Breast Cancer in the Time of COVID-19 Part 5: The Weirdness of it All

NOTE: For the Introduction to this series, with links to Parts 1-4, click HERE.

Now that I've written about how I found out about my breast cancer, how the battle began, the side effects of chemo, teaching online during chemo and COVID-19, my mental and emotional battle, and the support of family and friends, I want to sum it all up with this post about the utter weirdness of it all. It has been the strangest experience of my life, so far. Everything is different than I ever imagined 2020 being, and has been since January. 

It's strange enough to be told you have cancer. It feels surreal. Suddenly everything has changed, and other people are making you appointments for medical imaging, procedures, bloodwork, and chemotherapy. There isn't really any choice in the matter; if you don't have treament, the cancer will grow, and will eventually disfigure and then kill you. Your body goes into an ongoing fight-or-flight mode. At least this is how it was for me, in late January and throughout February into mid-March. Up until that point, I felt like I was handling things pretty well, juggling work and treatment and time with family and friends. But then another major event rolled into the mix.

The COVID-19 virus seemed like something far away back in January, when I was diagnosed. By mid-March, however, it was evident that this was going to affect our lives far more than we had thought. On March 11th it was declared a global pandemic, and as schools headed into Spring Break, we teachers were told that everything would be shutting down for two weeks, or more. Suddenly EVERYTHING was different. 

I knew that with a suppressed immune system I would be having to avoid large crowds and isolating myself somewhat during chemo, but I had no idea that my whole family would have to shelter at home, wearing masks to go do grocery pickup and wiping down the groceries with sanitizing wipes. We had no idea that the pandemic would last over three months, that friends of ours would lose their jobs, that the economy would be so affected, that uncertainty about infection rates, contagiousness, and personal risk would multiply, or that now, in mid-June, we would still not know when it will all be over. The anxiety of having cancer is multiplied exponentially by a health crisis of this magnitude. I'm sure it's the same for anyone with a health condition that makes them more susceptible to a virus, or with children who have underlying health issues. It feels like it affected all the areas of our life that the cancer had not yet touched.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, I could have still been teaching, seeing friends, going out to eat, meeting with church family, and generally living a normal life except for being ultra-cautious about germs and illness. But with the shelter-in-place guidelines, all of that ceased. In a way, it took a lot of the pressure off me. I could teach from home, so if I didn't feel the greatest, I no longer had to make the decision of whether to go out and teach or call a sub. Dealing with all the side effects of chemo has most likely been easier for me because I haven't had to travel around to various locations to teach, and haven't had any pressure to go out and be social. 

Now that our state has begun opening up, it's still weird, mostly because of all the unknowns. How much longer will we have to be concerned about getting COVID-19? A few months? A year? Forever? How bad would the virus really be? Is it possible we have already all had it, or been exposed to it, and just don't know? Should we wear masks in public, or does that make us not breathe enough oxygen? How do we know what to believe that is written online? There are many things that are uncertain. 

When will our lives ever get back to normal? Or will they not? Will we have a new normal, a different way of doing things based on my having had cancer and our avoidance of COVID-19? These are still unkowns. I tend to concentrate more on the knowns: my family, my friends, the things I have to do each day, and the beauty of nature when I reflect on it. 

Fortunately, one thing has not changed during all of this: God. His presence in our lives has been a constant throughout all of this turmoil and trial. I have had peace and strength that can only come from Him. He is not surprised by all these events, and so the weirdness of it all is mitigated by the knowledge that He has a plan, even though we don't know what it is. Thus, I have had to trust Him and put my future in His hands, as I always have since the day I first began to follow Jesus Christ. My future has always been in His hands, even before I was diagnosed with cancer and before COVID-19 swept across the globe. That makes the "weirdness" seem unimportant, compared to eternal things.

And so, I conclude my official series on having cancer in the time of COVID-19, but I will continue to write about my experiences. After two more rounds of chemo I'll be having an MRI, then surgery, and then radiation. Many more blog posts to come...

Breast Cancer in the Time of COVID-19 Part 4: The Support of Family and Friends

In my last post, Part 3 of this series, I mentioned that when I got my diagnosis I was at lunch with three friends, who immediately prayed for me. That was just the beginning of the incredible amount of support I have received from both family and friends. I don't know how anyone goes through a cancer battle alone, without supportive friends and family members. I have been supported, from the very beginning, in a variety of ways by many, many people. Let me tell you about my social media support, my Amazon Wish List, the Meal Train, the random acts of kindness and gifts, the #WeRunForAlice movement, the constant prayer support, and the cards, letters, texts, and messages from friends. 

