During the spring of 2025, Michaela felt a sharp pain radiate from her hip while she bent over to tend to her garden. She collapsed and was unable to rise.
Her spouse summoned emergency services and she was admitted in a hospital, where, in her late fifties, doctors discovered she had a mass on her spine. It was metastatic breast cancer.
"I had no warning this would occur, and I was heartbroken. At first, I wasn't fully aware that it was a recurrence of my breast cancer that had metastasized to my spine, which I learned was a common place for it to go," she explained.
"If I were to die prematurely, I could not imagine leaving [my husband] here. We really don’t have little family. We are without any children."
When Trump won the 2024 election, Michaela’s husband braced to be mandated to return to in-person work at the DOT in Washington DC. He had worked remotely since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, from their residence outside Baltimore.
On Trump’s first day in office in January, an executive order was signed requiring all federal agencies terminate all remote work arrangements. The office of personnel management instructed agencies to implement the policy despite existing union agreements.
"My husband’s a veteran in government service, and he is highly skilled in his field. He’s been doing this for 20 years now, so it is draining for him. We’re in our 50s. He was leaving the house at 5 a.m. in the morning and getting home at seven at night," she stated. Her real name is withheld as her husband still works at the Department of Transportation and fears reprisal.
In July, Michaela had surgery, a laminectomy. Shortly following that, she had targeted radiation therapy, and is currently on an oncology regimen called Kisqali alongside hormone therapy.
She was previously diagnosed with stage one breast cancer in 2014, but was able to treat it, as it was caught early, with a partial lumpectomy, radiation, chemotherapy and tamoxifen. Through regular checkups, she managed her health, before her recent diagnosis of advanced metastatic breast cancer.
Navigating Job Cuts and Restructuring
Throughout this year, her spouse avoided reductions in force at the DOT. By spring, thousands of employees had departed the department, due to those reductions as well as retirements and voluntary resignations.
According to a internal document on its plan for reductions in force and restructuring, the agency estimated that by the end of next year, its workforce would be cut by approximately 20 percent from levels at the start of the year.
This would correlate to over ten thousand reduced staff at the department. Government workforce reductions have surpassed targets, with hundreds of thousands of workers exiting the government and a small number of new hires.
"We were worried about RIFs. We understand given the way things are operating, that this remains a constant threat because policies disregard the law," she elaborated.
She added that specialized positions at the agency are difficult to find and contractors often want to pay reduced wages.
Facing a Government Shutdown
While the DOT was losing staff, on October 1st a closure of the federal government began, lasting for over a month, the most protracted in US history.
The couple celebrated their 18th anniversary in early November, while the shutdown continued, but stayed at home because finances prevented them to go out to eat due to her husband going without a paycheck for several weeks.
She is thankful the federal closure ended as she was worried about medical bills, but rues the rising costs in healthcare premiums she and her husband have experienced, as well as for those who rely on healthcare through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
"I felt desperate. I felt destitute. I was astonished, scared, and I watched my husband and there were a few times where he sat at his desk and he was just staring out the window. He was getting depressed," she said.
Feeling Targeted
"We’re just one drop in a ocean of countless people who work so hard to achieve their positions, who attempt to do the right thing, and the people who are setting policy are seemingly dismantling and managing the government and viewing federal workers like adversaries, that they are not citizens, and that they deserve targeting. I find this personally offensive to that," she said.
Future Uncertainty
She is now worried is a potential approaching government shutdown on 30 January 2026, with the vast majority of federal funds set to expire again without a permanent agreement.
"The temporary funding measure is up for renewal again on the 30th of January and I am thinking this will repeat all over again. We have endured several shutdowns. This was decidedly the most severe," she stated. "I am already fighting a serious disease, and I don’t know what the future holds. I could be here for a couple more years. I could be here for 10 years."
