The client himself had terminal cancer. His family was in the process of learning of his condition. They were beginning the anticipatory grieving process.

   From the court record it did not appear there ever was any question of her physical capacity to do her job as home health nurse. Nor was there a problem with absences for medical appointments getting in the way of her caregiving responsibilities.

   A home health nurse had been diagnosed with mucoepidermoid carcinoma, which the Court of Appeal of California indicated is an aggressive malignant tumor at the junction of the hard and soft palate.

      The factual background was very complicated behind the nurse’s disability discrimination lawsuit. The nurse’s medical condition came to her employer’s attention when two supervisors came to a client’s home for routine oversight of the quality of the care she was giving. The supervisors noticed a bandage on her neck. They asked and were told it was just a biopsy.

   Follow-up investigation revealed the nurse in fact had had some lymph nodes removed from her neck as an attempt to stem the spread of her disease, more serious than just a biopsy, but nothing the court believed that should have affected her employment. Reno vs. Baird, 67 Cal. Rptr. 2d 671 (Cal. App., 1997).