Do I tell my boss?

What is your plan for keeping your health insurance if you go without a job? What potential impact does this have on your work? Do you work in IBD? Will that need to change for you to fight this disease?

If your doc orders you to stop working or cut back on working, you may be able to go on long term disability. If you can get enough to get by, I'd really advocate that your #1 priority ought to be your health. This is what LTD and insurance exists for. So you can focus on fighting your disease.

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/disability-benefits-leukemia.html

I'd wait for now to get a diagnosis. And I'd think about those three questions and the second and third moves in this chess game.

Good luck to you.

Thank you so much for you post. +1 SB if I had one.

I have dual coverage at the moment. I'm still on my parents plan. It could definitely impact my energy level. It is only my boss and I running business operations/strategy and I'm not sure how the treatment would impact my overall performance. No, I work at a high growth startup, and fortunately, I can do quite a bit of work from home. With that said, I do not know how my employer would feel if I were to work primarily from home.

Thank you for the link and for the excellent questions to consider. I really appreciate it.

Hope it comes out negative. Good luck and stay strong buddy.

To answer your question. Quitting and living is better than working and dying. We hope the results come back negative, however if the results are not in your favor, work isn't worth dying over.

Thank you all for your kind words and support. I really appreciate it.

Not easy to go through or see. Sending luck your way.

Best of luck to you. I'm happy to provide an opinion, but at this point it seems moot, I'm sure you'll figure it out. Stay strong and take it one step at a time.

Best of luck man. Stay strong.

Good luck man, I think letting your boss know what is going on in your life is ok to do. Especially something as big as leukemia.

Not sure how it's for start up, but I know someone in a BB banking who got diagnosed with cancer recently. Group was very supportive and he is on paid leave till cured and no responsibility (e.g. check email). Even if you have to leave the firm for some reason, it'll be very easy to explain to next employer (I had a friend who couldn't intern due to cancer and did well in FT recruiting once he told people why he had no summer internship).

If you are diagnosed with it I would disclose immediately. Under the Family and Medical Leave Act you can take up to three months of unpaid leave without negative consequences, and I would be shocked if your boss and your group didn't support you regardless of that. Best of luck and I hope you get well.

Wow, serious condolences. The lucky thing is it sounds like you are in one of the more flexible jobs available. If your boss isn't a heartless shit he may be able to hire an additional person to take the pressure off of you while allowing you to remain involved. Just remember that living matters more than anything else and you need to take care of yourself first. Please let us know if the tests come back negative, I'm sure we would all be very glad to hear it.

First off I hope it comes back negative.

To add on the stuff above, if it does come back positive ask your doctors what they think. I completely agree with the above that you should stop working and get better if that's what you need to do. I've always been pretty career focused but nothing is worth your life and health. But if it's a mild and relatively easily treatable leukemia it's not a long shot that you could keep working and you may actually want to just to give yourself something else to do rather than move home and ruminate in your parents house. Pushing yourself 80 hours/week wouldn't be good but believe it or not some cancers aren't that bad relatively, not that anyone's going to be jumping up and down screaming "yeah, I have a mild luekemia!"

I've had some close family and friends who had cancer. One had non-Hodgkins that they caught early and she kept working as a lawyer in a big firm (I think she cut back hours when necessary), she's been in remission for probably 5 years now and just had her second child which is a big thing because chemo and radiation can screw with reproductive organs (may want to freeze some of your swimmers, and that's not a joke). Another had leukemia and kept working in advertising (which despite what most people on WSO think is a pretty long hour and demanding job) and another had breast cancer and worked in financial services and they're in remission and are going about life as usual. At different points in treatment and around surgeries they took some time off but they didn't stop working and at least two of them that I spoke to about it said they were glad to have work to distract them and make them feel like their entire existence wasn't just about their diagnosis.

I'd tell your boss. Most people aren't going to be assholes about it (and as someone stated about the Leave Act allows you to take time off I believe) and if the people you work for are somehow put off because you may have a diagnosis, those are people you want nothing to do with in life.

Here's to hoping all is fine, but if it comes back positive you have youth, which really helps you with treatment options, and huge advances in cancer treatments have been made over the past 15 or 20 years.