, because I literally couldn't stay awake despite having plenty of sleep.

I do have LTD benefits through my work so I could survive on that for a while. I'm also hoping to move to a place with universal healthcare but my paperwork still has at least a year before approval. I guess the question is, is being unable to work consistently a reason to pursue LTD, or do I need to wait until my job tells me I've missed too much work? And what are your thoughts about the in between period where you're no longer a model employee, but can still get out of bed 90% of the time.