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In early May 2025, a woman felt a sharp pain radiate from her hip while she bent over to tend to her garden. Then she fell over and couldn’t get back up.

Her husband summoned emergency services and she spent the night in a hospital, where, in her late fifties, doctors discovered she had a tumor on her spine. The diagnosis was metastatic breast cancer.

"I had no warning this would occur, and I was devastated. Initially, I wasn't fully aware that it was a recurrence of my breast cancer which had spread to my spine, a location is common for it to go," she said.

"Should I pass away early, I cannot bear the thought of leaving [my husband] here. We have little family. We are without children of our own."

When Trump won the 2024 presidential election, her spouse prepared to be forced to return to in-person work at the DOT in Washington DC. He had been teleworking since the onset of the global pandemic, from their residence outside Baltimore.

On Trump’s first day in office on 20 January, he issued requiring all federal agencies end all remote work arrangements. The office of personnel management instructed agencies to implement the policy irrespective of existing union agreements.

"My spouse is a long-time employee in government service, and he’s an expert in his field. He’s been doing this for 20 years now, so it’s exhausting for him. We are in our fifties. He was leaving the house at 5 a.m. in the morning and returning at 7 p.m. at night," she stated. Her real name is withheld as her husband still works at the Department of Transportation and fears retaliation.

In July, Michaela had surgery, a laminectomy. A few weeks after that, she had stereotactic radiation, and is now taking an cancer treatment called Kisqali alongside hormone therapy.

She was previously diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer in 2014, but was able to treat it, as it was caught early, with a surgical procedure, radiation, chemotherapy and tamoxifen. With consistent monitoring, she stayed on top of it, before her latest diagnosis of advanced metastatic breast cancer.

Surviving Job Cuts and Reorganization

Throughout this year, her spouse avoided layoffs at the Department of Transportation. By spring, nearly 2,800 employees had departed the department, due to those reductions as well as employees retiring and people quitting.

Per a memo on its plan for reductions in force and restructuring, the agency estimated that by the end of next year, its staffing levels would be cut by approximately 20 percent from earlier levels.

This would correlate to more than 10,000 reduced staff at the department. Government workforce reductions have exceeded goals, with hundreds of thousands of workers leaving the government and a small number of replacements.

"We were worried about layoffs. We understand based on the way things are operating, that this remains a constant threat because they ignore the law," Michaela explained.

She noted that jobs for specializations at the agency are difficult to find and contractors often want to pay lower salaries.

Enduring a Federal Closure

While the DOT was losing staff, on 1 October a shutdown of the U.S. government began, continuing for 43 days, the most protracted in US history.

The couple marked their 18th anniversary in the fall, during the ongoing closure, but remained home because they couldn’t afford to go out to eat due to her husband not being paid for multiple weeks.

She is thankful the federal closure ended as she was worried about medical bills, but laments the increases in insurance premiums she and her husband have experienced, as well as for those who rely on healthcare through the ACA exchanges.

"I felt hopeless. I felt destitute. I was astonished, frightened, and I observed my husband and on several occasions where he was sitting at his desk and he gazed out the window. He was becoming despondent," she said.

A Personal Offense

"We’re just one drop in a ocean of millions people who strive diligently to achieve their positions, who attempt to do the right thing, and those who are setting policy are seemingly dismantling and leading the government and treating federal workers like adversaries, that they are lesser citizens, and that they deserve targeting. And I take personal offense to that," she said.

A Looming Threat

She is now worried is a potential looming government shutdown on 30 January 2026, with the vast majority of federal funds set to lapse again absent a permanent agreement.

"The continuing resolution is up for renewal again on the 30th of January and I am thinking this is going to happen all over again. We’ve been through multiple closures. This was decidedly the worst," she said. "I’m already battling a life-threatening illness, and I don’t know where it’s going to take me. I may survive for another year or two. I might live for a decade."