UNITE - BC WOMEN OF THE WORKING WORLD

Hi all, I'm a continuing worker too!



I am a cancer clinical trial coordinator (urogenital cancers). So pretty much just office stuff with an occassional trip to a hospital/clinic to make sure they are accurately reporting data.



Went back to work after my "simple" lumpectomy after a week. With chemo I've organised late afternoon infusions so I work the morning. Then I take the next 3 days at home and count the time I work remotely checking emails etc and then out in sick leave for any under time from my usual hours. I then am able to work full days from home for another few days before going back physically to the office to do filing and stuff.



I' so lucky to be able to work for such a flexible workplace (our unit is part of one of the top universities here in Australia) as I love my job! And we have amazing sick leave provisions that are far beyond the norm.



Today is day one after my last tx so at home on the bed with my ipad with all of you for company :-) Checking work emails every now and then but nothing too urgaent to deal with as yet!



regards Jenn

Back to work for the first time post-MX today. Feeling overwhelmed and also restless. Anyone else feel like they are reconsidering career options/choices in light of their cancer experience? I'm not sure how much stress I want to take on, whether there might something more meaningful I could spend my time on. But also don't feel I could walk away from a job with such good benefits and security. Sigh....

Speaking of doing something more meaninful, Jenn I actually looked into being a clinical research coordinator as one of my career change ideas.  The downside is it would also require me to move or have a long commute because of the location of the research. 

I was off of work during treatment (I had chemo first then UMX).  A couple of days after surgery my medical leave expired.  I was not healed enough to return to work yet, so I lost my job.  When I was healed enough to go back to work I had a 2 month job search before finding the position that I am in now.  I started back to work Jan 3rd.  Some days I do fine.  Some days I fight back tears most of the day.  Some days I am exhausted...like yesterday.  I came home and was going to watch the 5 o'clock news.  I fell fast asleep on the couch.  When I woke up at 7:30pm I got up, let my dog out for a minute, brushed my teeth and crawled in bed. I never even ate dinner, but I was so tired I slept all night!  I did feel better today. 

I am not telling the people at work about my bc.  There is one lady there that I see outside of work who shares my same healthy cooking, eating and living lifestyle.  We have done several things together outside of work.  I did share my "bc secret" with her...and she shared her dx (not bc) with me.  I can trust her not to talk about it (my dx) at work as she has not shared her dx with others at work.

I needed to get back to work for financial as well as mental health reasons. So...I am happy to have a new job to go to. I was really scared to get back to work...wasn't sure how much I could handle. bc knocked the self confidence right out from under me.  I had neuropathy in my hands and feet from chemo...thankfully, it is getting better now!  I still had some "chemo-brain-fog" and that terrified me going into a "new" job.  I still suffer with really dry eyes, which makes it hard to do computer work, paper work or read for any length of time. ( I had stopped wearing my wig only a couple of weeks before the interview. )  My self esteem was really fragile.  I was really scared.  What if I couldn't do it?  I took a position that I am actually over qualified for...hmmm...now that I have learned the job, I get bored.  Some days I really like it and some days it is not challenging enough.

ETA:  Getting back to work was one step in the direction of trying to find a "new normal" and move forward.

Jenn, thanks for telling your story.  That inspired me!  I have always been interested in nutrition, health, medicine.  Its a long story but I majored in business instead.  Years later, I have a son with a chronic, incurable disease and he (and me too, now) are both at the same major university center.  We sign up all the clinical trials because I want his disease cured, and why not cure BC while we're at it. So we've spit in tubes, given blood for research, etc.  One of those trials I struck up a conversation with the research coordinator who turns out, used to work at my company.  So it's been in the back of my mind, even though I too would probably have to go back to school and then I would probably want to move.  Maybe when my son goes to college...... 

FL Warrior, if its any consolation, I am beyond exhausted too.  Many nights I am in bed shortly after 7, always in bed by 8.  And then I still don't feel good except maybe an hour or two each day.  I think that contributes a lot to my lack of enthusiasm at work.