The first thing I did after my friends prayed with me was to call my husband, Eric. We then told our children that same day, and both my parents and his parents. My next step was to tell my five siblings and Eric' sister. Once we had told family, I began to tell close friends through phone calls and text messages. Finally, I posted on Facebook. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. Immediately the responses flooded in, with words of comfort, support, and prayer. Within a day or two, nearly 400 people had commented, and I saw my prayer warriors enjoin the battle by my side, I created a page just for my cancer journey, and a crowd of people signed up to get the updates that way. A few friends, in particular, have already gone through breast cancer, or are still in treatment for it, and they reached out immediately to give me advice and support. My college friend, Holly, snet me a list right away of things that might help my battle be a little easier, things to help along the way. I can't remember if she suggested this, or somebody else did, (I think Holly did,) but somebody told me I should make a Wish List on Amazon, and let people know about it. Holly kicked things off by sending me a few things that she knew would come in handy.

When somebody is diagnosed with cancer, or if one of their loved ones dies, most of us want to help in some way, but it's quite hard to figure out exactly how to help. In my case, there was really nothing anybody could do at first except pray. I hadn't started chemo yet, and I was just trying to keep teaching and handle all the emotional upheaval that comes with a cancer diagnosis. But I took the time to make a Wish List on Amazon, and my daughter Caroline and I published it on Facebook. What happened next really took my breath away. Within a DAY the Wish List items had all been bought! How incredible is that? We're talking about a fairly big list, with a lot of stuff on it: hats and beanies for when I lost my hair, a heating pad, a video camera to make vlogs, slippers, socks, an ice beanie, stomach settling drops, lotions, blankets, hand sanitizer, sanitizing wipes, shirts to wear during chemo, books about breast cancer, acupressure bands to fight nausea, and much more. Within an incredibly short time, they had all been purchased and sent my way. Several people encouraged me to add some more things to the list, so I did. Again, they were bought up quickly. We spent the next couple of weeks making Unboxing Videos for my YouTube channel, showing all the things I had gotten. It was overwhelming. Everyone provided for my needs, which would have cost our family a LOT of money. This was a tangible way they could help.

Next, my daughter set up a Meal Train site so that we could have people volunteer to provide meals twice a week, and Eric's mom would bring a meal another night a week (with leftovers and soup to provide one or two more meals!)  Once again, my frriends and family offered their love and support. Signups for meals, gifts cards to restaurants, and digital gift cards for apps like GrubHub, Seamless, and UberEats came pouring in. My mother-in-law committed to cooking for us every Thursday while I have my chemo treaments. Friends in the area have brought over delicious home-cooked meals. Other friends have sent gift cards or money, once again providing for our family. I love to cook, and usually cook almost every night for our family. During the semesters, when I'm teaching, I do a crockpot meal once or twice a week and cook the other nights. Sometimes we plan to have leftovers ("bonus food!") one night a week. But now, during chemo, I don't have the energy to do this. The amount of standing involved, and the quick moving around the kitchen from task to task, makes me tired and dizzy. Eric, Mary, and Bobby can all cook various things, and are learning to cook more and more during this time. But it's nice to have three days a week taken care of by other people. In fact, nice is not a powerful enough word. It's a major, monumental help to us.

Along with meals, we have had many people show us acts of kindness, randomly, out of the goodness of their hearts. Hand-made lap quilts, hand-sewn little pillows for the shoulder strap on my seatbelt (they protect my port, and once I have surgery they will be soft on my surgical site,) flowers, candy, other gifts of food, hydration powder, meat (grass-fed beef!), custom-made T-shirts, baskets full of fun goodies, encouraging sayings on home decor, random gifts like the running recovery sandals one dear friend just gave me...all of these cheer me up and show me that people truly care. 

Another group of people that has shown me incredible love and support is the local running community. Our Run Family, as we call them, is a wonderful group of people who always encourage and support one another, no matter what happens. At fun runs and races this means cheering everyone else on, no matter their level of running ability. Fast or slow, walker or runner, it doesn't matter. We are all just happy that everyone showed up and is doing something to be healthy. When our Run Family members move away, they are still part of our family. It's like a relative has moved to another state. We stay in touch as well as we can on social media, and when they come back to town for something, it's a family reunion. One of our Run Family members who lives in Virginia now came up with the idea of using the hashtags #IRunForAlice and #WeRunForAlice so that the runners can tag me on social media, and I can enjoy seeing their runs during this time when I cannot go running or go to races. This has been fantastic for me to see! Just before I started treatment, I ran a 10K race, and a whole bunch of the runners, particular the Stroller Strong young women, showed up decked out in pink, with signs and even paper copies of my face/head, to cheer me on in my last race for a while.

