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

Her spouse 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 explained.

"Should I pass away early, I could not imagine leaving [my husband] here. We really don’t have little family. We don’t have any children."

When Trump won the 2024 presidential election, her spouse prepared to be forced back into the office at the Department of Transportation in Washington DC. He had been teleworking since the beginning of the global pandemic, from their home outside Baltimore.

On Trump’s first day in office in January, an executive order was signed requiring all federal agencies end all telework arrangements. Federal personnel officials directed agencies to enact the order irrespective of collective bargaining contracts.

"My spouse is a long-time employee with the administration, and he’s an expert in his field. He’s been doing this for two decades more now, so it is draining for him. We’re in our 50s. He departed the house at 5 a.m. in the morning and returning at seven at night," Michaela said. Her identity is protected as her husband remains employed at the Department of Transportation and is concerned about retaliation.

In July, she underwent an operation, 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 stage one breast cancer a decade ago, but was able to treat it, due to early detection, with a partial lumpectomy, radiation, chemotherapy and hormonal medication. Through regular checkups, she managed her health, before her recent diagnosis of stage four metastatic breast cancer.

Surviving Job Cuts and Reorganization

Over the past year, her spouse survived layoffs at the DOT. By spring, nearly 2,800 employees had left the agency, due to those reductions as well as retirements and people quitting.

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 translates to over ten thousand fewer employees at the Department of Transportation. Government workforce reductions have exceeded goals, with hundreds of thousands of workers exiting the government and a small number of new hires.

"We were worried about RIFs. We understand based on the way things are operating, that this remains a constant threat because they ignore established rules," she elaborated.

She noted that specialized positions at the agency are hard to come by and contractors often want to pay lower salaries.

Facing a Federal Closure

As the Department of Transportation was shedding employees, on 1 October a shutdown of the federal government began, lasting for over a month, the most protracted in American history.

The couple celebrated their 18th anniversary in early November, during the ongoing closure, but stayed at home because finances prevented them to go out to eat due to her husband not being paid for several weeks.

She is thankful the federal closure concluded as she was anxious over medical bills, but laments 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 hopeless. I felt impoverished. I felt flabbergasted, scared, and I observed my husband and there were a few times where he was sitting at his desk and he gazed out the window. He was getting depressed," she recounted.

Feeling Targeted

"We are merely one example in a bucket of countless people who work so hard to achieve their positions, who try to do the right thing, and the people who are setting policy are just ransacking and leading the government and treating federal workers like they are enemies, that they are not citizens, and that they should be attacked. And I take personal offense to that," she said.

A Looming Threat

Her current concern is another possible looming federal closure on 30 January 2026, with the vast majority of federal funds set to lapse again without a long-term deal.

"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 several shutdowns. This by far was the worst," she stated. "I am already fighting a serious disease, and I don’t know what the future holds. I may survive for another year or two. I could be here for a decade."