April 24, 2023
Untethering from work during my leave of absence was a challenging task. On day nine and ten of this leave, I felt very uncomfortable with my empty time, with a quiet phone and with not constantly checking an inbox.
I currently work as an Account Manager for an aesthetic injectable company. It sounds like a dream job, working in the beauty space all day, in and out of med spas and dermatology offices, talking about all the new technology that “makes us beautiful” or “keeps us young.” I have given my entire working life’s energy to the aesthetic space in some form or fashion, and believe me when I say, it is more stressful than one could imagine and very difficult to create delineations between work time and personal time.
When I received my diagnosis, one of the first questions I asked was “can I keep working?” My radiation oncologist and my oncologist both had a similar answer of “Yes, unless you get to a point where you can’t and then we can help you with the paperwork for that.” The paperwork being all the necessary forms for Family Medical Leave Act protection.
Shortly after my diagnosis, I was lucky enough to be at a work event in which, at the end, I could tell my co-workers in person about my diagnosis. I did not feel that hiding my illness would do any good and I was overwhelmed by my teammates’ immediate reaction to want to help and support me as best they could.
I also chose to tell my customers about my diagnosis. It wasn’t a huge announcement; I didn’t email blast or text it to everyone. Instead, I took my time, telling my customers individually, when I had in-person visits with them.
The weird thing was that I didn’t want to be treated differently, but I knew that I would probably need to be at some point. I was always good about responding to calls, texts, and emails promptly. I was proactive and always followed through. I knew that there may come a time when that would change if I wasn’t feeling well, and I didn’t want people to be caught off guard by it.
I worked every day of my 28 days of radiation. I scheduled my radiation appointments for first thing in the morning so that I could still participate in a full days’ worth of work. As a sales person who, at that time, had a territory approximately 30 miles away from her home, I thought I could handle it and everything would proceed as normal. But by the end of week 2, when the food sensitivity and diarrhea began to set in, I started planning my days differently. I existed on applesauce, apples, and protein shakes while in the field. I planned my routes around where I could access bathrooms that offered privacy. During week 3, fatigue would overtake me by 2 in the afternoon and I had to shift my schedule even more. The picture featured with this post is of me, participating in a sales meeting via zoom on September 13, 2002, when all of my colleagues were together in person. One of many pivots I had to make to continue to participate as best I could with my team.
I had three weeks between the end of radiation and beginning of chemo and I was lucky that those three weeks coincided with a switch in territory assignments. This was something in the works long before my diagnosis, and I was excited to finally be working closer to home, but devastated that I knew it was not going to go the way I planned. A whole new set of customers, a whole new set of people I did not know that I had to explain my illness to, and a lot of hoping and praying that it would work out okay. Which, for the most part, it did.
Beginning late in October, IV chemo was administered every other Wednesday. I would take off chemo day and the day after to recover, knowing I had the weekend ahead of me to also recoup so I could hit the ground running on Monday. I had to cram 10 business days worth of work into a seven day cycle, and I had to do it 8 times over.
I overbooked myself. I ran myself into the ground the first month, not fully clear on how exhausting chemotherapy actually is. So I pivoted again, adjusting my schedule so as not to end up with dizziness and a debilitating headache. And of course, I answered emails and text messages from my chemo lounger. I sat on hold with various business partners to track down missing payments and packages from the waiting room of the infusion clinic.
All that time I kept thinking that I didn’t want to be different, I wanted everyone to treat me like the same Meredith before cancer, but I also wanted to scream sometimes “Do you have any fucking clue what this is like and how hard I am trying to make all of this happen?” This idea of don’t treat me differently, but please treat me different, led me to the realization that I had to set more boundaries about what was work time and what was personal time and I had to hold myself accountable to keeping that delineation clear. I could’t fall back into old habits.
In addition to this adjustment, I had to pick myself up and keep going every day. No matter if my clothes didn’t fit anymore because I lost so much weight. No matter if my hair looked like shit or the circles under my eyes were deep purple. I had to shake off the looks and whispers and not care what anyone was thinking, because I was doing my damn best.
And yes, work was a way to not dwell on my illness all of the time. It continued to be a constant in an unpredictable landscape. Was everyone I interacted with understanding? No, but that’s okay. Did everyone rally around me? Nope, but that’s okay too. It wasn’t personal and I couldn’t internalize it as such. Because no one will get it unless they live it. And oh how I wish no one else had to live this.
Now that I am three weeks into my leave of absence, I am disconnected from work and I am taking advantage of every moment to rest my body and feed my soul. I am grateful for what this time means for me and my body and my spirit. Reflecting on what working during treatment taught me is that moving forward, I always need to keep a clear boundary between work and personal time. My well-being is the number one priority- always. I became very clear on what is important at work and what isn’t. I developed a game plan for how I want to operate in my work moving forward, what bad habits I am going to leave behind and what new habits I will incorporate.
Working while going through treatments is possible. I think you need to be clear about your diagnosis and be honest about how people can support you. It is important to know that you don’t have to do it all, that you may have to course - correct as new side effects pop up. You may need to take the extra day off, or not answer the phone after 5pm, or take a dang nap at 2 in the afternoon. Don’t push yourself, let the treatments do the life-saving work and let your body recover. And know that it is okay to be different, it’s only for a little while.
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