When being ehmon (pronounced A-mon) does more harm than good

I've been going in to the office more lately. I know this is not a smart move but I can't help feeling guilty that I'm not there. I shouldn't feel guilty as I still am able to do a lot from home, but the reality is I'm simply able to do more and do my job more effectively from the office. So I go there occasionally, more and more lately and this would probably turn into a habit that I can't simply get in to. Me being there makes the people I work with happy as I'm there to help out and take work off their plate, which they desperately need. They can also see that I'm doing well, which the people there close to me also need. But unfortunately this is not what I need.
I am able to function quite normally during chemo during the good days of my cycle. I don't sit around feeling sorry for myself, I can walk my dog and hold a conversation and function pretty much like everyone else. I understand that I am lucky to do this, some people that go through chemo are literally in bed for their whole treatment or mentally they simply aren't able to cope. Neither of these are mercifully the case for me. The problem is what is called Neutropenia aka low white blood counts. This is induced and made life-threatening during chemotherapy. There's a long explanation but here is the gist: when you go through chemo, your cells, both healthy and cancerous, are killed. Getting something as simple as a sniffle could put me into emergency as I have zero immune system while going through chemo. Offices are the #1 place to pass off germs to others. They are a cesspool for germs and for passing on infections/colds etc. If you develop a fever during neutropenia you may require treatment with intravenous antibiotics and admission to the hospital until the number of neutrophils in the blood returns to sufficient levels to fight the infection. If my healthy cells (the white ones) drop too low, I'm not able to get chemo again until they are back up. I would need to be intravenously fed antibiotics and I'd just as likely need a blood transfusion. If my chemo is delayed, this affects its effectiveness and could negatively influence my survival rate. If I get sick or if my healthy blood count drops too low, I'm at risk of developing a life-threatening infection, or having my treatment either altered or delayed. This would also affect my survival rate. I am writing this just as much to remind myself as to educate you. I find it hard to slow down and take it easy even though I absolutely must. If I got sick during chemo because I caught something in the office, how could I face my family and the people that care about me? And for what? My job? I love my job and it pays the bills, but isn't going to make me the kind of money I plan on making in this lifetime, and it's certainly not what I plan on doing for the rest of my life. I don't plan on assisting, I plan on running! I am going to be much more successful than I am today, obviously, so I take a risk like this only to prove to myself that I am okay and still a great worker, and that I'm not going to let chemo run my life. I can be such an ass sometimes! Just ask my dad who I just got off the phone with yelling at me (not really yelling, just passionately reasoning) about how I better be careful and to stop doing too much, etc etc etc. I wasn't able to see either of my parent's for about 2 weeks as they both got sick and wouldn't come around me during that time. I can't imagine either of them being the reason I got sick as they'd feel absolutely awful about it obviously, so they didn't come by and I wasn't able to go to their house, which was hard on them (and me) I'm sure as they weren't able to be with me during the bad days following treatment last week. Anyway, here I am stearing clear of loved ones yet I'll go into the office where germs and recycled air would be much worse culprits to my health?My argument to my dad is that I know my absence at work is felt and although I do still work from home, I get much more accomplished by being there, and everyone knows it, which makes me feel guilty as it is my nature to work hard and right now I feel like a slacker and I despise that feeling. I also sometimes feel like I have to say no to working on certain projects that require my physical presence. This isn't anyone at works fault, I can't assume they're educated enough on my specific treatment to know the real risks I face, so I write them here thinking maybe I'll be better able to explain why I'm not able to work at a normal pace just because I look and act like I can. My boss and even my bosses boss has made it clear time and time again that my health is their main concern, and my boss of course knows the reasons I'm not there, but I think he keeps them to himself as respect for my privacy, even though I've told him he can share what I tell him with others, I can tell when I go to work that he doesn't do this at all. I try to reason my logic in terms that my dad can relate to as he's in management and has a team of people that report to him. One of the girls walks in to his office crying about a personal issue. Does he a) care about the reason she is crying or b) is he uncomfortable/embarassed that she is crying at work and in his office? The answer is b, unless said girl is your daughter. :) That is reality; most people think in WIIFM terms, what's in it for me? This certainly isn't a bad or negative thing it's just human nature, isn't it? I'm totally guilty of this! Unless you're a select few, doesn't society in general think like this internally? When I first heard about cancer, I thought of chemo and I immediately thought about the benefit of losing 20 lbs from it being a positive thing. Human nature. If your coworker calls in sick or for whatever reason can't come in to work which puts more on your plate, are you concerned for their well-being or secretly wondering if they're faking while thinking "Super, now I gotta pick up the slack!" It's not what you say obviously but are you able to admit it goes through your mind? He sees my point but does not think it applies to me as we're not talking about a fight with a boyfriend; we're talking about cancer and a real life-threatening risk of catching something as simple as a cold. True, but again, I'm not 'sick' so it's hard for me to look at something that hasn't happened yet. I know the obvious argument on this too; obviously I don't want to find out the hard way, but guilt -on some days- does prevail. I'm ehmon so I'm absolutely hating sitting on my butt in a sterilized bubble as it is against my nature. But while I actually do have a choice in the matter and I'm able to write this from my couch and not a hospital bed, I should sit quietly in said bubble and shut up. Stay tuned to see if I actually do so.

Oh okay, you won't get the ehmon reference, will you? I'll explain. It's short form reference to an old In Living Colour skit (what a fabulous show that was!), and we've shortened this hilarious saying to ehmon and is now part of daily verbage. My friends and I would think it's cooler and more impressive to work hard for what you have then to be handed what you have. Therefore to be ehmon is cool and is a compliment in our warped little world. It would come up in conversation as follows:
The Compliment: "She's cool, I like her. She's ehmon too like us."
The Excuse: "Sorry I haven't called; I've been so ehmon lately!"
The Concerned Chastise: "You gotta stop being so ehmon dude, seriously."
The Diss "She's never had to be ehmon a day in her life!"

When you work very hard at what you do, or you multitask, or hold multiple skills or have always simply worked hard for what you get, my friends and I refer to this as ehmon.

As in, "Eh mon! I got t'ree jobs!"