DEAR ABBY: A co-worker has been stricken with multiple stage-4 cancers. We have been supporting him. His condition is terminal, in the final stage and deteriorating rapidly. We don’t have the heart to send him home and take away the only thing that gives him his reason to live – his work. So we spend our time providing hospice care, something none of us have any training for.
Our work environment has become increasingly stressful and anxious. I need to make a choice – to place my family and my well-being first, take a leave of absence and abandon my co-workers, or stay in support and have a front-row seat to the imminent passing. – 911 ON SPEED DIAL
DEAR 911: Discuss this with your employer. Neither you nor your co-workers are trained caregivers. No one should be administering medical care because of possible liability to the company.
You are sensitive and caring. However, if the situation has become more stressful than you can manage, it’s time to take a step back. To do so isn’t abandoning anyone; it is looking after your own mental health so you can provide for your family.
DEAR ABBY: My parents divorced when I was a small child. My father remarried when I was 10, and I loved my stepmother dearly. She died in 1994 after 27 years of marriage. Daddy then met another lovely woman I’ll call “Eileen,” whom he dated for many years. By this time, I was nearly 40 and living 1,000 miles away from them. He eventually moved in with her, but they didn’t actually marry until 2018. Eileen is only 13 years older than I am, so I have always thought of her as my father’s third wife, not my stepmother.