obviously having to go back to work five days after a hysto is INSANE and evil and yes i'm sure bosses HAVE demanded as much from their performers in many cases, at least implicitly bc everyone lives in constant fear of losing their job, but in this specific case i don't think there was necessarily a demand directly from the producers or something that she come back that soon because at that point they had already announced closing so like. what are they gonna do, fire her? they already all lost their jobs. there's nothing else they could do to her.
but the thing about the timing is if she'd taken the appropriate amount of time off after her surgery to recover she simply would have not been in the final month of shows at death becomes her. so if it had not been closing i'm guessing she probably would have taken a medical leave and then come back like megan did last year with her vocal injury, but due to the absolutely nightmarish timing she had to make the choice of like well do i want my run as helen to end like this a month early or do i want to see this character and show that i love and that i've been with since the very beginning through to end in whatever capacity i am physically able to (e.g. try to do half the shows each week while dee covers the rest)
and i hate to say this but "who do we have to fight"… babe… sorry but look in the mirror. i'm sure not wanting to disappoint the fans many of whom she knew were specifically there to see her was at least somewhat of a factor. anyways. it fucking sucks. horrible horrible situation. but the only way to really fix it for her would have been to not close the show like it really is that impossible extenuating circumstance that made every option so impossibly bad.
