Yes, it is important to know that President Joe Biden reportedly said he wants work events to end by 8 p.m. so he can get more rest. This affects not only the upcoming presidential campaign, but perhaps the future of democracy.
But my personal health habits and how they relate to my professional capacity, however, are not as big a deal. Still, I kept a major health concern a secret for close to a year from most all my clients, mentees, and professional colleagues. Many people do.
Telling only my work managers and the top leaders in the organizations where I work about my second bout with cancer, my goal was not to make my year of treatments the focus of every professional encounter.
Their reaction was mostly compassionate; I was honest about my capacity to a select few other work colleagues, but dishonest to wider audiences outside my family and a close circle of friends. I shared nothing about it in my writing or on social media platforms. Until now.
I felt many I collaborated with would be distracted by it, concerned, asking a lot of questions. I felt they didn't have a right to know my personal business as I was still working full time. They didn't need to know about rough chemo and radiation treatments.
I was also tired of having cancer. My work provided me with intellectual and creative bliss, giving me energy to escape in my mind. For several hours a day I did not have to think about cancer.
After skin cancer, breast cancer is the second most common cancer in American women, with more than 4 million survivors in this country. This year, an expected 310,720 women will receive the diagnosis of invasive breast cancer—as I did in 2023. There will be 42,250 deaths.
Of course, if work is impacted dramatically and it is necessary to slow down measurably or quit, employers and colleagues need to know why. For me, I never stopped working, as I cut back on other parts of my life, making sure I followed all the health protocols to get better. And I did, I am now cancer-free.
Still, hundreds of people I worked with had no idea.
In his 2022 book, The Secret Life of Secrets: How Our Inner Worlds Shape Well-Being, Relationships, and Who We Are, Columbia University Business School associate professor Michael Slapian identified 38 secret categories. While mental health and pregnancy are two of them, physical health is not, unless you categorize that under a "specific story."
Perhaps it is because having that health conversation with managers feels invasive and uncomfortable. Research confirmed this as a 2016 study found that sharing bad news such as a cancer diagnosis with significant adult friends, family, and colleagues "is a difficult, personal process." And there is little guidance or support along the way.
However, many major celebrities including Olivia Munn, Shannen Doherty, Robin Roberts, Julia Luis-Dreyfus, and Wanda Sykes shared their breast cancer diagnoses publicly in order to raise awareness of the disease. With such large global platforms of influence, their revelations of personal health history make sense and can make change.
Their disclosures are worthwhile considering the impact they can have on millions in terms of breast care, diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. Having high-profile women—like Kate Middleton—being transparent is crucial for the wellness of many.
Other celebrities sharing physical health diagnoses, symptoms, and life-changing outcomes include Bruce Willis, Toni Braxton, and more. But their livelihoods were likely not in jeopardy as they would be with so many others. Actor Chadwick Boseman died of colon cancer in 2020, apparently without sharing his health concerns publicly.
While the effect of physical health disclosures on a wider audience has not been widely studied, a 2022 study on the impact of celebrity disclosures of mental health concerns showed an enormously positive result of stigma reduction.
Generations of women have learned not to share pregnancy health news at work until after 8-12 weeks, but many women go even longer, and their choices are protected by federal law. Fear of being downsized, treated differently, or excluded from prime assignments and projects is a very real concern.
I also kept my three pregnancies (with three sons now grown adults) private with employers and managers until after three months so I would continue to receive assignments and not be dismissed as unavailable.
According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, The Pregnancy Workers Fairness Act "requires a covered employer to provide a reasonable accommodation to a worker's known limitation related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless the accommodation will cause the employer an undue hardship."
Whatever the diagnosis, private citizens can choose to share or not share their health status in workplace arenas.
Keeping health news out of bounds from professional contacts is a personal decision, and not one afforded to a sitting president—or former president—running for a second term. Both candidates need to be transparent on their physical and mental health.
Yes, we need to know.
Michele Weldon is an author, journalist, emerita faculty at Northwestern University, and senior leader with The OpEd Project. Her latest book is The Time We Have: Essays on Pandemic Living.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
