I was diagnosed with cervical cancer back in March. I had another appointment Wednesday that pretty much took my entire day to get to, but work doesn’t offer sick leave, I don’t get PTO until I’ve been there over a year, and even if I did get PTO, I can’t use it to call out sick. I already put myself $7k in debt just to find out I had cancer, and I am already struggling to afford childcare/preschool for my son and all of my regular expenses, so I can’t afford to take sick days.
I keep telling them my free babysitters (my 70 year old grandparents) can’t do the late shifts, but they’ve scheduled me 2-1030 pm for just about 3 months straight, despite having 4 other employees they could rotate through. I’ve explained my financial situation and was pretty much told “everyone is struggling right now.”
So I’m just chilling at work, practically in a diaper full of blood, passing clots from yet another biopsy. As a healthcare worker. For less than 35k/year. But hey, at least it’s better than my last job. They let me sit down here /s.
I am so sick of being made to feel unreasonable for wanting a decent work/life/health balance.