My Journey: Cancer During COVID
With self-pity comes guilt
I have triple-negative breast cancer and delaying treatment for this aggressive form of the disease due to COVID-19 was never an option. Despite the dangers of becoming immunocompromised in a highly contagious and deadly world, I launched full steam ahead. All of the articles I read about beginning treatment strongly suggest that you bring someone with you to your first doctor’s appointment. Unfortunately, this was no longer an option for me. The doctors’ offices had new ‘no visitors allowed’ policies. From the gyno’s empty waiting room (where there’s usually never a shortage of pregnant women), to the vacant oncology office, and even the eerie, ghost town-like hospital wing void of a single other human being — these facilities were empty for good reason. It was protecting me and others from spreading or contracting the virus. But this “good reason” was distorting my cancer experience. Each step I took was a constant reminder that my cancer journey meant going it alone.
And then came gratitude
I live by myself and social distancing can hit hard for people like me and doing so with the added stress of a recent cancer diagnosis caused me great despair. But a friend reached out who wanted to help. He wanted to social distance with me, to be there for my first few weeks of chemo. Although he lived far away, he decided to drive 14 hours instead of taking a two-hour flight, because he knew it would be safer for me if he weren’t exposed to others. My sister also stepped in and flew across the country to take up the mantle for several weeks after my friend left. We rightly celebrate healthcare workers and others who are on the frontlines of this pandemic, but as a cancer patient I also had my own two heroes, both risking exposing themselves to the disease simply to help me. There are also those “other” healthcare workers. They aren’t working with COVID-19 patients, but the brave men and women at my oncology office who show up to work every day to make sure that I, and other cancer patients, get the treatments we need.
-Nina, Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Survivor
