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On: Looking For A Job With Cancer

by Robin Dunn Bryant on March 28th, 2007

Since my last good paying gig ended in February I’ve been working a part-time job I’d applied to when I was looking to supplement said good paying gig. While I find it interesting enough, it’s honestly not enough money. So I’ve been out and about looking for more gainful employment.

It’s a bit different job searching and interviewing with cancer. I’d hesitated as long as I did because I wasn’t sure how I would be affected by the chemo or the second surgery. With those both behind me, I’m feeling more confident about my ability to keep up with a 9 to 5. I’m finding myself in an odd situation however.

It’s always nerve wracking for me while I’m waiting to meet my interviewer. I’ve had a couple of situations where the initial phone contact went exceedingly well only to find the interviewer blatantly staring and/or struggling to avoid looking directly into my tiny halo of hair. I wonder if they just think I’m a bit of a punk rocker and willfully decided to shave my head or if they know the cancer signs and are quickly doing the math on how much my insurance claims are going to be. Either way I assume they will not be calling me back for a second interview and am usually proved correct by how quickly they wrap up the interview and usher me out the door. (The record so far: 14 minutes. This included a move from one office to another.)

The other nagging issue is insurance. Right now I have COBRA coverage from my last full-time job, which at $611 a month is about 25% of our monthly expenses. Even though that puts a huge strain on our budget, I’m happy to have it because they cover 100% of my in-network expenses. With the amount paid out so far we’ve saved close to thirty thousand dollars. I’ve opted to work several part-time jobs thus far because I didn’t want to work full-time and have coverage that would leave me with 20% of the bills.

On Monday I interviewed for a position I’m pretty excited about with my husband’s company. The job is something I’m qualified to do with plenty of new things for me to learn. I did a search on salary.com and found that in my area I should be able to ask for a good amount of money. (Good meaning that we would be able to cover the bulk of our household bills with my salary, leaving my husband’s to pay off some old bills and save for a house.)

I am a still little concerned about how to deal with the insurance though. Right now my husband’s coverage only allows him to have one extra person on his policy, but the plan is for him to move into a new position with the same company, which would put him into a better plan. I’m not sure if we work for the same place if I can be on his policy and mine at the same time, thus avoiding the dreaded twenty percent that we would have to pay out of pocket. If I could be covered by both policies that would be great, otherwise I’m wondering if they would hire me on at three-fourths time so that I could continue with my COBRA coverage until the December enrollment period. That would get me out of the very expensive active treatments without big bills hanging over our heads.

On top of that I’ve still got six weeks of radiation to contend with. From what I’ve read the actual treatment takes about fifteen minutes, but there is travel time involved which means I’ll probably need to have a good hour or so everyday. I’m not sure how that will impact their interest in me.

Of course to find out these answers I’d need to tell them at the least that I have a medical condition that I’m in treatment for, if not saying the C-word out loud. And given the way people have reacted to my head, I’m not sure which road to take.

If any of you good folks have ideas or suggestions I’d love to hear them. I’ve been bouncing this around in my brain for a good while and can’t seem to make heads or tails of it.

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POSTED IN: general commentary, on breast cancer