Hi littlebird,

I am sorry to hear about your mother's cancer and your work predicament. Clearly, your firm does not appear to be on the compassionate end of the spectrum. You did not indicate what your boss' response was once you explained the reason for your own recent performance. If they were already aware and still seem pretty uncaring and unyielding then you need to consider doing things to protect yourself from being placed on performance improvement notice.

Going to HR is a great start as you can officially register the recent changes that are behind the change in your work performance. If you feel at risk this firm might try actions you deem punitive then by all means weigh out the trade off of using up vacation, sick leave, other PTO, then even taking a family leave as necessary to get out of the work treadmill until things stabilize.

Consulting with HR is the very best thing you can do with respect to work contact. Of course, HR gets paid by the firm and has their interest as their priority, looking out for their interest, minimizing their exposure and liability to workplace related incidents so understand anything they suggest or offer is first in the firm's benefit and where there is mutual benefit that is more desirable but is a secondary goal at best and may be just a random outcome.

As mentioned earlier, the appointments will level out and become more predictable. Given where she is in the process, you might also be able to and find it medically acceptable to pick appointment times that work better for your work schedule, even piggyback them onto the same day; that way you can get several appointments done in one day or maybe even get a couple compressed into taking only a half day off.

The other option might be to get an agreement with your workplace that an agreed upon day(s) of each week your availability is subject to medical needs.

Lastly, I know for me once I accepted being branded with the cancer label and then accepted all things related to cancer as part of a new JOB, everything in my life became so much easier to accept and embrace. Being a lifelong workaholic sure made it easier to accept the time and energy I spend researching, preparing for appointments, time in treatment, dealing with side effects, all things cancer -- so much so in some ways I relish the challenge much like a new assignment or job opportunity, just diving in and doing the best job I can.

You also are freed from the guilt of suffering on your current job as you see clearly that you are now working TWO jobs -- no wonder you are tired and some things are being impacted. Either you accept the additional demands in the same bandwidth and suffer the consequences of doing two jobs in the time allotment for one, or see that you need to increase the hours in the days to do both better as that is the only rational and realistic way to fulfill more obligations with sufficient quality, especially since your new JOB is where you are a trainee and have to work extra hard just to learn the ropes.

Hope that helps and good luck,
don