Cancer, Bereavement and Work

This chapter is an autoethnographic account of losing my twenty-five-year-old son, John, to cancer, returning to work, getting cancer myself and returning to work again after treatment. I do not claim to represent anyone else’s cancer story. Lifesaving interventions left me with some residual physical limitations and compounded psychological impacts arising because I got better when John did not. I tend to minimise my own sickness. Work was more closely aligned to my identity before I acquired the unwanted ‘bereaved mother/cancer survivor’ tag. I consider social and personal construction of identity and sense of self after intersecting traumas. Reflecting on the role my employment plays in my life now, I consider strategies I adopt and ways my employer helps me to function and contribute effectively. Potential usefulness of The Equality Act (2010) and workplace bereavement leave policies is discussed in relation to employees directly or indirectly affected by cancer.