Cancer and COVID

Advocacy, General 1 Minute

Every now and again, I’m asked to participate in discussions about Cancer online. I suppose a byproduct of being open and vocal on social media means that other notice! Fazla Seker, MD is the CEO of Molli Surgical, which is involved in developing medical devices that makes surgery and other medical procedures easier on doctors and patients.

This was my first conversation with Dr. Seker, all about how Cancer and COVID have collided for so many people along with my friends, Mia and Sondra from BSBreastCancer.com. Have a listen!

Now it’s your turn — what changes have you had to make in your routines because of COVID? Has Cancer or another significant medical condition changed your response? If not, why?

Published by Abigail Johnston

I'm a daughter, a wife, a mother, and I've been living with Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer since March, 2017. All of the words I publish are my own.

Published

20 thoughts on “Cancer and COVID”

  1. Discovering I have pre-diabetes during covid was a shock. Knowing that covid 19 hits people who are overweight and have glucose intolerance motivated me to make a concerted effort to become healthy again. Not being allowed out the house for several months to walk the dogs was very frustrating when one of the ways to combat insulin intolerance is to exercise or walk. But in the end I managed. Covid 19 probably had a positive effect on me because of the motivating factor although we both work from home anyway so we didn’t have to do too much adjustments.

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  2. Having a daughter who is chronically ill doesn’t help at all having this virus all around, I continue to pray that she would not have to be admitted again for something because back in May we were unable to visit her which I was upset with not being by her side.

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  3. With my husband’s cancer situation we have been even more careful, and in a way the fact of his constant COVID tests has been reassuring. But the worst is that I can never go to appointments with him, so I can’t be another set of ears or an advocate as I used to be.

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    1. This is such a huge issue for cancer patients. We aren’t cognitively 100% and not having that extra pair of ears can be such a gigantic issue. I’ve had my husband on FaceTime a few times when I had an in person appointment, but I do like the ability to include him in the virtual appointments, which I do as much as I can.

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      1. We haven’t done the FaceTime, everything happens pretty quickly and he kind of freezes because he is not as comfortable technically as I am. He’s only had one virtual appointment and that worked. Phone calls on speaker are good too. But it’s the visits at the infusions that are tough because a lot of that isn’t charted but is still lots of information about his treatment. Everything he is getting is experimental so Dr. Google is no help either. Mercifully his team is very accessible by phone… a benefit of clinical trial life!

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    2. This is my biggest concern. I’ve had too many experiences in hospitals and appointments to not know how easy it is to overlook something important because of the long shifts, changing staff, and just too many balls being juggled not to drop one… or missing something in an appt even if you were paying attention.

      I have had a doctor fire me bc he didn’t want to wait for my dad to be there and wouldn’t LET me FaceTime him so my dad could also hear what was being said.

      Now my daughter is dealing with autoimmune issues and I want to teach her how to deal with all of it, but it’s hard if I can’t go in with her at appointments.

      Thankfully my ex and I have worked well together throughout this with him being a first responder and my being immunocompromsied. We are tired. My kid is tired of going a week at a time in one house Bc we tried to limit the back and forth. She’s not back in school and she doesn’t complain about it Bc she knows it’s to keep me safe. (All of us, but primarily me.) The ex takes her to more fun stuff when he gets her so she is getting some life back, but I feel like the boring parent even more so than before.

      So many changes. Although I feel like most of us already did a lot of what we’re doing and it was the REST of the world that got to learn what it’s like to constantly be aware of how close someone is to you, the knee jerk reaction of immediately backing away from anyone who sneezes or coughs, and worrying every time something happens thinking, “Is this just my normal sick symptom or a Covid symptom!?” Who knows!?

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  5. Pingback: Weekly Round-Up | Journeying Beyond Breast Cancer
  7. Pingback: Cancer and COVID | Cancer is a Dancing Queen

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