Jane Hodnik

Cancer survivor incorporates lessons learned into daily life
Jane Hodnik had to go to work. Not wanted to. Had to.
After having a lumpectomy for breast cancer three years ago, Hodnik took two weeks off to rest and recuperate. But then it was time to get back to her job as executive director for the St. Francis Foundation.
“Coming to work gave me a place to go,” Hodnik said. “It gave me something that was a sure thing, that I knew what to expect, whereas cancer is anything but a sure thing, and it’s very frightening.”
Every lunch hour for six-and-a-half weeks, Hodnik would leave to get radiation treatments, and then come back to work. She admits that there were days when she didn’t get anything done. But as time passed, she started looking ahead — a huge step for someone diagnosed with cancer.
“In the beginning,” Hodnik says, “there’s a lot of sorrow, a lot of fear, a lot of not knowing what the future’s going to hold. And as time goes by, you begin to look at today and to look at tomorrow and start saying, ‘Gee, when I retire, I’m going to do such and such.'”
The planning and fundraising that Hodnik does for the foundation kept her focusing on the future even as she dealt with her cancer. Being a cancer survivor also affects the way Hodnik approaches her work and her co-workers.
“I would say I’m more tolerant,” she says. “I try to keep my business life in better control over how much I can accomplish in one day or in one week and how much I expect others to accomplish, also.
“I better realize that all of us have something going on in our lives that can affect day-to-day work,” Hodnik says. “Hopefully, it’s small things — it might be having over-eaten the day before, but it could also be a sick family member or something. I’m aware of that a lot when I meet people or see people who maybe aren’t smiling, and I think, ‘You know, maybe they’re struggling. Maybe they’re trying to make a decision on cancer treatment.’ And I know what that was like.”
Hodnik continues to take a small dose of tamoxifen each day to help keep cancer cells from forming in her body. What once was a daily reminder of her cancer has now become just another pill to take along with her vitamins each morning.
As part of her way of giving back to the community, Hodnik, a former interior designer, lent her skills and her opinion as a cancer survivor to Covenant Healthcare when it began planning its Center for Cancer Care in Franklin (see SBT Nov. 23, 2001).
“You expect quality machinery and treatments, but it’s when someone greets you at the door, or you’re in a bright, cheerful room, I think it can heal people — I believe that,” Hodnik says of her role in the center’s design. “I’ve been put in a place in my life that I can take what I’ve learned and make it better (for others).”
Hodnik’s advice for business owners or executives that find themselves stricken with cancer: “Tell people how you feel. Your friends are concerned and afraid for you, but they don’t know what to say. They don’t know what to ask. You have to remain in a professional setting, you’re an executive, but it’s OK to be human and share what’s on your mind with regard to a serious illness,” Hodnik says. “It helps the people around you to not be afraid, like ‘They’re afraid I’ll break if they ask me a question.’ And all they really want to know is, am I doing OK? I think it has to be open for conversation, if the person is comfortable about it, of course.”
Dec. 21, 2001, Small Business Times, Milwaukee