Re:Ask HN: Coping with cancer in the family
by macdamaniac on Friday November 05, 2021 @01:48PM
(#29122515)
I had a very similar situation a year ago. My mom was diagnosed with colon cancer in October 2020, had surgery then, and then went through chemo December - February. I moved from CA to FL to take care of her during the time, and it was extremely tough.
I tried to manage my work while going through it, and negotiated with my manager that I'd be working roughly 50% of my time with the possibility for unexpected days off (my mom had several hospitalizations for transfusions which were unplanned/unexepcted). It wore me out tremendously emotionally, and at the end of it I got a poor performance review for that time period.
I strongly regret not taking "family leave," which if you're in tech your company should offer. If I had taken it, I would have maintained good performance standing in my company as they default you to it if there's insufficient data. Instead, even though my manager was on board with giving me a good performance review, the "bar raisers" decided I hadn't done enough work in that time, and it had knock-on effects on my burnout, because on top of getting back to work normally post-chemo while already being exhausted, I now also had to work extra hard to get out of a bad performance situation.
Additionally, while I did get a good bit of work done during that time, if I had had the time completely free to take care of my mom I would have done a better job taking care of her, and would have had more time to also do self-care, which is extremely important when going through such a difficult time and watching someone you love suffer.
I really wish you the best, I completely understand your situation and you can reach out to me at ryan @ mcafeeryan [dot] com if you want to chat about any of it. It's going to be hard, it's going to suck, and you will get through it.
I tried to manage my work while going through it, and negotiated with my manager that I'd be working roughly 50% of my time with the possibility for unexpected days off (my mom had several hospitalizations for transfusions which were unplanned/unexepcted). It wore me out tremendously emotionally, and at the end of it I got a poor performance review for that time period.
I strongly regret not taking "family leave," which if you're in tech your company should offer. If I had taken it, I would have maintained good performance standing in my company as they default you to it if there's insufficient data. Instead, even though my manager was on board with giving me a good performance review, the "bar raisers" decided I hadn't done enough work in that time, and it had knock-on effects on my burnout, because on top of getting back to work normally post-chemo while already being exhausted, I now also had to work extra hard to get out of a bad performance situation.
Additionally, while I did get a good bit of work done during that time, if I had had the time completely free to take care of my mom I would have done a better job taking care of her, and would have had more time to also do self-care, which is extremely important when going through such a difficult time and watching someone you love suffer.
I really wish you the best, I completely understand your situation and you can reach out to me at ryan @ mcafeeryan [dot] com if you want to chat about any of it. It's going to be hard, it's going to suck, and you will get through it.