Forced isolation after cancer can be triggering, but the alternative with a compromised immune system in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic is much worse.
PUBLISHED March 06, 2020
A native New Yorker, Shira Kallus Zwebner is a communications consultant and writer living with her husband and three children in Jerusalem, Israel. Diagnosed in 2017 with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, she's fighting her cancer battle and blogging about the journey at hipstermomblog.com
The irony of our forced quarantine is not lost of me.
The family ski trip we went on to Switzerland was a promise I had made to myself as hours' worth of chemo dripped through my PICC line, and I prayed that I would one day walk away from stage 4 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. It was somewhere between treatments two and three that I made that promise, as I spent my days between weekly hospital appointments isolated in our home, surrounded by masks, mini bottles of Purell and assorted hats to keep my bald head warm in the winter.
I wanted to be at the top of a mountain in the Swiss alps, surrounded by clouds low enough to touch and pure, white snow. I wanted to run my fingers through fresh powder while breathing in the crisp, cool mountain air as my husband and children skied figure-eights around me.
I cleared our family ski trip with my hematologist-oncologist weeks in advance, where he cautioned that my immune system is not like other peoples and I should be vigilant. Our ski trip began with enthusiasm and excitement as we cautiously read the news about the Coronavirus (COVID-19) crippling Wuhan, China.
The family ski trip we went on to Switzerland was a promise I had made to myself as hours' worth of chemo dripped through my PICC line, and I prayed that I would one day walk away from stage 4 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. It was somewhere between treatments two and three that I made that promise, as I spent my days between weekly hospital appointments isolated in our home, surrounded by masks, mini bottles of Purell and assorted hats to keep my bald head warm in the winter.
I wanted to be at the top of a mountain in the Swiss alps, surrounded by clouds low enough to touch and pure, white snow. I wanted to run my fingers through fresh powder while breathing in the crisp, cool mountain air as my husband and children skied figure-eights around me.
I cleared our family ski trip with my hematologist-oncologist weeks in advance, where he cautioned that my immune system is not like other peoples and I should be vigilant. Our ski trip began with enthusiasm and excitement as we cautiously read the news about the Coronavirus (COVID-19) crippling Wuhan, China.
No comments:
Post a Comment