As cancer rates increase for younger women, many choose to work during treatment

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Sarah Mitchell, 44, was working full-time and going to school when she was diagnosed with breast cancer last fall. The single mother of two kids aged 8 and 10 dropped out of school right away, but decided to continue working through her six-month period of chemotherapy, which ended in March of this year.

“Part of it was that I needed some money to make ends meet,” she says, adding that housing costs in Victoria, where she lives, are very high and “as a single income household, things are tight.”

There are sickness benefits available to individuals facing cancer through federal Employment Insurance (EI), but they only cover 55 per cent of earnings up to a maximum of $695 a week, for 26 weeks.

“It’s better than nothing, but it’s not really enough to live on as a family of three,” Ms. Mitchell says. (Long-term disability benefits through Ms. Mitchell’s employer wouldn’t have kicked in until the EI benefits ran out, at 67 per cent of her salary.)

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Money wasn’t the only reason Ms. Mitchell wanted to stay on the job. She says work was a huge help in keeping her mood in check.

“When you’re not feeling well, you can focus on how you’re not feeling well,” says Ms. Mitchell, who also continued to co-parent for her usual 50 per cent of the time. “I needed to take my focus outside of myself.”

Ms. Mitchell works in finance at a company that does leadership training, and says it helped that her employer was understanding on days she wasn’t feeling well. She was able to work from home so she could do tasks from bed if she felt the need.

“I was just doing the bare bones of my job description [through chemo],” says Ms. Mitchell, who is now cancer-free but still feeling the effects of chemotherapy.

“Certain days after treatment that were just horrible,” she says, so “If I needed a day [off]… I wouldn’t work those days.”

‘Patients are younger and younger’

According to the Canadian Cancer Society, rates of cancer are higher for women than men among people under age 60. The sharpest rise in diagnosis rates is among women under 50, says Dr. Roochi Arora, a medical oncologist at Humber River Hospital in Toronto. A 2024 study out of the University of Ottawa examining Canadian data from the past 35 years showed an increase in rates of breast cancer diagnoses among women in their 20s, 30s and 40s.

Dr. Arora, who says the majority of her patients are facing breast cancer, notes women are increasingly choosing to work during treatment. Some work to maintain normalcy and to avoid losing ground in their careers. Some work for monetary reasons and to maintain their work-provided health benefits at such a crucial time.

“Dual income is increasingly necessary in households, and many women have thriving careers they want to remain connected to even when going through cancer treatment.”

Balancing a career and cancer at the same time is possible, she adds, but it helps if one plans ahead, sets realistic expectations and has job flexibility.

Many patients’ expenses go up when they get cancer, due to what Dr. Arora calls “hidden costs” associated with dealing with an illness. They may need more help with their kids. They may have to pay for parking at hospitals on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. Some patients must pay for certain medications out-of-pocket as well.

“I can’t tell you how many people are saying [that] EI barely covers anything,” she says.

Hiding cancer while on the job

Fear of loss of income or career repercussions may drive individuals living with cancer to conceal their condition and treatment from their employers.

A 2023 study out of Memorial University in St. John’s found that one in four of respondents – residents of Newfoundland and Labrador with a history of cancer – reported stigmatization due to their cancer history. A smaller number, one in seven respondents, said they had been discriminated against because of their cancer history. The study’s authors said the most common sources contributing to those experiences were friends, insurance and financial companies and workplaces.

Janice (who requested her last name be withheld due to fear of career repercussions) is a woman in her 60s living in the Greater Toronto Area. When Janice was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, she had breast-removal and reconstruction surgery without radiation or chemotherapy.

When Janice was offered a new job shortly afterward, she took it, but decided not to disclose her cancer, even after she developed a “massive infection” around her breast implant. She says her decision was partly because of a termination from a previous job that she attributed to ageism.

Janice, who works in sales as an account manager, decided to keep working while hiding a vacuum dressing in her clothing – a contraption with a battery pack that covers the infected area and is attached to a pump with a hose.

She said her device occasionally made sounds that she would disguise with a fake cough.

“I don’t want the people I work with to change the way they look at me, the way they view me,” says Janice. “It’s my story.”

Strategies for working with cancer

If individuals want to continue working through cancer treatment, Dr. Arora says there are strategies they can try to help keep things manageable:

• Take two weeks off at the beginning of treatment so you can see how your body responds. If you think work would be manageable, you can go back after that.
• If you have an active job, seek modified work during treatment. Dr. Arora does not recommend continuing any jobs with strenuous activity or heavy lifting.
• Many patients prefer to work from home, so they can rest when needed. You may also want to be near a private bathroom, as treatment gives some patients diarrhea.
• Consider scheduling treatments on Fridays so you have two recovery days before your next work day.

Organizations can also help employees who are going through cancer better manage their lives, Dr. Arora adds.

She recommends that employers be flexible about where and when an employee works, when possible, and consider lightening their employee’s workload. Organizations should also offer all employees a benefits package that includes paid leave for illness.

Interested in more perspectives about women in the workplace? Find all stories on The Globe Women’s Collective hub here, and subscribe to the new Women and Work newsletter here. Have feedback? Email us at GWC@globeandmail.com.

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