They continue to support me like this. Our friend Brittany carries my paper face with her, so that I can "be" there for things, and sometimes they call me on FaceTime so I can be involved, like when a whole group of runners from Savannah went to Atlanta to watch a lady we know (Dawn Grunnagle) run at the Olympic Marathon trials. There I was, in the group picture, with my run family. Look at the right-hand side of the picture, at the phone in my daughter Mary's hand:

We also have a big ultra-runner/trail runner group here in Savannah, and although I'm not either of those things, Eric loves to run the trails and has done several of the runs and races with the group.  In January, Eric and I volunteered  a race they direct, the Daufuskie They have decided to bless our family with the proceeds of one of their races, the Savannah Stone Stairs of Death. The ultra runners like the Rough Runners and other race director companies like Endurance Race Services and Fleet Feet, often use races to fundraise for people and organizations in our community. In fact, just last year several of our local run family members partnered with ERS to raise funds for us to help pay Mary's medical bills from when she had thyroid cancer. It's incredibly humbling to ask for help, and equally humbling when a group of people suddenly asks if they can help you out like this. The running community takes care of its own.

Finally, I receive a constant stream of support from both family and friends in the forms of phone calls, cards, letters, texts, emails, Facebook posts and messages, and sometimes showing up at our door while on a run or walk. These things help more than anybody can ever know. It helps me to maintain contact with all of my friends, even when I'm isolating myself from most of the world because of my compromised immune system. The threat of COVID-19 heightens the level of caution and the acccompanying anxiety as I contemplate possibly becoming infected with it. I have to be extremely careful, so I am, in effect, cut off from most of my aqcuaintances and friends and most normal activities. When people remember to text or call, it means the world to me. 

As I said at the beginning of this post, I don't know how anybody goes through cancer treatment without a virtual battalion of fighters coming alongside them, fighting the battle with them. God has provided me with an amazing group of friends, both here in Savannah and all over the world, and the most wonderful family ever. How can I not be thankful?

 

Breast Cancer in the time of COVID-19 Series Part 2: Teaching Online (aka The Silver Lining)

When I began my chemo treatments back in February, I was teaching college classes full-time, that is, dual-enrollment classes for high school students. I had four English 102 classes and one Spanish 102 class, all of them meeting three times a week except for one of the English classes, which met twice a week for a longer period of time. That means 14 class sessions a week, and I also had four different office hour times blocked out in between. I should also mention that these classes took place at three different locations across Savannah, which were our Point University campus and then two of the private schools, across town from each other. Some days I taught or had office hours at all three locations. Normally that schedule is fine, and keeps me active and on the go. But I had my worries and doubts about being able to keep it up during chemo. I had several colleagues lined up, ready to substitute if it all became too difficult for me. I had chemo February 20th, and then March 5th, and was able to manage it. 

Here is how it went: Chemo was on a Thursday afternoon. Friday I was still hyper from the steroid they gave me on Thursday, and I could teach all three of my classes that day (all at one location, thank God.) I got home and rested. Then Saturday and Sunday my body would "crash" into nausea and exhaustion. Lots of anti-emetic medication and rest, and some good nights of sleep, and by Monday morning I was ready to teach again. I did some teaching sitting down, and my students were amazingly understanding and nice about it all. About the time of my second chemo treatment on March 5th, my hair started falling out (see Part 1: Side Effects) and so I first cut my hair super-short for a few days, and then shaved my head. My students were right there in the battle with me, suggesting a mohawk style and encouraging me to brave the shave and take control of my hair. My next chemo would be March 19th, during Spring Break.

During that week before Spring Break, we all became aware that the COVID-19 outbreak had become much more than we expected. It became apparent that the epidemic was about to become a pandemic, and that things were about to get really strange. I had long talks with all my students about what online classes might be like, and how we would handle it, if we suddenly had to go online for "a few weeks." We left for Spring Break not really knowing if we would be back together in the classroom again for a while. 

