How has the Pandemic affected you as a cancer patient/survivor

nopink2019

Mental affects --I'm more focused on the limited time I have left and things I'd like to do.... but can't. Pandemic has made "bucket list" an impossibility. In fact when vaccines arrived and things looked better in the spring I had some hope, but now I've lost all expectations related to "future". Saw various family & friends over last couple of months and can't help but think it might be last time (scanxiety & prospect of growing pandemic effects) I seem to focus on things I should wrap up for DH while still able, but get stressed at the length of that list and panic into stifling inaction. Because of the pandemic and MBC, I really can't look ahead to even the season changing.

Health & physical affects of pandemic. --I've seen ads about getting updated on personal healthcare (that may have been put off due to covid). Just realized I'm in that category. While I've not missed any MO appts (and I don't think treatment plans were affected) my eyesight is worsening, teeth need cleaning & now have some movement issues that I'd usually begin by seeing my chiropractor. Since those will be close exams, I don't want any providers who haven't been vaccinated. I always ask and if they refuse to tell me I take it as a NO and tell them I won't book an appt. I realize they aren't MDs but I question their concern for their patients well being and I prefer not to do business with them. So trying to find new dentist/hygienist, optometrist and chiro is time-consuming/annoying and when I find one, appt are months out.

I'm actually feeling fine on these meds since June and try to show that face to friends & family, but you asked, so I dumped.

Trishyla

Dump away, nopink. That's what this thread is for. I'm sorry you're having such a rough go of it right now. I'm in the same boat with needing dental work and an eye exam, but fortunately here in California we have a very high vaccination rate. I'll ask as well, but I would imagine most are vaccinated.

nopink2019

Trishyla- 90% of my county has had 1 vaccination, but 3 dental offices (hygienist or dentist), 2 optometrists and 1 chiro that I've called are among the unvaxxed! I was shocked. Seems odd, but you only really know if you ask.

sbelizabeth

I called to make an appointment with a healthcare provider and asked about her vaccination status. The receptionist declined to answer and I declined to make an appointment.

You can ask if someone's been vaccinated whose care will include being right in your face, but if they don't want to share that information, they won't. I have to assume a reluctance to disclose their vaccination status means they're not vaccinated.

nopink2019

HIPPA means that healthcare info may not be released without the patient's permission (including a provider's information). BUT, they can allow their employees to release that information, if they choose. And if you are told someone's vax status (other than designated "in confidence") you may share that information.

• https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/25/magazine/health-care-vaccine-ethics.html
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/vaccine-ask-hipaa-legal-proof/2021/08/06/04b10c9c-f54b-11eb-a49b-d96f2dac0942_story.html
• https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/coronavirus-verify/you-can-ask-your-doctor-or-nurse-if-theyre-vaccinated-against-covid-19/536-dd7a583b-c8e2-4a27-806c-a2009bbe4d36

ShetlandPony

Thank you for those links. My related story: My online yoga classes were going back to in-studio. There was defensiveness on the part of my yoga teacher when I asked via text if she and the other students would be wearing masks in class (only about half), or if she would be wiling to wear a mask for private lessons (no). I dared not ask if she was vaccinated but I gathered she was not. I did not want to damage a long-term, good relationship, so on a friend's advice I asked to speak with her by phone. I emphasized that I was not going to argue, that I just wanted to make sure we were ok as she had seemed offended by my inquiries. I explained that I was higher risk, and then she spoke of the need to each do what was best for ourselves. (And I do not know why she is not vaccinated.) Then she came up with the brilliant idea of doing private yoga sessions by video, and she has been giving me wonderful personalized lessons with much kindness. I'm so glad we talked and I did not just walk away after those initial texts.

DivineMrsM

Well done, Shetland. It sounds like both you and the yoga teacher benefitted from a more in-depth discussion. You persevered. I think leading off with letting her know you weren’t looking for confrontation helped. Also, by not walking away because of your initial frustration, I think she recognized that you value the relationship you two have.

Trishyla

For those who think it's "only old people, with one foot already in the grave" who die of Covid19:

https://wapo.st/2XeW7yu

Anonymous

The Delta variant is killing more children, pregnant women, and fetuses. Pregnant women should get vaccinated.

https://www.newsweek.com/mississippi-covid-infant-...

wrenn

This makes me crazy. My daughter has a 2 year old in daycre and is 6 months pregnant. She is vaccinated but works in the film business with many anti maskers travelling back and forth to the states.

Trishyla

My son's ex wife is a labor and delivery nurse. She's in charge of the Covid Obstetrics ward at a hospital north of LA. She's a rabid libertarian who has some very right wing views, but she know firsthand just how deadly this Pandemic is. She's held the hand of young, pregnant women as they die. Quite often their baby dies with them.

She's been on social media since late last year, urging everyone to get the vaccine as soon as it's available.

Even she's getting frustrated with vaccine deniers and holdouts, including some in her own family.

ChiSandy

Whose fault is it that American pharmacies have had to discard doses? Blame the COVIDiots. Don't penalize those of us who need those third shots by insisting we sacrifice them to other countries that don't have the ethics, personnel & mechanisms to equitably distribute them before they spoil. The effect would be the same as discarding them (though I suppose there'd a "feelgood" element of being able to say we altruistically and nobly tried and failed). We have plenty of doses to share, have been donating more of them than most nations of the First World combined, and are sending half a billion more. International moralists can't have it both ways: they can't tell us not to intervene in other conflicts abroad (especially in countries about whose cultures and traditions we are woefully naively ignorant) yet insist we take on the vaccine responsibilities other First World nations are shirking. Again, how do the ethicists and WHO propose we be able to divert the doses that the anti-vaxer "maskholes" are refusing, ship them abroad before they spoil, and get them into the arms of those in dire need of their first shots? I don't see them volunteering to do the "dirty work" much less subsidize it.

