When a woman is diagnosed with a chronic disease like cancer, MS, or lupus, she is often at the peak of her earning power and productivity. How do you choose between your livelihood and your life? MORE investigates.
Chronic Illness in the Workplace
In her bustling pediatric office in Severna Park, Maryland, Faith Hackett, MD, is explaining to a toddler's young mother that she can't reach down for the boy or give him a hug, even though he's pulling at her for attention. "I'm sorry," she says, steadying herself on the exam table for a moment, "but I just can't pick him up." Realizing that something has changed since their last visit, the mom jumps up and draws her 2-year-old back into her lap. Hackett looks drawn and tired. And she is limping slightly on her left leg.
What her little patients' parents don't know is that in January 2008, Hackett, 52, ruptured a disc in her lower back. During an MRI, doctors discovered that two other discs were also damaged, bulging from the wear and tear of bending over children for so many years. Since her diagnosis, the pain in Hackett's back and leg -- a result of the disc injuries -- has worsened considerably. For months, Hackett has often been unable to sleep an hour at a stretch before the pain wakes her again. The effect on her work has been profound: She can't pick up anything heavier than 10 pounds, about the size of an infant. "That means that all those yummy kids I would normally lift into my arms -- I can't hold them anymore," she says. "Nor can I calm a struggling, unhappy child, and that's been really hard for me."
In her 22 years of practice, Hackett has been known to meet patients at her office at 11 p.m. or sit with a sick child's parents at the hospital. But now, the slightest wrong turn to grab a stethoscope can have agonizing consequences; more than once she has had to head home and lie down on the floor, while her husband, who practices internal medicine, pulls on her leg to put traction on her spine. She has also cut back her work hours in order to spend more time seeing her own doctors and physical therapists. She says she never realized before "how much stamina I needed for the job I do and how much that stamina can be affected by pain and lack of sleep." In many ways, Hackett took her capacity to work for granted -- until she developed a chronic illness.
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