[quote=ChristineB]Whoa! A year or 2 off? That sounds a bit excessive. [/quote]
I agree, Christine. My brother was ready to go back to work after 6 months, but the medical department at his employer (he is an international airline pilot) won't let him back until he is at least 2 years post treatment because they have advice saying he won't go below a 1% risk of catastrophic brain incapacitation, due to metastasis, until the two year mark, so he's STILL not back at work! But I digress - as Christine says, everyone is different. Some on the list kept going to work all through treatment, but I would worry about being around lots of people and being vulnerable to catching any bugs due to reduced immunity.

I took 4 month off. I wanted to work the first couple of weeks of treatment, but Mr Cisplatin insisted I rest. Sometimes you just have to listen to your boss.

A lot depends on the extent of the cancer and the type of treatment they are recommending. It is very difficult to give you any specific recomendations without more information. I would not have wanted to work or go to school while going through the chemo I did but they are getting better at reducing the side effects. Oral cancer is tenacious stuff and you need to keep your eye on the prize which is getting rid of it so you can continue with your life. Lymph node involvement usually means more extensive cancer. In my opinion you wouuld be better off studying the cancer you have so you can make informed decisions than the class work you are doing and that advice iis coming from a college administrator who has had 3 primary cancers in my mouth over a 20 year period.

Hi david,

Yeah, after talking to someone else on this site via PM, I think I am being way optimistic about doing tx and school at the same time.

I will talk to my professors about deferring my enrollment. Oh well, I just hope I can salvage some of my tuition fees.

Much thanks, everyone, for all of the advice and support. It is really helping me out. I've posted on other cancer forums, such as Reddit, and no one really bothers responding to these sort of things that may seem extraneous. To me, it's really important to figure out, especially given the time off I took to get back into school for a career change.

Now my biggest worry is prolonged chemo brain/fog. Once I'm done with tx, I will resume with schooling.

I have to tell you that the best thing my husband did is to KEEP WORKING! He took 3 weeks off to heal after the surgery, but worked every day of rad, and took his laptop to work during chemo. Granted he was exhausted when he came home in the evening. I would pick him up from the train, with a green protein shake, every evening. Not only did he need the nutrition, but also the fluids.

Don't let this thing beat you!

As others have said, how you respond to treatment can be very different than how others respond and it depends on what you have done (surgery, RT, and/or chemo).

I've had 4 surgeries over the years and took time off of work after each surgery (how long did vary), but did work PT for awhile before returning full time. I did not have chemo, but I had RT which hit me harder than most. I worked PT through most of my RT, but the last few days I was just too exhausted to do anything other than go to treatment. Radiation is cumulative and does hit you harder after you stop treatment, which it did in my case. I was on pain meds for months afterwards which did cause somewhat of a "chemo brain".

How you will react and what you will be able to do will vary with your treatment plan. Please let us know what your doctors recommend, and your OCF family will be able to help you get through your treatment with advice and support.

There is life after treatment, but it will be different at least for a while. Best wishes!