Women who had chemotherapy less likely to be employed 4 years later

['lizbeth]

Hopeful,

I agree. I am the poster child for working during treatment. Then being "laid off" twice in the few years following treatment. I am very grateful my health insurance was not affected by my employment.

I've voiced many times that I wanted to do fewer chemo treatments but the oncologist switched taxanes and insisted I do 6 treatments. If I had truly understood the small incremental benefit as a group from doing 6 treatments vs 4 I would have stood my ground. I remember the appointment with the oncologist where she told me that the plan had changed to include 2 more treatments. She used fear to win the battle, and after several chemo treatments I wasn't strong enough to draw the line.

I will forever regret the decision. I truly believed it affected my job performance in the years after chemo, and still today.

[Hopeful]

'lizbeth,

Believe me, this was a big part of my decision making process. I had changed jobs 6 months prior to dx, having been laid off from my previous position, and doggone fortunate to get the job I did. At the time of dx, I had not worked there long enough to qualify for FMLA. My research led me to believe that I would not benefit enough from chemo to risk my employment (and my ability to make the mortgage and car payments) and my health insurance, so I declined it. I was lucky to have an oncologist that agreed to treat me with Herceptin w/o chemo. The Herceptin treatments were very doable and did not interfere with my working at all. Doctors need to get their heads out of the sand, and realize what the true cost of all of this "preventative" treatment is to the overall lives of the women who undergo it. Not all treatment choices can be made based strictly on medicine, and the most conservative possible medical treatment is not always the "right" choice for any given patient.

Hopeful

[AlaskaAngel]

Also especially true for those who are self-employed, and there are many of us. Sole proprietors often have NO "sick leave" to handle the time commitments involved with all the lab testing and doctor appointments and feeling crappy, and frequently have very limited health care coverage of any kind. It can destroy their ability to keep contracts they have worked so hard to get, and leave them high and dry.