Showing Up For Work

In a cancer journey, you can't just take two weeks off and get better. Today, we are going to explore how we navigated our unique work situations. Welcome back, everyone, I hope you are truly enjoying our episodes. But today, we are going to get into working through our journey, whether we're at a job, physical job, or if we're at home on Zoom, and we work from home. And there are many different challenges and obstacles that we face that we're gonna get into today. So, let's do this. So Maggie, I just love where we start these, you know, it's just, it's one of those things where it's just like, where are we going to take this today?

I know, right. So, and I love that, you know, I, I love that. It does sort of surprise us. And as we talked about the last couple episodes, it's healing for us. Yes, it is re discuss a lot of these topics. So you know, discuss for the first time and are we discussed? So sorry, go ahead.

Exactly. Like, the point I want to bring up is, we can't just take two weeks off and get better when we go through this, this cancer diagnosis and journey and healing process. So I'm curious, what might have been maybe one or two of your biggest challenges, as you faced your career, your job as you were going through your journey.

It's just such an interesting concept. Because yeah, well, I mean, in the corporate world, you have sick days, right? When you when you go to a physical job, and or even working remotely, I specifically had been running my own business for quite some time. So I have a very small team, very small team. Marla and Suzy. And what was so challenging is that when I knew about first of all the appointments, so So that alone means required time off, right? I didn't have to I didn't have a boss, I had to go talk to about figuring this out. I just had to figure it out. Now there's a part of me that thinks I was blessed with that. And then there's a part of me that thinks, oh, shit, am I going to be a good boss to myself? So Exactly, yeah, so we'd like being flexible and gracious with myself as I navigated this. So the appointments, I would say, even though more and more they plop on our calendar, right, as we know, right. The other aspect of that, which is such an unknown unpredictable part is how you're going to feel. And so I, I started, you know, me I have like my one big tool I used all the time that I created that we created in Love Me healing was this whole symptom tracker, which became so critical to be able to predict and see themes and trends and what I was feeling and when I was going to have my down days, if you will, my what I call my red days, because those were the days I knew I needed backup. Those are the days I knew I couldn't talk to clients. Right. And so I guess for me, the biggest challenge was learning a new way to operate, day in and day out and a new way to sort of plan my weeks based on what I thought I might be feeling or what I thought I might be capable of.

Right so you so you use this tool to actually track your your signs and symptoms, so to speak. Yeah, so then try to incorporate that with how you were going to work with your clients. Did you need some time off? Did you need to give your your staff more things to do because Maggie couldn't do them at this point. And that brings up a whole nother guilt factor or about passing off my work to somebody else.

Yes, exactly. And I so I'll dive into my piece and I know you have such a different experience with this. Yes, I did Bina and so but I will say that I I've never been a very good delegator because I've always been doo doo doo go I can take on so much stuff, right? I can just run through it and be super productive. Well, I was very, very grateful to have team members that kept asking me, What can we take? What can we do? How can we lessen your workload? So, huge, massive shout out to Marla who you guys will meet and future episodes was my Godsend like she, she kept, she helped with the guilt because I didn't have to ask her, she was asking me for stuff. But that required her to know. And so there again, I was blessed to have that person that I was comfortable telling about all the things I was experiencing as I was navigating the appointments and our how I felt and that sort of thing. So I'm gonna, like, put this back on on you, Dina, because you had such a different experience with a boss, and you were the boss of others and an employee that you had to navigate it so differently than I did.

Yes, I actually went into a job, I was a nursing lab instructor for the college that I actually graduated nursing school from. And during the entire cancer journey, I ran a simulation, I ran a simulation lab, which are mannequins that, you know, act like patients. And the, the issue that I ran into was, I needed certain days off so that the schedule can get covered. Because if I didn't run the mannequin, somebody else had to, and there was only a certain amount of people doing it. So that's where we needed to juggle the schedule. But what was so difficult at times is the days that I ended up getting sick, okay, which means that either I had bowel issues, and I'd have to run to the bathroom. Or I was too tired to continue my day, I just physically couldn't do it anymore. And it was difficult, because now I kept worrying about oh, my gosh, my students needed me, what are my coworkers gonna think of me, I'm just leaving, I'm leaving them high and dry, they need to find somebody to cover my workload. So it was very different for me. And it was also about the benefits that I had at the college that I worked that they had wonderful benefits, so that there was a medical leave that I could use certain hours for, for my treatments and my surgeries, without dipping into sick time, personal time, vacation time yet. So I was very fortunate with that kind of benefit that I had.