Talk is cheap. Altruism without action is meaningless.

ChiSandy

And the ideal should not be the enemy of the possible...but unfortunately (in both international public health and politics), for now it is.

Anonymous

I didn't call for sacrificing third shots for those in need, altruism, or diverting doses.

I didn't agree with you stating that other countries don't deserve help. Pandemic won't end without it.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/...

ChiSandy

I never said the people of those countries "don't deserve" help. What I said was getting the doses to them, evading the corrupt dictators & warlords who control them, and into the arms of the involuntarily unvaccinated pose a logistical nightmare that may well be as of yet an insurmountable obstacle. And while we argue about and study & implement those measures, doses will continue to spoil and benefit nobody.

Some may call me cynical--I prefer "pragmatic." It's pointless to flail around with no concrete plan as to how (nor the physical resources) to achieve results. Until we get the entire globe to herd immunity (preferably via vaccination), we will never defeat the pandemic. It's a noble goal, but may not be achievable. It sucks. It's cruel. But it's also reality.

ChiSandy

Today The Lancet came out and said that giving first shots to the unvaccinated would be more effective than giving third shots to healthy adults. Well, duh. But how are those first shots going to be given to the vaccine-refusers & COVID deniers--round them up, hold them down, and jab them? And again, how would those first shots get to poor countries where they are so desperately wanted & needed? Are we to draft our healthcare personnel and send them over there--especially in light of our own shortage of nurses, certified assistants, pharmacists, and ICU doctors?

Anonymous

Getting vaccines into people in developing countries seems to have worked for polio and measles. Why not COVID? Rich countries are limiting exports.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01762-w

Anonymous

The vaccine mandates have increased the number of first doses. We need more mandates. No one is getting held down for the vaccine.

ChiSandy

Overnight, the IL QANut woman who hung banners over highway overpasses while yelling died of COVID. While in the ICU she demanded ivermectin--and her followers picketed and made death threats against the hospital that refused to give it to her. Their leader, a notorious local anti-mask anti-vax attorney, is accusing the hospital of "medical murder" for not giving it to her. He's threatening to sue but--like the potential "bounty hunters" under the new Texas abortion law--he and that mob lack standing because they have no cause of action.

Meanwhile, which heart attack patient or trauma victim could have put that ICU bed to better use? In Idaho, hospitals are preparing to have to triage--with willful unvaccinated status a possible disqualifier for COVID patients. And in another state, one county's hospital system has stopped delivering babies--not for a lack of beds but because their anti-mandate nurses are walking off the job rather than get vaccinated or even tested.

wrenn

All health care workers in BC must be vaccinated. It will be a condition of employment. Those currently working who refuse will be put on unpaid leave.

Chowdog

I hope Biden's vaccine "mandate" works. I love travel, but this has been the 2nd year that I sat out. My mother and I have this tradition of an annual mother daughter trip that we started when I was diagnosed with early stage BC. I hate to sit out another year. I was talking to a college friend last night, and he was saying " you can go to Canada now!" I was like "hmm, I really don't think Canadians want us to go. ".

Anonymous

There were anti-mandate protests called for in each province at a hospital today. My hospital was the protest site in QC. News report said there were 10 people. Losers. 🤣

AliceBastable

Maybe the Covid distribution to underserved countries can be coordinated and distributed through Doctors Without Borders.

moth

Doctors Without Borders/MSF is involved in covid care but there is already an intenational agency for the vaccine distribution to underserved countries. It's called COVAX. Canada donated a bunch of vaccines (but we still have spares - I think Canada contracted 10 doses/person)

https://www.who.int/news/item/08-09-2021-joint-cov...

AliceBastable

Thanks, Moth.

Anonymous

The lack of vaccines is the main problem. No vaccines will be distributed to areas without the infrastructure to distribute them. Some countries are isolated enough with few cases that they can wait. Others have more demand than supply. Target those.

exbrnxgrl

I sadly must agree with Sandy’s gloomy outlook on vaccines donated to third world countries. And I am equally pragmatic. Afghanistan was the second country to host the Peace Corps in the early 1960’s. Many of them were involved in large scale vaccination programs especially in the provinces.Smallpox was still common at that time. Over the years the vaccination programs dwindled as local health authorities took over these functions. Manyin the provincial areas saw the vax programs fall apart completely or become major income sources for those administering the programs! Of course those vaccine preventable diseases came roaring back. Recent refugees have had to be quarantined due to a small measles outbreak. My heart hurts for those who yearn for change but Afghan society has to evolve on its own. I left my heart in Kabul.

Anonymous

Ok. So no to Afghanistan. That sucks. How about this place?

https://apnews.com/article/africa-kenya-atlanta-co...

Anonymous

I've had a moment to think about giving up on vaccinating the world to beat the pandemic. Then I remembered that none of us is an infectious disease specialist or a vaccine expert. Dr. Peter Hotez is. He thinks it's important and vital, so I'll go with the expert opinion.

Anonymous

To expand:

We tell anti-vaxxers to listen to experts and cite our sources.

I've cited the pandemic expert on vaccine diplomacy to beat the pandemic.

exbrnxgrl - I applaud your Peace Corp service in Afghanistan, but it doesn't make you an expert in vaccinating all developing countries.