Cancer & Caregiving during COVID-19

Covid is a challenge for everyone, and it is even more challenging when your immunity is compromised. On top of my husband Jordan’s Cancer diagnoses, Covid added an extra layer of stress that we did not need. What it meant for Jordan when he was given a few months to live, was that if he was in the hospital, he would have to be there alone. This caused us both anxiety because Jordan didn’t want to die alone or know that it was a possibility. It also meant that I could not be with Jordan to help him during his chemotherapy appointments. In addition, Jordan would get infections that would cause him so much pain that if he had contracted covid, that could have been it. Having anxiety about Covid was an understatement for him and an extra “gut punch” for us as Jordan would say to me all the time. I remember dropping off Jordan to his chemotherapy appointment during the first covid outbreak, and I had to leave him outside of the Princess Margaret hospital where he had to wait in line before getting to his first appointment without me. I remember the look on his face when I had first dropped him off; the look of pure terror. I remember comparing it to how some parents must feel when they drop their child off on their first day of school, the heartbreaking look that says “don’t leave me”. I remember telling him that I would wait around the corner until he got into the hospital and put his name down for his appointment. He would call me several times through his appointments saying he doesn’t know how he’s going to get through the appointment because he was vomiting and feeling nauseous, or would just call me to tell me that the person is coughing beside him. At this point in his chemotherapy sessions, it would take him about a week and a half to recover and then it was time for another round of chemo (which is once every 2 weeks). He was not having a good time with it; we decided to take a break and I remember the relief on Jordan’s face when he wasn’t going to do the treatment that week. In the beginning of covid Jordan and I had a small bubble, it was just Jordan, me and his home palliative nurses. Jordan needed home nursing because he was just that sick, he had 3 tubes coming out of his stomach that needed to be cleaned and he had constant pain and nausea. Jordan was honest with me and told me his concerns about having the nurses over all the time and contracting covid. Jordan and I learned how to clean his stomach dressing and change bandages, learned how to administer nausea medication, and set up his hydration everyday. This would limit the amount of times the nurses had to come into our home and would decrease our chances of contracting Covid. Jordan had a germ phobia even before his cancer diagnosis, I would reassure him that he was born for this! Any time his anxiety rose about covid, I really tried my best to remind him that we have all the medical equipment at home and a 24 hour palliative care line that we can utilize before having to consider the hospital. There were ALOT of nights and days where we came close to going to the ER and with the help of the medical professionals we did not have to go until the day we had to.

Jordan and I did a great job keeping each other safe, and I’ll be honest, it was a lot more work for me and it came with huge sacrifices to the both of us. We did what we had to do because we wanted to squeeze as much loving time we had left with each other and we did not want to add to Jordan’s suffering. Keeping safe was our biggest priority during this time, and I would like to thank everyone who is doing their part to stay safe, because sometimes it’s not about the things we are missing, but rather the sacrifices we are making in order to help others who are more vulnerable to this virus. Those of you who have been doing your part, helped Jordan and I spend as much time as we did with each other. This is my first dive into posts related to this topic, and some of my first posts ever! My intention is to share my experiences in hopes that they can help you or someone you know who might be going through a similar experience. I’ll be writing more about this particular topic and sharing more about my overall experience. If you have any tips, questions or comments please email or message me and we can go through them together. This blog is meant to be here to share, listen, learn and help each other move forward. Things that helped us cope during Covid: 1. Ask for help. During the beginning of covid we did not not want to go shopping or leave the house, so we asked our friends and family to help us get masks, hand sanitizer, lysol wipes and other equipment. They did it willingly and gladly and left everything on our doorstep, they were grateful that they could assist us in any way. Some people want to help you, they are just waiting for you to ask, so put aside your ego and ask (something I am still working on). 2. Weekly zoom sessions with a small group of friends or family. Jordan and I can lean more introverted so it’s hard for us to set up zoom calls and to be a part of larger group calls. However, once we got off the calls we both said to each other how nice it was to speak with our friends and family. In particular, we had one zoom call where our friends were asking us trivia questions and it was a lot of fun! 3. Take a break from the house. We definitely had cabin fever and that doesn’t help with anxiety. In the beginning of covid, the weather was still really cold, so we would go for long car rides and either talk or listen to podcasts. It was actually one of my favourite times with him, because the change in scenery was really nice and we got to listen to something interesting and then talk about it. We really liked Business Wars, because they include a narrative of conversations from these big CEOs. We (me more than him) liked the Conan O’Brien podcast, it’s light and funny, perfect for this pandemic. When the weather was better we would go for walks and sit outside talking about life and things from our childhood. It’s amazing how many new things you can learn about a person after 9 years. 4. GAMES! I highly recommend this one. We played board games, card games and games on our phones. Jordan was in the hospital for around 2 and a half months so we picked up a few card games. Uno, Gin Rummy, Guess Who, Monopoly Deal and Cribbage were among our favorites and we continued on when we were at home. However, we transitioned from playing with physical cards to playing through our phone apps, we got lazy with shuffling the cards. 5. Get physical, even for 15 minutes. We had to be creative with working out because of covid and Jordan’s physical limitations. I had stopped running outside because our area is a highly populated area and I didn’t want to get close to anyone who could potentially have had covid (that was our choice). I exercise using the Nike training app, they have great quick workouts that do not require a lot of equipment and it’s FREE! I also bought the yoga app called Down Dog that I still use today; I love it, however I do miss hot yoga(one day...). I’ve contemplated getting the Peloton but it’s too expensive for me, maybe boxing day? We were lucky that we have so many stairs in our house, that Jordan was able to get in some physical activity. He would climb stairs for 15 mins a day, sometimes twice a day. Getting at least 15 mins of physical activity in each day really helped us during covid. If you have suggestions on creative workouts, I would love to hear them! 6. Communication. This is the most important one. Communicate with your partner about Covid and what causes anxiety and do not JUDGE your partner’s feelings because we are all warranted to our beliefs and anxiety about Covid. We came up with a plan on how we would approach our lives with making sure that we were both safe. We had to do what was best for us, because we can only control certain scenarios. We came up with a plan for when the nurses came over, we would disinfect everything, make sure they washed their hands, we changed the towels once they left and we made sure that we had hand sanitizer for the nurses. We made the decision to avoid all people that were not quarantining, luckily Jordan’s mom and sister made the choice to self isolate for 14 days to come and see Jordan. Jordan and I were realistic about how to quarantine and we knew the sacrifices it took to keep Jordan safe. 7. Educate yourself smartly about Covid. We stopped watching the constant news about Covid, because it added to our anxiety and we couldn’t do anything about it. We could only do our part to protect ourselves, which meant learning how the virus can spread and how to protect ourselves from the virus. In an environment of Covid news, it is becoming hard not to be angry and upset, that’s why we would turn off the news when it didn’t serve us. Hope you enjoyed this post, let me know what you think!