By Stacey Betler
For Gazette Opinion
While carrying my second child, I was diagnosed with cancer and shortly after lost my job because I had to take time off for my treatment.
We cannot allow this to happen to anyone else.
New York's current paid medical leave programs do not adequately provide workers with job protection, health insurance continuation or a livable wage, leaving many without any tangible support to meet their real, dire needs.
All of this serves to instill in patients a fear that mirrors those around their illness.
I know this because I was a patient and worker in this state, and my diagnosis came at a time when I lacked a strong financial footing and was serving as the sole breadwinner in my house.
I don't want any patient to have to suffer, as my family and I did.
Senate Bill 0172 and Assembly Bill 0084 aim to make that possible by upgrading the state's paid medical leave program to more comprehensively deliver support to workers battling illness in New York.
IMPOSSIBLE CHOICES
My story began when I was 26 years old, newly pregnant with my second child and working two jobs to support my young family. I found the masses on my own.
I felt them in both breasts and was able to shrug off my anxieties when my doctor asserted that they were milk collections, my body preparing for my baby.
So I went about my life, caring for my 3-year-old, making sure the bills were paid and monitoring the baby's progress.
When I reached seven months of pregnancy things changed -- and very quickly.
The masses, that I'd felt earlier on and which had never gone away, doubled in size and I felt a new, golf ball-sized mass under my arm.
The doctor took one look at me and I knew from her face that the news was bad.
Everything that happened from there happened fast. Within five days, I received my breast cancer diagnosis, was forced to deliver my not-to-term baby, had a port placed and began chemotherapy.
At each turn, I had to make, what felt like, impossible choices.
Thankfully I delivered a healthy, beautiful--if premature -- baby boy, but my devastation and shellshock remained.
I started on an aggressive regimen of chemotherapy immediately after giving birth.
This course of treatment was set to weaken my immune system so thoroughly that my doctor told me I couldn't work because my job was centered around taking care of kids. The exposure was too much of a risk.
Beyond the immunity concerns, I was so exhausted by my care. It truly debilitated me.
When I told my employers about my diagnosis and that the treatment would require me to take leave, they responded very simply: if I didn't come back to work in the next six months, then I'd be let go.
And I was.
With the job went my health insurance, too. In the thick of my treatment, I was uninsured, receiving no paycheck, rejected from disability and trying to parent a newborn and toddler.
My two sons and I had to move in with my mom who, unbeknownst to me, was taking unpaid time at her own job to take care of us.
If not for the generosity of family and friends, the opportunity to apply for financial assistance through my hospital or the help I received in applying for food stamps, I don't know how we would have made it through.
What my family and I needed was an adequate paid medical leave program that could have given me the boost I needed to save my life without losing my livelihood.
New York workers need lawmakers to act to ensure that, just because they're experiencing diminished physical health, their financial health and mobility don't need to be impacted.
With people being diagnosed with cancer at younger ages and in the middle of their careers, the need for paid family and medical leave programs that actually meet patient needs is only increasing.
If we want people to continue to seek out work and life in New York, then it is incumbent upon state leaders to act by supporting Senate Bill 0172 and Assembly Bill 0084.
Stacey Betler is a resident of Fort Plain.