Oh boy. Hope it goes well for her

[missdiane]

From Bosslady to a small group of us:

Elaine has asked me to share an update with you all. It is with a heavy heart that I am letting you know that she has been diagnosed with colon cancer, stage 2 or 3 to be determined. She will be admitted tomorrow and prepped for surgery on Wednesday. She thinks she will be in the hospital around 5 days. Her husband Dan will stay connected with me to let me know how things are going and I will keep you all in the loop.

I have instructed Elaine to put an away message on her e-mail stating she is out for the week with no access to e-mail and to contact me if they have any questions. I will be working on a plan for us all to cover Elaine’s responsibilities with RAPPS as soon as I have one.

I will let (Business/budget Director) and (Executive Director) know this in person, but Elaine did say I should feel free to share with those who need to know. You all know Elaine, she is a sharer, so I trust you to know what to do with this information.

Let’s keep Elaine in our thoughts and keep praying for a positive outcome.

I already lost one friend to colon cancer.

On a side note, I will not be saddled with her job on top of mine. Or they can pay me more to learn and do any portion of it since she's a higher grade than me.

Comments

[halfmoon_mollie1]

when I was working, one of the women I worked with had Stage IV colon cancer. She had the surgery and, I am happy to say, she's been cancer free for seven years. I wish the same for Elaine, it isn't hopeless. I am so glad she has you on her side.

[missdiane]

I hope she is as lucky. She is already battling breast cancer (fortunately caught early) and had to take some awful meds. They held off on actual chemo and radiation just in case which might be good. She also had skin cancer several years ago.

[threecee]

I'm so sorry about Elaine. It isn't hopeless though: my dad had colon cancer and had a foot of bowel removed. That was followed by a year of chemo which was much harder on him than the surgery. One of my boss's went through the same thing. Dad was cancer free until he died of heart problems and my boss is still cancer free ten years later.

Avoiding learning her job is probably the best. It isn't going to be "back in 5 days and full steam ahead" if she needs chemo. At best that will slow her down and it could mean a lot of time off depending on how it hits her.

[missdiane]

That's hopeful to hear about other people's success stories. She's way too young to be going through both breast cancer and colon cancer.

We'd warned our bosses, Bosslady and previously Bossman about the need to have enough staff so this problem is on them and I'll not be the unwilling victim of picking up the slack.

[bluecatartist]

I'm sorry to hear Elaine is facing more cancer.

This whole bullshit of'let's pitch in and do her job!' by management when it's not management doing any of her work. I first ask if they are paying Elaine her salary for y'all doing her work? Is she taking sick days, or is she having to take time off w.out pay? Management will use any excuse to get work done w.out paying or properly paying a worker.
Y'all don't have to take on her work on top of your own - and she's a higher grade so how would that work? Do you get paid more for more work? The guilt shit is really manipulative.
Grrr
The schools will do the 'donate a sick days or 2' for a teacher/worker so they can continue to get paid when out sick. Asking for a day or 2 sick days, vacation days. They would try and guilt the others to give 'just one' vacation day. The school could FIX this so a teacher out from cancer treatment isn't at the mercy of co-workers to keep their job and medical insurance.

[missdiane]

Fortunately being at a State university, we get a good amount of both vacation and sick time. She was trying to chip away at her vacation time so she'll probably use excess vacation time first to avoid losing any and then will use sick time. That's what I do when my back acts up most of the time. Right now I have about 7 vacation days that I need to use so I don't lose them at the end of June (I'll carry over 25, I don't take vacation and she doesn't take much either). At the moment, I have 77 sick days so if something big happens to me, between vacation and sick time, I'm covered for months.

But all the sick and vacation time in the world doesn't help with the stress of being completely overworked with no help. I have my annual evaluation at 10am today. I'm not going to be guilted or gaslighted with the whole "be a team player" horseshit. Because I will point out that while I seem to be drafted to work on other "teams," I have no "team" of my own.

If she pushes on the matter, I'd make it clear that there would need to be an in-grade salary adjustment for the extra duties or more appropriately, an upgrade in title and pay since not only is she a grade above me, but her job is non-Union.

But we'll see.