Let me interrupt myself here to say that this past school year I was blessed with some truly incredible students at all three of the locations where I taught. I feel this way every year, and it seems like every year teaching just gets better and better. I love being in a classroom with young people, helping them to learn, grow, develop, improve, and become the young adults that God has called them to be.  Every year, as soon as I have class lists, I begin praying for each student by name so that when first semester begins I just have to put faces to the names. Still, I often have one or two students who are hard to reach, or a class that has a more difficult attitude as a group, and these things can present challenges. This year I didn't have any of that. I thoroughly enjoyed each of my classes, and looked forward to teaching them every day. At one school, a young man decided (after my diagnosis) that I needed "walk-on" music when I entered the room, much like baseball players have as they approach the plate to be at bat. Each day, when I arrived, he had music cued up, and sometimes he and other students danced. The songs were either appropriate to my cancer battle: "Beat It," "I Will Survive," "Don't Worry, About a Thing," and "Stayin' Alive," (which came with two students doing a choreographed Travolta dance,) or they were great 80s music or other songs that he knew I would like. My class on campus made it their mission to cheer me on through my treatments, bringing me gifts of things that could help, and praying for me. At the other school all the students were pulling for me, and several of them brought in presents. One young man rather shyly handed me a bag, and said, "Both of my granddaddies have battled cancer, and these are some things they said were helpful." Inside were two different types of Lifesavers mints and some ginger cookies, both of which have helped greatly through the nausea of chemo. Two of my students revealed to me that their moms had breast cancer last year, and they put me in touch with them for support. All of this is to explain why the idea of not seeing these students in person for a while was sad and disappointing.

Of course, that's exactly what happened. Early in the week during Spring Break, we found out that classes were moving online, at first for "a few weeks." Within a few weeks this was extended to the remainder of the year. During that Spring Break week, however, I and all my colleagues had to quickly figure out how to turn an in-seat course into an online course practically overnight. As the English and Spanish department head, I had to ensure that all the adjunct professors in my department were up and running. They all stepped up to the plate and knocked it out of the park! In one week everyone had class materials uploaded, calendars and checklists updated, and Zoom meetings scheduled. My class meeting times decreased to once a week for the previously twice-a-week class, and twice a week for the previously thrice-a-week classes. But my workload was about to increase as I created videos and PowerPoint presentations, graded papers online (it's far easier with an actual hard copy of the paper and a pen!) and created tests and lessons in the online environment. I emailed all my students to fill them in on how things would work, and we officially moved to an online format.

The students continued to be amazing. These precious young people signed in to Zoom from their isolation, sheltering in place at home. They could not hang out with their friends at school anymore. They couldn't play their sports or participate in any other extra-curricular activities any more. They had no prom, no special events at the end of the year. Even though the ending of their Senior year (for most of them) was basically ruined, they came through academically. They did their work, participated in class, spoke up, took tests online, adjusted to the new format, and in general excelled in an academic environment that was completely new to them. I became more impressed with them than ever. Some students who were always shy in class "spoke up" eloquently in the online Discussion Board format. Some students who were more gregarious in the classroom became more introspective and better listeners. Yes, a few of them disconnected somewhat, which was understandable given the bizarre circumstances. None of us had ever experienced anything like this before. I tried to make sure to communicate regularly and reach out to any of them who seemed to be struggling. The majority of them proved how adaptable and malleable they truly are. 

The low point, I think for all of us, was when one of my precious students lost her daddy to COVID-19. We were all praying for him, praying he would pull through and be healed, but sadly he passed away. This was sobering and depressing for all of the students at that school who were classmates with his daughter. She was such a trooper through it all. What can any of us say to help her grief? I was at a loss for words. I plan to stay in touch with her for as long as she'll let me from now on. 

As for us professors, we came through it stronger and with more abilities in our "toolbox," as some like to say, than we had before. I've talked with my adjuncts, and they all agree that we came out of the semester knowing a lot more about ourselves, our classes, and the educational and pedagogical techniques and modalities that we can use to educate and encourage our students. 

The silver lining for me in all of this, in case it hasn't crossed your mind, is that I was able to teach ALL of my classes from home, even on days when I didn't feel so good from chemo. Sitting in my dining room, I opened up a Zoom meeting and watched as my students all joined the class remotely. They still cheered me on my journey. I showed them my bald head, and advised them that they should be happy I put on makeup! We joked, laughed, talked, lectured, discussed, questioned, answered, sang, and generally did all the things we normally did in person, but now we did it all together but separately. The class of 2020 is seared indelibly in my mind. I can't wait to see what God has in store for them as they move on to college and beyond.