Yes, blah. I feel blah. My hormones are running amok. It’s also humid outside and my breast hurts. Generally speaking, I feel like crap, I don’t feel well, and today damn it all, I feel like crying. So I might.
Mondays mean I have to figure out another way to survive the work week. My job is stressful, and I can’t escape the mistrust I feel towards what I feel I am going through in the workplace.
A friend I know has parents who own a business. When their administrative person was diagnosed with breast cancer they in essence gave her almost a year off to get through her disease and heal. Unfortunately people like that are the exception and not the rule. And for them to do that for an admin was amazing.
Weekends I am buoyed with the support and love of my friends, family, and sweet man. That helps so much. If only the Monday through Friday of it all would even out.
I am discovering that dealing with aspects of life around breast cancer is more difficult than dealing with the cancer.
Not trying to be a sad sack, but the 411 in reality is that I did not ask for this disease to visit me. It sucks, it happened, and I am trying to navigate my way through it.
But I do think that people are sexist when it comes to disease. Men, oh if men have something, it’s yeah team, rally round the bully boy. Not so much for women.
Griping over and I will now get on with my day.
ihavebreastcancerblog 
Sorry you’re having a hard day.
You are so right. It’s not just cancer…it’s cancer plus all the other difficulties that it brings. If you need to cry, let it out of your system. Sometimes I feel better after I release the frustration.
Treat yourself to some pampering this evening. You deserve it. Get plenty of rest. You need it. (This stuff is exhausting at times)
Tomorrow is another day and you may feel more like your chipper self. Take it a day at a time brave girl. 🙂
FMLA the Family Medical Leave Act is a federal law that requires employers to give you time off for medical crises. Unfortunately, it doesn’t require them to continue to pay your salary, and STUPIDEST OF ALL: when they hack part of your body off, irradiate you like Bikini Atoll, and fill you with rat poison ’til you are at the brink of death this still does not qualify as DISABILITY for employment leave or benefits.
I would not argue with you or claim to know your perspective, but as far as the man thing goes, personal story:
Dan had prostate cancer. You can’t see Dan’s prostate, not as much as you can see my wife’s original breast next to the one that had a lumpectomy, and not as much as you can see the scars under her armpit and not as much as you can see the veinous port scar below her collarbone. Dan had a family. A wife and a son just starting his first year of college and they needed the money and what else could Dan do? Dan came to work looking like he’d been run over by the train then dragged by the caboose. After chemo, Dan could barely walk upright some days, but he kept coming to work. Not because the “old boys” rallied behind him, (no offense), but like so many people stricken by this and other serious diseases and conditions, there was no one else to support Dan’s family. There was no way Dan could be without health insurance (or make COBRA payments) during the twenty-five thousand dollars worth of treatment. Bosses (at that time) seemed “inconvenienced” by Dan needing the days off (or more often HALF-days off) for his treatments.
I don’t know your situation, but I knew Dan. The world was no better to he who had testicles than it was to she who had ovaries. Life sucked big time, and it was the last of it. Within a couple of years, the Big C returned, filled Dan’s body, crippled him in his fifties. As his son went to Sienna College on a scholarship, he went to hospice to suffer and die.
I will make no distinctions between people, genders, occupations, or even cancer types.
My heart and my soul go out to ALL.
In memory of Dan Snitchler, I bid you:
Be at peace.
Paz (Scott)
I get where you are coming from and FMLA has holes – I remember all the hoops I went thru when my dad had prostate cancer just so I could take days off if he needed me to. However, I do think that women get a harder time in the workplace. Sorry, but I do and I have seen it. But there is the ADA – and I have read cases that involved women with breast and other cancers – so I know I am not imagining things.
Hey:
Thanks for listening.
I truly am sorry for anyone that doesn’t get a fair shake.
It’s a big world, and we’re all in it together.
Travel safely,
Scott