Direct from Deenie: Cancer and Careers
Deenie writes:
“Friday, I had a date–not your standard boozy affair in the Meatpacking District, but instead a life-affirming, positive encounter: I met with people who have been touched by cancer, whether the scars were their own, their coworkers’, or their loved-ones’. Cancer and Careers is an organization striving to help women make decisions about their career, offering advice on how to continue working effectively, and (best of all) helping them find ways to feel and look beautiful in spite of their illness. Six years ago, Carlotta Jacobson, Present of Cosmetic Executive Women, and Kate Sweeney, CEW Executive Director, realized that five of their forty CEW board members had been diagnosed with cancer. What happens when a former Harper’s Bazaar Beauty Editor and a Producer at Oxygen.com get together to help their sisters in need? One badass organization! The website www.cancerandcareers.org (in English and Spanish!) is easy-to-use and chock full of information to help women decide when and how to tell others about their illness.
Cancer and Careers offers support for not only those working with cancer but for their loved ones as well. I was sixteen when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer; if only I’d known Matthew Zacharay, founder of I’m Too Young For This (www.imtooyoungforthis.org). Zachary, a former concert pianist, was diagnosed with brain cancer at 21 and founded his organization in 2004 to offer counsel to afflicted young people whose suffering and experiences are often overlooked. As somebody who’s been personally touched by the big C, I also gathered insight from career coach Rosalind Joffe, author of Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep Working Girlfriend! I left that Friday afternoon refreshed knowing that so much is being done to help fellow ladies in the workplace feel secure, even during one of the darker periods of their lives. In the words of Rosalind Joffe, to all the women at Cancer and Careers: keep working girlfriend!”
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:43 am
Deenie,
Thanks so much for this post! I really appreciated the link to Keep Working, Girlfriend, as I have a chronic illness and am always looking to network with other working women dealing autoimmune diseases. Keep up the great work!
Cheers,
Marjorie