I love the just the point about how you were feeling when you were leaving your team members and your co workers like they would feel like you're leaving them high and dry unless you were able to confide in them, right. That's like such a double edged sword.

Zachary Yeah. And my co workers were great. I have to admit, my co workers were great. At one point, I had a negative experience with having to go to work. And what I mean by negative is that because I was at work, and I would get sick, or I didn't feel good that day, I would automatically it's something that I did, because I'm you know, I think I'm being professional enough and saying, Listen, I'm not feeling well, today, I want to get through the day, but in case I can't, I need to go home. And, you know, my immediate supervisors, I had two of them. And they were like, Oh, just try to get through the day. Or, you know, just you know, we're short staffed. I don't know how this is going to work today. You know, it was things like that. And then I would push myself and push myself for the day, get through it. And then when never got nobody ever checked on me during the day wire was an eight hour shift. And, you know, then I would leave at the end of the day, say goodbye to my immediate supervisors. And then they would turn around and pass a comment and say, Oh, you got through the day I see. And that makes and I want to our audience to not feel guilty about that. This is this is your journey. This is you have to advocate for yourself. Whether you're in a situation like this or not, or a different type of situation. It's just like, wait a second time out here. I'm the one that matters. I'm the one that's going through this exactly. And it could get very ugly Sitting for I cried the whole way home that day. And I'm like, Why? Why am I going through this? I'm, I'm struggling here. I'm fighting for my life here, I got these potent drugs running through my entire body. And I need negativity on top of that, why am I am coming to work,

Deena that is such a that falls into such a real and raw category, right? Because yes, that to me points out the reality that there are people in this case, your supervisors that will not know how to support us, they clearly did not maybe didn't even think about it, maybe didn't, maybe didn't know how whatever it was, right. But on the way home, instead of celebrating, I just did that. We're feeling guilty about it because of their response to you. And that that's sad. And it's an unfortunate reality, right?

It is an unfortunate reality. But I did learn from it. So that the next time it happened, I became a little bit more stronger, a little bit more demanding. And then I realized, wait a second, I have been in supervisory positions. And I know that when staff members come to you about an illness, or a surgery, you know, there are certain things put in place, like certain, you know, rules and regulations. It's called HIPAA, you know, in regard to, you know, spreading the word here. So that's also can be a very big challenge. For many people out there, like we have talked about, who do we tell when we tell? And who we don't want to tell? Right.

Right now,

you worked from home, but I am sure that if I know you the way I know you, how did you feel with your clients? When it comes to this kind of topic, subject? Feelings?

It's, it's interesting, because there were, we were in the middle of a few pretty big projects, and so hopping on client calls. I still remember not wanting them to know, even those clients that I knew from past jobs, and actually was pretty close with, I just did not want them to know, because there was this underlying feeling of they will question my performance. I want them to believe I've got this. Nothing's changed. I've got this. So that's a big front to put on. And that's a lot to ask of ourselves. Right? So I didn't I didn't tell them. And I remember the first time I'd did this multiple times. But I remember the first time doing this with Marla, we were on a long client call talking about a website we were designing and developing and actually, I had a wig on. And after the call, the client hung up, and Marla and I stayed on and I ripped the wig off and it was like hot and it itches. And I co yet it was like and that was Marla was actually thankful because I was able and comfortable to do that with her. Right? And I could not wait to so back to your point of who we tell and who we don't tell has a big impact on how we show up with those people. And it's, it's, it's challenging to navigate those aspects of being yourself being comfortable. What do I wear? How do I how do I talk about how I might look because obviously we get pale we lose our eyelashes, we lose our eyebrows, we lose our hair, you know all of that. Exactly. So, Dina, how did Did you Did your boss, your supervisors? Did they ever come around to a better support of what you were going through?

