COVID and cancer
I get to have my third COVID test tomorrow. The first was a couple of days before my surgery. The second was the day AFTER my surgery, and if you were thinking that maybe getting tiny q-tips shoved up your nose the day after a huge surgery wouldn’t be that bad, OH BOY, I hate to tell you this but you’re wrong. This third test is just another thing to check off before radiation next week. If I ever start to show COVID symptoms, I’ll get to have another test.
The thing about having cancer in 2020 is that it really takes your mind off of what a giant dumpster fire the rest of the world currently is. While I’m of course still worried (read: mind-bogglingly terrified) about the election and everything surrounding it, I can’t devote the energy to it that I was before all of this happened. I’ve even found that I’m less preoccupied with the pandemic...to a point.
Since I’m practically living at the hospital these days, and I need to be super duper extra careful that I don’t get sick, COVID-19 isn’t something I can fully ignore. I mean, none of us should be fully ignoring the pandemic, even those of us who like to pretend it’s not real or it’s not happening or Bill Gates made it up so he could create a vaccine that the government will force us to get and the vaccine will make us all, I don’t know, buy Microsoft products or wear glasses and lots of sweaters over button-downs? (I don’t know, I can’t keep up with the conspiracy theories.)
In short, WEAR A MASK IT IS NOT THAT DIFFICULT.
Ahem.
Even though the pandemic isn’t always first and foremost in my mind, it is still affecting my life in big ways. One of the hardest is that the hospital currently has lots of extra rules right now. We’re screened every time we enter, which is the easiest rule to comply with (other than wearing a mask, seriously, stop being a baby and just wear it).
They are also limiting visitors. While I was in the hospital, Joe was the only one who could visit, but I still felt really lucky that even he was allowed to do that AND stay the night with me. I can’t imagine having gone through that experience on my own, but there are others out there who are having to do just that.
Because I was only allowed one visitor, my family couldn’t visit. My family! Couldn’t! Visit! They couldn’t visit me while I was in the hospital! WTF? Still, I was lucky to have Joe there and I keep reminding myself that a lot of people haven’t even had one visitor (but it still sucked that my family couldn’t be there).
Traveling right now is not the safest, but while I’m going through radiation, we’re going to need help. I’m going to have to go to the hospital five days a week for a month and a half. My A+ friend, Lauren, has kindly offered to help with some of these visits, which will give Joe a bit of a break. And, luckily, after talking with the doctors, and weighing all risks, my parents will be able to come out and help for a period of time. But I am sick to my stomach at the thought of them potentially getting COVID because they want to come help their sick daughter get through this shitty time. We’ll be taking all precautions while they’re here, which will likely mean masks and social distancing the entire time...so, like, no hugs, I guess? Welcome to this brave new world.
This is so fucked up, you guys! I’m sick and just want my family to be able to visit me in a risk-free way. If things had been handled well at the very beginning of the pandemic, the simple act of wanting my family to visit me during cancer treatment wouldn’t feel so goddamn risky.
And why? Because people didn’t want to wear a mask? Because a portion of the US population doesn’t believe in science? Because our president is a sentient piece of walking and talking shit who spews more shit out into the world every time he opens his shitty butthole mouth?
I’m just pissed, I guess. This would be hard enough if it wasn’t happening in the middle of a pandemic. Trying to juggle both sometimes feels impossible.
Anyway, please vote! (And wear a mask.)