On this, my second “Cancerversary,” I want to urge my fellow citizens to take this pandemic seriously, shelter-in-place, flatten the curve, and listen to scientists and health experts rather than politicians and rabble-rousers who value the economy over health and safety.
I originally submitted this as an Op-Ed to several news outlets, but in light of my upcoming surgery, the first of two thanks to Covid-19 dangers that have delayed my reconstruction following mastectomy, I decided to do a blog post. This is important. We’re all in this together, and those who choose to ignore expert advice are putting people like me in danger.
This isn’t the time to be selfish. Self-isolation isn’t just about you.
Like many Americans, I’ve been working remotely to comply with social-distancing and shelter-at-home measures. As a biomedical research scientist, I understand the particularly insidious way SARS-Cov-2, the coronavirus behind the deadly pandemic, can be transmitted exponentially through populations. Death tolls are rising. We’ve been told we need to flatten the curve, which means we need to slow the spread of the virus so we do not exceed the capacity of the healthcare system to treat severely affected patients. There are a limited number of ventilators available, a message that was driven home by Dr. Emily Porter, board-certified emergency physician and sister of U.S. Representative Katie Porter. Dr. Porter used her sister’s approach to educate the public on how exponential spread of the virus could overwhelm the U.S. Healthcare system, forcing doctors to ration resources and decide who gets a vent and who doesn’t. It’s a horrifying, ugly scenario with 1 patient in 50 getting a vent, and 49 patients left to die.
Her words at sent chills down my spine. “Imagine if you had to say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. You’ve had cancer before, so therefore you don’t have a perfectly clean bill of health, so you’re not worth saving.’” I am a person living with cancer. My surgery has already been postponed due to the pandemic. Luckily, my tumor is slow-growing, giving me the luxury of time. Many thousands of other Americans and cancer patients around the world do not have that luxury. Cancer treatments cannot be suspended during the pandemic. As I passed through the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center on my last day of work, I saw a room full of men, women, and children, some in masks, waiting for their chemotherapy treatments. On the floor below, others waited for radiation therapy, and in the hospital a block away, cancer patients were recovering from surgery. These people are not only at risk for exposure while at their appointments, they are also immune-compromised or immune-fragile due to their cancer treatments and are less capable of fighting off the virus. To put that in perspective, a portion of the roughly 650,000 cancer patients who receive chemotherapy annually, not counting those receiving radiation therapy or the host of other patients with co-morbidities, are already more vulnerable to covid-19 death. Without ventilators, an unfathomable number of these patients will likely die. If we ration ventilators based on co-morbidities like cancer, I wouldn’t get a vent if I became infected.
I don’t want to die. None of these cancer patients, or patients with co-morbidities like autoimmune diseases, obesity, diabetes, or others want to die. Can you imagine beating cancer only to succumb to a virus, knowing that your fellow humans didn’t care enough to follow measures to flatten the curve and that’s why you can’t get lifesaving ventilation? Imagine your mother, your grandmother, your child, a newborn baby, your best friend, your colleagues, and imagine life without them—knowing they are gone because the people in their communities didn’t care enough to follow the rules.
Until recently, Tennessee has had a subpar response to the pandemic. Nashville has fared better thanks to measures implemented by the mayor, but there are too many state and local communities that aren’t taking this seriously. I implore them and I implore each of you reading this: follow the rules. Social-distance, shelter-at-home, don’t go out unless absolutely necessary, and take precautions when you do. Wash your hands. Hunker down. We can and will get through this, but only if we all do our part. Please do your part so people like me don’t have to die.
Resources for Cancer Patients During Pandemic: American Cancer Society, Immuno-Oncology News, Breast Cancer News
Talking Tatas 