A Personal Story of Managing Career and Cancer and a Lesson in Putting Your Health First   

A little over a year ago, a head hunter reached out to me about a position with an antipoverty advocacy organization that was seeking a new director of development. I wasn’t looking to leave my current job, but the possibility of a director position at an organization that worked on issues I was passionate about was too tempting not to explore. After several rounds of interviews, I was offered the position. I was thrilled. It was literally my dream job.

A few weeks into the job, the unthinkable happened: I found a lump in my left breast. I was only 31 years old, and everyone assured me that it was probably just a cyst. There was no family history, and the chances that I had breast cancer at such a young age were slim. But, a few weeks later, tests confirmed my worst fear:  I had stage 2 malignant intraductal carcinoma.

It isn’t easy to tell your new boss that you have cancer, and that the next year was probably going to be more about surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation than executing all of your plans for your department. But I was very lucky to have a boss and co-workers who were extremely understanding, supportive, and flexible. They truly cared about my health and well-being first. But I am a striver and the idea that I would not be able to give my all to my job was not an easy one to accept. I would quickly find that the biggest challenge over the next nine months would not be my treatment, but learning to let go of work and focus on my health.

The first phase of treatment was actually about preserving my fertility. Because I wanted children, and chemotherapy can lead to permanent infertility in some women, it was highly recommended that I freeze my eggs. This involved a month of daily injections, every-other-day ultrasounds, and a minor surgical procedure, which turned into two after I had an unexpected complication from the first procedure. At the same time, I was undergoing other tests and biopsies to help my doctors understand the extent of the cancer.

The result was that in the third month of my job, I was late to work almost every day, I was out at least once a week for a test, and I was hormonal and in pain most of the time. Not the best situation while I was also trying to hire a new staffer, implement a new system for managing donors, planning two big events at our upcoming conference, and launching a major fundraising campaign. But it was about to get worse.

The doctors recommended that I undergo a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction. This meant a major surgery with a full month of leave from work, during which I would not even be able to check my email for fear of losing my short-term disability insurance. The first week of disability was easy, because I was on a lot of pain medication. I just drank milkshakes, colored, and napped. But as I started to feel better, I began to go stir crazy. All I could think about was everything going on at work and whether things were on track. I began having stress dreams about my fundraising campaign failing and no one coming to my events.

Within a few weeks, however, I was back in the office, and nothing had caught fire in my absence. There were some things that needed my tending, of course, but by and large the world kept turning while I was away. It was an important lesson: It is okay to take care of yourself, because everything will still be there when you get back. I felt a lot of relief, but a new challenge was on its way.

Shortly after returning to work, it was time to start 16 weeks of chemotherapy. My regimen would have me out of the office for infusions every other Monday for four months. It would also mean that there would be many days in between where I would be too sick to go into the office. Luckily, we are a remote-ready office, and it was quite easy to work from home when necessary, which was at least four or five days per month.

The thing about chemotherapy, though, is that it completely drains you, and it gets worse as the treatment goes on. Some days you feel completely unable to do anything. For an ambitious person, this is a debilitating and frustrating experience. I felt like I was slowly going insane. Fighting through the malaise was not an option; I was completely knocked out, unable to think or move. Many days I was left to just cry in frustration while the work emails rolled in.

The only thing that saved me were the people in my life who loved me and reminded me that I was going through something really hard. That chemo was intense, and that I couldn’t expect to continue on like normal while my body was being pumped full of chemicals. In short, they reminded me to give myself a break. That this was temporary, and it was okay if, during this really hard time, my job wasn’t my number one priority.

After what felt like an eternity–but what I am still assured was only four months–chemotherapy came to an end. It was a huge relief to be done with this part of my treatment, and I was anxious to get back to my normal life. Unfortunately, I still had one more hurdle to jump before my treatment was really over: radiation.

I thought radiation would be easy after the hardship of chemotherapy. But I was wrong. Although easier on your body overall, I had to go in for treatments five days a week for five and half weeks. That meant I would be late to work every single day for over a month. It is really hard to get into a good work rhythm when you are late every day. And it was made worse by the fatigue. Our head of HR had purchased a giant beanbag chair that he put in a room used for private phone calls. He told me it was for me to lie down on if I was worn out. I never used it all through chemo, but during radiation, I was taking beanbag chair catnaps at least once a week.

Immediately after radiation ended, I had to jump into six weeks of intense work travel and manage the end-of-year fundraising rush. There was so much going on, I didn’t have time to process what had happened over the previous nine months, or really check in with myself at all. Before I knew it, the holidays were here, and I was home with my family, assuring everyone that I was okay and recounting the experience over and over again. I didn’t get a chance to rest, but I knew I needed to. Despite having the full week off between Christmas and New Year, I took off the Tuesday I was supposed to go back to work. I stayed home that day, put on sad movies, and cried on my couch with my dog. It was the best choice I could have made. I had finally learned to put my mental and physical health ahead of my job, and I am a better employee for it. I was able to go back to work refreshed and ready for a new year.

I am about three months out from the end of my treatment, and I am finally feeling like I am back to normal. Things are going really well at work, and I am ready to take on the career challenges that lie ahead. Sometimes, when I look back on 2016, I feel sad for what I was not able to accomplish because I was dealing with cancer. But I also feel grateful for all of the love and support I received. I remind myself how lucky I am to have a job where I had good insurance and I was able to take care of myself first—it is a luxury that far too many do not have.

Dealing with an illness like cancer is really hard, and there is a massive loss of control over so many areas of your life. If you are a particularly driven person, this can be the hardest part of the entire experience. But I learned that I had choice: I could make it harder on myself by beating myself up for not being a perfect employee, or I could love myself and take care of myself and trust that my job would still be there. Some days, I made it harder on myself. But with the love and support of my family, friends, and coworkers, more often I found a way to give myself a break.

Tips for Surviving Breast Cancer Treatment

We are lucky to live in a time and country where most women who get breast cancer will survive. With early detection, you may not have any symptoms from the actual cancer, which can actually make the treatment even more difficult. Here are a few tips for dealing:

• Mourn losses. Your treatment is going to be the number one thing in your life for six to nine months (sometimes longer), and there are other things you may have had planned for that time, whether it is as “small” as a vacation you were looking forward to, or as big as planning to try to have a baby. Allow yourself to mourn the things in your life that you have to (temporarily) give up. If you don’t acknowledge and deal with these feelings, they will start to pop up in other places.
• Do things you enjoy. When you are in the day-to-day of treatment, especially chemo, it can feel all-consuming. Take time to do things that make you happy to help distract you from what is going on. As much as possible, try to maintain your normal life. It makes a huge difference. And remember, the treatment does end, even if it feels like it never will. This is just a small bump in your life.
• Get a therapist. There is so much to process during breast cancer treatment, from the loss of your breasts to a loss of control over your life. You are going to need someone who can help you work through the different feelings of sadness, anger, guilt, and fear that come with diagnosis and treatment. Friends, significant others, and family are important, but they can’t be your only source of support.
• Thank your caregivers. Throughout your treatment, there will be people in your life who will help take care of you. When they are people who love you, like a spouse, a parent, or friends, you need to realize that the cancer is happening to them, too, just in a different way. Make sure you treat them well, thank them often, and encourage them to take care of themselves.