Balancing work whist my mom is dying

Offline Yakult24 11 months ago

Hi everyone, im 25 years old and my mom is dying of single cell lung cancer they say she has 3-11 months and she is already 4 months into that. She is a single mother and I am an only child so there is a lot off responsibility and choices on my shoulders , my family is helping a lot and my mum now lives with my aunt as she lives alone normally. I also have asperger's Autism.

I need to help clear out my moms house that she rents before she passes, I live 2+ hours train (I can not drive a car yet) from both my mom and her flat (which is 4 hours from where she is ) , I’ve been taking a lot of 3 day weekends to vist my mom and go sort out her flat, but I’m not so close to being done with the flat. I’m working mon - Fri 9 -5.30 as an office assistant , the salary is minimum wage and I run short of cash most months (living in London) . I’ve basically used up most of my holidays at work I only have 2 days left until end of April.

My question is any suggestions on how to balance things, I’m feeling very drained already , all my holidays I’m spending busy with no time to actually rest, I know I still have a lot of things to sort and I want to spend as much time as I can with my mom before she passes, I don’t know what to do I feel so panicked, my job currently has no work from home options, my only option in this job is to go part time again which means I finish at 14:00 every day Mon - Fri, but this leaves me in a bad financial situation again.

I’m thinking maybe I can try to find a new job where I can work from home or work just 4 days a week? But this means i also have to spend time looking for a new job. I’m not sure what to do but I know that I can not cope with just 2 days holiday until may .

Offline Moderator Lucie 11 months ago

Hello Yakult24,

I am so sorry to hear about your mum - it's so sad that she has only been given a few months and you are doing everything you can to support her and to help with sorting these difficult practical issues. Poor you it must be hard to deal with as your mum lives quite a way away and you have had to use your precious annual leave to go and spend time there with her leaving you with just two days left of holiday. It's a really hard decision you're having to take as you try to balance work and being there for your mum. It's a shame that your job doesn't currently offer any work from home options as this would have been helpful especially when you are frequently needing to visit your mum on 3 day weekends. It might be worth talking to your employers about your situation and also seeing whether your contract has any provision for compassionate leave to care for an ill dependent such as a parent which some work places do offer. It's worth looking into whether they have a compassionate leave policy and what it is, if they can offer any paid or unpaid time off should you need to spend more time with your mum at any point. So I would suggest that before looking for another job - which as you pointed out is time consuming in itself - have a good look at what your current employers offer in difficult family situations like yours.

I hope that you can talk to someone about what you are going through at the moment and about how you can find the best solution for you so you can support your mum without losing financially. The Citizens Advice page has useful information too about taking time off work and you can also look up your local citizens advice and maybe go and see them and explain your situation - it may be helpful to talk to someone about this and to talk things through with them.

Hopefully you will hear from other members of our community who have been in a similar situation before having to juggle work priorities and family emergencies and I hope that they will be along shortly to share their story with you.

Best wishes,

Lucie, Cancer Chat Moderator
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