Yes and no. I've had multiple surgeries. And that was also something that was more of a unpleasant situation. In regard to the second one of the second or third surgeries I needed a comment was passed. Oh, you have to have another surgery. Oh, oh, least it's not cancer. It was my reconstructive. You know, surgeries. Are you kidding me? No, I am not kidding. So, I, I learned to confide in one or two of my co workers. And they were my buffer between me and my supervisor. Unfortunately, I had to get human resources involved as well. Because I would get phone calls back, you know, when I was home from recovering from my surgeries, phone calls about when you coming back how many weeks you can be out. But, you know, you're not healed yet. You know, I need to fix the schedule, I need to know when you're coming back, when, in reality, by law, I should have never, ever gotten a phone call. So like I said, a little while ago, I learned to become stronger because of this. And I would say, I'm not discussing this with you speak to human resources. That was my go to line at this point. But unfortunately, it had to get to that point. Yeah, you know,

what, it's the whole self advocacy, right? That you had to figure out? What does that look like to me in this situation? And how do I dodge these types of questions? Because it makes me feel

alright, so. So a tip could be that if you want to dodge certain questions, you have to realize, or we have to realize what we're willing to answer and what we're not willing to answer. And do we have somebody that we trust enough to help navigate the whole conversation. Like, I had two friends, two co workers, two people who also went through breast cancer. So that's why I felt so comfortable and trusting them that they would be the go between, you know, yeah, oh, I for so long. It was like, how are you doing today? What's, you know, how many more treatments you got? You know, are you going to do radiation, you know, you know, what kind of surgeries you're having, like, all of these questions you get shot at, by people that just don't understand. So part of me had to say to myself, Oh, my gosh, that being so personal, I can't take this, I don't want to talk about this anymore. But then I kept saying to myself, ah, they don't understand. They don't know how to navigate somebody else's journey and how to support them. So I would tell the two people, okay, this is what we're gonna do. You guys are going to be the go between because I can't keep talking about this day in and day out not doing it. And they I would tell, talk to them, and they will say what they needed to some of my co workers and really got involved with my boss, my two bosses as well. You know, so that's, that's one way to handle it.

So that that made me think of a question. Do you know as far as with the people that you did not want to tell? Because there were some clear people I did not want to tell her? Like, how did you navigate the we have to be mindful of where we like post in our social media? What are we sharing? are we sharing pictures of ourselves? are we sharing updates and or how like, I personally use caringbridge. And I did not say anything on social media. And people were kind of like, well, where are you on social? Like I've been, you've been like, it's been crickets or whatever. And it's like, I just I chose not to share anything on social media, because I just didn't want to blast it out there. How did you handle that part?

I was on social media, but not consistently. You know, I had one firehouse friend, that he just loved the idea of me sharing the story. But I did it in a way that wasn't overwhelming. I did it when I wanted to. I really wasn't on it that much. So I wasn't blasting my entire story everywhere. But I had the support of my friends, my firehouse friends, my family and a few co workers. So they really were the ones that helped me navigate these areas of telling when to tell when not to tell, and all of that, you know, and I also got pretty good at saying, please, thank you for your love and support, but I just can't talk about this right now.

Yeah, that's great. That's a great point. That was that was the first time I

did that. I just wanted a curl on that a table. I was like, What do I think I am saying something like this to somebody who wants to who's asking me, but then I said to myself, wait a minute. This is my journey. I can't go over this and over this and over this. You know, today I'm just not up to talking about this.

I love that you said Got a clear boundary in honor of your own healing? And that is, it's hard because we do get hard on ourselves sometimes with who did that? Is this going to sound too abrupt? Or is this going to sound rude? Or is this but we need what we need. And we got to navigate what we're navigating and ask for. What what we need from others. It's just what? So what tips, would you if you had to, like sum it up into one or two things? What would you tell people about navigating this journey in their career? What would you say?

Once again, is that we have the choice. We have to be comfortable within ourselves to say, I don't want to tell this one. I will tell that one. Don't ask me 5 million questions on this. And just be able to be okay with it. There is no there's no right or wrong way to do this. And you might hear that a lot from me, Maggie. Because our journeys are so different. We're so unique in our own ways. What works for me might not work for you. You know, and it's things like that you wore a wig. I wore scarfs i A lot of times I had I was bald. i It was wintertime, it depends on where I was, I took it off. And I was just like, it's too hot in here. You're gonna, I don't care what y'all think about my bald head.

I love that. I love that. And that takes an inner strength. And it's not like a It's not like a quick and easy thing. But it's powerful.

So is there one or one thing that you'd like to mention before we end today?

I would say my biggest learning through the navigation of my challenges is to to be gracious with myself and to allow in that love and support because I was blessed with having it. But I was resistant to it at first because I thought I still needed to do everything. Right and we don't and we can't. So be gracious with yourself and give yourself what you need. And that means allowing in that support of others as well.

So yes. Great, great conversation today. Thank you again,