The sick leave thing sucks a bit. It wasn't as if you chose to be ill! I was hit in a similar way just after I started my current job. A course of medicine hit me hard and required a trip to casualty, and so I didn't go into work the next day - Christmas Eve. I knew that sick pay within the first six months of starting work was at the manager's discretion, and when my January payslip arrived without deductions, I thought that I'd been paid for the day off. Not so - it was deducted without warning from the February payslip :(