Celebrating six years at Microsoft while sidelined by cancer

photo montage: my path to Microsoft in six hops

photo montage: My brilliant career — high points in my public speaking the last 15 years

Marking six years at Microsoft while sidelined by cancer

When I got recruited to Microsoft in 2020, I told my kids that this would be the last stop in my long and dynamic career. Microsoft would be my forever home, I told them, at least until I retired.

For better or worse, cancer put a hold on that plan.

Today marks my six-year anniversary at Microsoft. It means a lot to me that I’ve been with Microsoft for six years.

My work there spreading best practices for generative AI safety and security is among my greatest achievements – along with my marriage, my kids, and my learning to surf at 52.

My team at Microsoft is like a second family to me, and I’m sad that I’m not in Redmond, WA today to celebrate my sixth anniversary with them.

A workaholic slows down

A few hours after I learned I had breast cancer back in September 2025, I told my manager and my corporate vice president my diagnosis, and they urged me to take as much time as I needed to fight it.

Easier said than done.

My decades-long pattern of working nights and weekends in order to overdeliver on my work was so ingrained in me that it took three months of medical leave to stop feeling guilty about abandoning my team midstream on multiple big initiatives to focus 100 percent on me.

You may recall the words I used to open my very first blog post for this “Danielle Rides the Cancer Wave” Substack series “Chapter 1 Thank you, Dolma”:

September 10, 2025 - When you’re driving along the freeway rushing to get somewhere, you don’t realize how fast you are actually moving until you take your foot off the accelerator.

Only then can you sense the full weight of the car hurtling forward through space.

That is how I feel right now.

Oddly, ironically, blessedly, I think this is the place I have been unknowingly rushing toward all my life.

Because now I am going to have to slow down.

Slow way the fuck down.

On the first morning of my short-term medical leave, while swimming laps at the outdoor public pool, I had this realization while glancing between strokes at the redwood trees beside the pool: “My job now is to meditate every day.”

For the first couple months of this cancer medical leave, I felt the need to be productive, to produce something – even as my daily calendar filled up with doctor examinations, blood tests, MRIs, ultrasounds, echocardiograms, surgical procedures, Kaiser breast cancer support group, dietician calls and physical therapy.

I’ve never had this much time off work in my life: I took 11 weeks maternity leave when Oscar was born 25 years ago, and nine weeks when Ella was born two years later.

Launching this blog in November satisfied my urge to produce something, especially with the instant gratification of feedback in comments and text messages from friends and family.

As my brother-in-law told my sister when I started this blog: “This is what happens when Didi has too much time on her hands.”

But it’s because I had so much time on my hands during my leave from work that I was able to research and adopt best practices for staying healthy during surgery recovery and chemotherapy: a special diet with homemade bone broth and ginger tea, acupuncture, massage therapy, meditation, etc.

And with the gift of more space and time in my life, the moms with whom I was friends when my kids were in school re-emerged in my life to reconnect and help me.

Because I don’t feel rushed first thing in the morning to crack open my laptop and dive into work, I can sit quietly with an empty mind and meditate every morning.

And on days I have enough strength and energy, I surf.

photos: on Wednesday and Friday I surfed; on Saturday and Sunday I slept. (surf pic from Friday’s session by Matt Berridge. Check out more of his amazing photography at www.mattberridge.com)

Zero percent of Danielle

When I paddled out to surf last Wednesday afternoon with Kate and Lan and surged ahead of them to reach the takeoff zone first, I noticed my mind fretting about going back to work.

I am slated to return to work next month after chemotherapy ends. Already my teammates are excitedly texting and calling me about my impending return, and big projects that await.

In my mind, I am terrified my chemo brain will hinder my ability to keep up with my colleagues and their latest developments in protecting generative AI.

In my heart, I am sad to give up the wide open space of my cancer leave.

At my surf session Wednesday, working my way through the swell past incoming waves to reach the outside, I try to silence my fretful work-focused mind with these truths:

“When I go back to work, I will have just kicked cancer’s ass. I can do hard things. I am returning to a team that loves me.”

Yesterday, I confessed my return-to-work fears to my colleague and dear friend Lexi. I told her the Danielle who returns to work next month is not the 100% hard-charging, ass-kicking Danielle who stepped away in September.

To which she replied without hesitating: “Well, we’ve had zero percent of Danielle the last five months, so we will be happy with whatever taste of Danielle we can get!”

Postscript: I am three-quarters done with chemo!

Today’s other big milestone is after my chemo session 9 this afternoon, I am now three-quarters of the way done with chemo.

Only three more sessions left!

When I checked in today at the Infusion Center receptionist desk, Sharen the receptionist handed me an envelope with a card with this printed message on the outside:

You put the Awe in Awesome, the Wonder in Wonderful, the Extra in Extraordinary.

On the inside of the card, beneath the printed message that said “Thanks for being so Great”, Sharen had written this message in purple pen:

Danielle,

Thank you is a small phrase, it doesn’t seem to be anywhere near big enough for what you do for us :-)

Taking time to bake your famous cookies

Sharen and the Gang!

Song Sung Blue for Kate

video: At my dear friend Kate’s suggestion, I watched “Song Sung Blue” on my iPad during today’s chemo and laughed and sang my head off. It reminded me how much I love Neil Diamon, so I am dedicating this song to my dearest warrior sister Kate Sheehy