| Lindsay Nicholson - Cancer Impacts |
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Lindsay Nicholson, Editorial Director of Good Housekeeping reflects on the ways in which cancer impacts on your career. Back in 2007, after a partial mastectomy and about to embark on six cycles of chemotherapy, I remember asking my oncologist whether I would be able to carry on working? “Maybe, provided there are no deadlines; no meetings and you go to bed for two hours every afternoon,” he said. Hmmm! I don’t think he had much idea of what constitutes an editor’s working life. In the event, a rare reaction to the chemo made me so profoundly nauseous that I had to add: “No moving more than five steps from the bathroom,” to the oncologist’s advice and ended up doing only modest amounts of work from home for the duration. That’s the thing about working through cancer. The only rule is that there are no rules! One reason for that is that cancer is a term covering literally thousands of different diseases – breast cancer alone has more than 200 variants. Depending on the type of cancer you have you might spends weeks in hospital – or not even a single night. You might, like me, have totally debilitating, nauseating chemo. Or, and this is more likely these days, you will simply feel under the weather for weeks at a stretch. I have even heard of some women going through lumpectomy and radiation treatment for Stage I breast cancer without actually even telling their employers – but that would suggest a certain amount of autonomy in their jobs and an almost superhuman level of strength as the worst thing about the ‘rads’ is how tired it makes you. It’s certainly not a recommended course of action! And it’s not even necessary as thankfully due to recent changes in the law, cancer is now defined as a disability and discrimination against anyone who needs to take time off for treatment is illegal. If you need to know more about this then www.breastcancercare.org.uk are a great starting place for information. What is for sure, is that if you don’t know what to expect, then your employers are going to have even less of a clue. So at a point in your life when you are feeling fairly wretched you will also have to take on the responsibility of guiding them through the maze. This will inevitably be made more complicated by the fact that your treatment plan could possibly change depending on how well you are responding. If you initially thought you were going to get away without having chemo and subsequently discover that you now need it, perhaps because of lymph node involvement, that in itself is distressing enough without having to explain all the ghastly detail to your line manager. A good HR department is an absolute boon in such circumstances. But if you don’t have one, then you will have to grit your teeth and explain it all to your boss because the better they understand what is going on, the more accommodating they can be. In my experience, the key factors to take into account are as follows: .Recovery from surgery. Don’t try to be a hero. Although you can expect to spend far less time as an in-patient than in the past, your body will still need adequate time at home to recover after an operation. Your surgeon will tell you how much time to take off. Believe him! .Nausea. Modern drug combinations have dramatically reduced this but some types of chemo do still cause severe side-effects and some people (me included) have extreme reactions. If this is a problem for you, then you won’t need any lecturing about staying at home in bed. You won’t be able to do anything else! .Reduced immunity. About seven to 10 days after a chemo cycle your immunity will drop and you will need to be especially careful about hygiene and avoiding coming into contact with anyone suffering from coughs, colds etc. How vulnerable you become depends on the type of chemo you are having. Some people are able to carry on working provided they don’t have a lot of contact with strangers. If you intend to do this then consider how you will get to and from work as public transport in rush hour is not great in this situation. Apart from the fact that even the common cold can be dangerous when you have low immunity, your next chemo cycle may be delayed if you are ill which can cause other problems. If in doubt, stay at home. .Exhaustion. There is a kind a tiredness that comes from cancer treatment that is quite unlike any other. The nearest equivalent is surviving on three hours sleep a night while looking after a newborn baby – but even that doesn’t really do it justice. It is a bone-deep weariness that sleep does little to alleviate. And it often continues for at least a year after treatment ends. While surgery, chemo or rads alone can cause this exhaustion, it’s known to be worse if you have all three. I found it profoundly debilitating and depressing and could only work part-time for the first couple of months after I eventually went back to the office. There is no cure except time, rest and healthy food. And if you are tempted to push yourself to the limit during treatment then don’t because you will certainly suffer further down the line. .Hair loss. As if it wasn’t bad enough putting up with all the other side-effects, the bald person staring back at you in the mirror every morning is enough to give you the heebie-jeebies. At weekends I was happy in headscarves and beanie hats but for work, I splashed out on a lovely wig, styled to suit me by a top hairdresser. It was money well spent because frankly there are times when you don’t want to be seen as a person with cancer but as a professional doing your job. And looking on the bright side, pulling on a wig in the morning is a damn sight easier than blow-drying your hair. My hair has grown back now but I do actually miss the convenience of the wig. .Stress. Being diagnosed with cancer – despite survival rates that are improving every year – is profoundly upsetting. It makes you question everything about your life and you will inevitably feel very fearful for the future. The additional worry that you may lose your livelihood, not to mention the interest and satisfaction that your job brings, can make life almost unbearably stressful. But the truth, as I discovered, is that you do not need to lose your career along with your hair. Remember you have legal protection in the workplace and so long as you listen to your body and don’t overdo it, there’s there is no reason why a cancer diagnosis should also mean the end of your ambition! |