Where would you draw the line?

Okay. Some of you may remember a previous post of mine regarding a co-worker and my issues with her. I mentioned there that I was working 65–70 hour weeks to cover her not showing up. She’s being protected by HR and she’s back now, usless as ever, but she’s back.

At any rate, I’m still pulling the same hours, because we have one girl and one dispatcher out (they just had a baby), one other dispatcher on vacation, one boss on vacation, two other employees out for serious medical emergencies… so we’re super short handed.

I’m tired, cranky, my sciatica pain started last night and is off the charts to where I’d normally call out.. I had trouble getting down the stairs and I live on the 3rd floor… but if I call out, that leaves one person where there would normally be 5. I’m getting to the end of my rope, and I can tell this, because I had a panic attack this morning.

Where would you say “enough is enough.. it’s not my responsibility to fill in all these holes. I need to take care of myself.” I know how insanely appreciative my superiors are… they tell me every 10 minutes, it seems. I’m getting glowing reviews from all the higher-ups in my department. They keep joking, “Jess! Slow down! You’re making it look like we don’t need more help! You’re making us look bad!” I don’t want to go backward in the progress I’ve made with the bosses, and I don’t want to leave my co-workers hanging, but I’m drowning. What do I do?