Ask an Expert: What Happens If I Can’t Work Because of Cancer?

Fact checked by Nick Blackmer

Meet the Expert

Rebecca V. Nellis, MPP, is the Executive Director of Cancer and Careers. She has been with the organization since 2004, and currently oversees programming and fundraising strategies to ensure long-term growth and sustainability. Under her leadership, the organization’s services transform the everyday lives of survivors while promoting lasting, systemic change for tomorrow’s workplace.

Consider how many sick days your job offers you. Maybe it’s somewhere in the ballpark of eight or 10. What about vacation days—maybe a week or two? Now consider what you’d do if managing a major illness started to take up all of your time and interfere with your job. Maybe you can’t.

That’s where Cancer and Careers comes in. Since 2001, the organization has been providing support and resources for people with cancer and cancer survivors, helping them navigate working through treatment, applying for leave, starting a new job, and more.

At the helm is Executive Director Rebecca Nellis, MPP. After two decades with Cancer and Careers, she’s well-versed in workers’ rights, especially pertaining to the disclosure of health information and securing time off if necessary.

We spoke with Nellis about how to balance your career and health journey if you’re a younger adult who’s newly diagnosed with cancer. Should you share your diagnosis with your employer right away? What sort of documentation is necessary for disability leave if your treatment requires extended time off? Here’s what she had to say.

Verywell Health: When is the best time to relay a cancer diagnosis to an employer? 

Rebecca Nellis: It depends. The reality is not everyone discloses a cancer diagnosis at all.

Disclosure is a personal choice based on your treatment, the timeline, and the likely side effects. What you feel comfortable sharing may also depend on your company, your tenure, and your relationship with your colleagues.

Your unique circumstances at work are part of how you would make this decision. If your job requires heavy lifting and you’re about to have surgery, that probably changes your thought process around disclosure compared to someone who doesn’t have a highly-taxing physical job.

Outside of all of that distinction, we tend to encourage people to fact-find first so they can have as much information as possible. That might look like taking a look at your employee handbook rather than going straight to your manager or HR. What are the basics that you already have access to that you might have completely forgotten since you accepted the job? Reintroduce yourself to the benefits you already have.

It’s also helpful to have a meaningful conversation with all the members of your healthcare team. Explain your job to them. They can help you think about how the typical treatment side effects might impact your ability to do your job well.

Just remember: Cancer disclosure decisions extend far beyond work. We have encountered a lot of people over the years who’ve had accidental disclosure moments. The loudest, most obvious ones are on social media. Consider that as you talk about your cancer with friends and family. You can make all of these strategic decisions when it comes to what you want to tell your employer, but if you forget to tell your aunt that you aren’t talking about it on Facebook, she could tag you, and your colleagues might see.

"Employers can offer more than you’re legally entitled to, but they can’t offer less."

Rebecca Nellis

Verywell Health: How do you go about taking time off or medical leave?

Rebecca Nellis: There are federal and state laws that may be relevant to the experience of undergoing cancer treatment while working. Your employer also is going to have procedures in place either to access or trigger those entitlements under the law or other benefits they’re providing. Remember: Employers can offer more than you’re legally entitled to, but they can’t offer less. You may have a whole wealth of options and benefits.

Use your sick days for treatments and days when you feel under the weather like you normally would. If you’re out for a consecutive number of days, some companies may have a policy to trigger things that may feel stressful to an individual, like short-term disability leave, but those policies may actually be about protecting that individual and their job security.

When it comes to using something like the Family and Medical Leave Act, which is the federal law that applies to companies with 50 or more employees, there are eligibility requirements for the individual employee and there are other requirements for the employer. The Department of Labor actually has model forms designed for an employer to know what is appropriate to ask as part of the request for leave and what isn’t, though they don’t require an employer to use it. Employers may also create their own forms.

The model form is helpful for employees to reference, too. It tells you what the Department of Labor thinks is necessary to get the leave approved and filled out by a medical professional. If you’re trying to disclose as little information as possible, you’ll want to talk through that with your healthcare provider so that they don’t share more than they absolutely need to.

Verywell Health: If you’re on the job hunt, should you talk about your cancer during interviews?

Rebecca Nellis: No one is obligated to share their health history in a work environment unless they’re trying to access certain benefits, like medical leave. Just because you are interviewing doesn’t mean every detail about you is now on the table and available to an employer.

At Cancer and Careers, we work with a lot of people who are concerned about not disclosing a cancer diagnosis during a job interview. They worry they won’t be able to get the necessary accommodations once they accept the job if they aren’t forthcoming.

But I tell them: Stuff comes up for everyone at some point after they’ve accepted a job. You don’t know how a potential employer will react until you’re in the door, so you don’t need to worry about it until you’re in the door if you don’t want to.

Even if you’ve read everything about a company and its culture online, and even if you’ve asked every question you can think of, you don’t know what a company, a team, or a manager will be like until you’re there. Maybe you’ll have to have a conversation or even request a reasonable accommodation. Or maybe you’ll be able to start an hour earlier or adjust the time of your lunch break to go to an appointment, no questions asked.

Read the original article on Verywell Health.