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Ask HN: Diagnosed with a incurable chronic disease, should I tell my employer?

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Re: Ask HN: Diagnosed with a incurable chronic disease, should I tell my employer?

#21

Post by olliej »

You shouldn’t, but if you do tell them in writing only to protect yourself against being fired.

Assuming you’re employed by big tech in the US you’re likely in an at will state. That doesn’t mean they can fire you for any reason, as many reasons are illegal.

So if they do fire you, even if they claim there’s “no reason”, if dismissal happens after they’re informed, or after you request “reasonable” accommodation you want that sequence of events documented to show that your dismissal is in response to that information, which is generally illegal. Similarly your performance reviews might suddenly nose dive, to try to create “justification”. In any event document trail is something you need.

Re: Ask HN: Diagnosed with a incurable chronic disease, should I tell my employer?

#22

Post by c_o_n_v_e_x »

Sorry to hear about your diagnosis. My wife is in her early 40’s and was recently diagnosed with leukemia. She’s still stage 0 (it was picked up from blood test results from annual physicals) and has no symptoms.

The hard thing about revealing your diagnosis is that the genie is out of the bottle. By taking time to process, you keep your optionality on what you choose to do.

Re: Ask HN: Diagnosed with a incurable chronic disease, should I tell my employer?

#23

Post by throwaway665654 »

c_o_n_v_e_x wrote: post #22

Sorry to hear about your diagnosis. My wife is in her early 40’s and was recently diagnosed with leukemia. She’s still stage 0 (it was picked up from blood test results from annual physicals) and has no symptoms. The hard thing about revealing your diagnosis is that the genie is out of the bottle. By taking time to process, you keep your optionality on what you choose to do.

Thanks for sharing this. I hope the best for your wife. I feel quite lonely in this situation but I'm extremely lucky to have a very supportive wife.

Re: Ask HN: Diagnosed with a incurable chronic disease, should I tell my employer?

#24

Post by pvaldes »

Incurable currently. Things may change tomorrow so, first of all, try to buy as many time as you can.

You need to collect more info about your disease before to take a decision. Disclosing it will tag you as unable to work anymore (when in fact you could just experience a minor decrease in your working capacity for a long time, depending on the disease). You may need allocate extra money to fight the disease. Therefore, one strategy could be to take support in your close circle or friends and family and keep the mouth shut for now in the rest of cases. If you feel strong enough emotional and physically to stand the job you may want to keep your income source and current life as many time as you can. Less changes will help to focus in the relevant parts and are better for the emotional aspect.

Alternatively, if the work don't has a special value for your identity, you hate it, or don't need the money, you may want instead to quit as soon as possible and spend more quality time with your family.

Re: Ask HN: Diagnosed with a incurable chronic disease, should I tell my employer?

#25

Post by foobarbaz33 »

Information can be used as a weapon against you. Even if not overtly used against you, it will change people's perception of you. You may be working with enlightened people but they are still people.

If the disease affects you in a significant way then you may need to tell. But until that day comes keep it secret from your employer.

Re: Ask HN: Diagnosed with a incurable chronic disease, should I tell my employer?

#26

Post by seanhunter »

Strong No. Or at least “definitely not yet”. You have only just had the news and haven’t had time to fully process it, think through the ramifications and plan. Once the information is out you can’t take it back.

I have tremendous sympathy for your situation. It must be very difficult for you and on top of it you have now potentially this enormous secret. If you tell people it might help them to empathise with and make accommodations for you but honestly the risk is they do the opposite.

Re: Ask HN: Diagnosed with a incurable chronic disease, should I tell my employer?

#27

Post by Mezzie »

lurquer wrote: post #17

All this advice and nobody cares what the disease is? It makes a difference.

This. "Incurable chronic disease" could mean something like celiac or IBS (which most employers aren't really going to care about) or something like MS or ALS (which are way more of a minefield).

Re: Ask HN: Diagnosed with a incurable chronic disease, should I tell my employer?

#28

Post by Spooky23 »

Wait. Either you’ll get alot of support or some sort of awful corporate reaction. Either way, that sort of stuff is visceral and wears off after the initial news breaks. If they are going to be supportive, you’ll need it more later.

Someone close to me has a serious diagnosis, so this is real fresh to me. Once you understand what’s real, what isn’t and what the plan is, that’s when you tell people. If you’re going to need leave, file the FMLA stuff to give yourself aircover.

Don’t avoid counsel of your friends and family though. Dealing with something like this is hard on the soul, and you can’t bottle it up. People will want to help; take the help.

Good luck whatever you do!

Re: Ask HN: Diagnosed with a incurable chronic disease, should I tell my employer?

#29

Post by Mezzie »

Depending on your disease, you may not have a choice. Take a sick leave and make some pretty thorough plans, get yourself a therapist + possibly a psych, and reconsider what your career path is going to look like.

I'm coming at this from the POV of somebody with MS. One thing to do now is pick up some kind of side hustle or project work outside of your main employment - even if it's only ~ 5 hrs a week. This way if you ever need to leave a W2 situation suddenly due to your disease, you can keep doing the side hustle and therefore avoid a gap on your resume. One of the hardest parts of my diagnosis was that since I presented during my final semester of grad school I had no health insurance and therefore had to not work for a while in order to be eligible for Medicaid so I could get my medication regime worked out for my symptoms so I could work. Explaining that resume gap has been hell - anything you can do to avoid looking like you did nothing is gold.

If your physical health is likely to go downhill in the next few years, you need to redo all of your financial plans. Your incentives have drastically changed.

Re: Ask HN: Diagnosed with a incurable chronic disease, should I tell my employer?

#30

Post by briana511 »

Your disease may qualify as a disability under the ADA. Would recommend familiarizing yourself with it if that's the case. As many have mentioned, the protections may work to your benefit: https://www.eeoc.gov/publications/ada-your-employment-rights...
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