Category: employment

Sharing my cancer story. It might be helpful, it might be interesting, it might be informative.

  • Schrödinger’s cancer (ahem, cat)

    It’s a known fact that my particular neuroendocrine cancer tumors don’t show up very well on CT and MRI scans. Unfortunately that’s just the way it goes for some people. It wasn’t until I was given a Dotatate PET scan in July 2022 that I learned just how widespread my tumors had spread. So, although…

  • One year after surgery: a retrospective

    I’m still coming to terms with my new identity as a life-long cancer patient, as well as the transition from Librarian to not-Librarian. Most importantly, however, I have absolutely been loving being home after school with my daughter and eating dinner together. With my previous schedule, on an early day I’d get home at 6:45pm,…

  • The decision to stop working

    Ever since my metastatic diagnosis almost exactly a year ago, the idea to stop working has been in the back of my mind, but I just wasn’t ready to make the leap. In the two months between my diagnosis and the Big Surgery I was in crisis management mode, focusing on tying things up, both…

  • Back to work

    I’ve been back at work for two weeks now, and it’s going really well! My abdomen is all healed up; I’m not having pain any more. I’m really glad I was able to take three whole months off work to recuperate; I needed it. To illustrate, in early December when my family was dressing the…

  • My support network

    As the year winds down, I am preparing to return to work on January 3. I am so incredibly lucky to have had over 3 months to recover from my surgery. Here is a starter list of everything I am grateful for: What’s next for me: I’m going to continue to have monthly injections of…