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I'm in the US and my partner was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, and I was their sole source of health insurance, so to keep my focus on work I reminded myself every day that if I lost my job for any reason, we'd run out of money within weeks covering either COBRA or out-of-pocket expenses, lose our home, and they would probably die. Taking paid caretaker leave for a spouse wasn't an option in my state, and my employer only offered unpaid protected leave; since we were losing my partner's income as well, that also wasn't sustainable, so I worked through it and used PTO as necessary. I was beyond fortunate to have an all-time best of my career manager when this happened; she took everything in stride, accomodated everything as I needed it within her power, rallied the team to cover in emergencies, and completely unprompted was the only person to send my partner flowers in the hospital — she even tracked down the room number herself so not to bother me. To care for my partner, I took on all of the household responsibilities — we didn't have family nearby, and this took place entirely within the pandemic, so long-distance travel wasn't an option for them - and also all the transportation for infusions and follow-up appointments. I spent as much time with them as I could, worked from home (pandemic helped there), kept them company, cleaned up after them. Beyond that, there's not much specific care you can provide for chemo side effects, and the effects can be unexpected. Make yourself available to them and set expectations with co-workers (if you can't take leave) and anyone else who relies on you that you'll need to be interrupted frequently. Maybe the best thing you can do for them is ensure all end-of-life paperwork is in order. Make sure there's a will, a living will, advance directives, make sure they're all signed/witnessed/notarized, get a lawyer if you can afford it (especially if your employer can provide or refer one at a discount). Do it now, because you don't know when or if this will take a turn — treatments or cancer symptoms can start to erode their metal lucidity — and by that point it might be too late to get the signatures necessary. However stressed you feel about things now, if cancer kills them, it will be so much more incredibly worse. Center yourself in the present. Put aside plans for the future and reconcile the past, now, because you can't do either of those when they're dead. The harder thing on myself is getting any motivation to work back after the end. Whether that's the cancer going away for now or death, this will permanently change your relationship to work, especially tech work where you're exposed to or enable financial inequality. I don't think anyone on here can help you with that because your response is going to be so entirely and uniquely your own that you'll have to find your own path onward. Try not to do it alone, try to find a community of cancer caretakers and survivors, but understand that being a caretaker will forever set you apart and change your perspective on making money, IPOs, million/billionaire founders, startup culture, blah fuckin blah. |