sadface

Thanks, everyone. This is really helpful advice. I have been worried that it would be insensitive of me to have that frank conversation with my advisor. I keep thinking she should have come to this realization already and initiated the conversation with me. That part, and not cluing in someone higher up at the university, I still don't understand. But it seems there is nothing else I can do.

I'm halfway through my first year. My advisor is a new faculty member with no other grad students besides me, and two undergrads. My advisor just told me 2 weeks ago about the cancer diagnosis and almost immediately I have become responsible for the undergrads while my advisor begins surgeries, chemo, and radiation. Other than occasional emails (usually about what I'm to do with the undergrads) I have no actual advisement for myself and my research, which is going to stagnate in probably another month without oversight. My advisor has not told anyone else at our university. Not even the two undergrads. I obviously can't be the one to do that, but I am really struggling emotionally with being a compassionate, sympathetic person who doesn't burden someone suffering with cancer, while also trying to be a grad student who has a future to focus on. My heart is mostly in the former, even though when I am really honest with myself I can see I am being slighted and mistreated. I feel stuck and extremely depressed.