{"id":1172,"date":"2020-04-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-28T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/familyhouseinc.org\/article\/thoughts-on-cancer-covid-life\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T16:40:40","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T23:40:40","slug":"thoughts-on-cancer-covid-life","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/familyhouseinc.org\/tl\/article\/thoughts-on-cancer-covid-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on Cancer &#038; Covid Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<div\n\t\t\t\tclass=\"block--core-freeform\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt;\">My fellow cancer survivors have noted that this forced quarantine feels familiar from our chemo treatments:\u00a0masks, gloves, super careful about germs, living in sweats.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt;\"><br \/>It has occurred to me that our eventual reentry to post-COVID real life will be similar.<\/p>\n<p>With cancer, there is no one moment when you can celebrate the end.\u00a0Even after chemo ends. It can take weeks for your body and mind to feel normal.\u00a0Even after you are done with treatment, there are still five years of follow-up tests, scans and doctor visits. It was hard to know how to and when to celebrate.\u00a0 So I learned to celebrate the little victories:\u00a0 my first cup of coffee or taste of chocolate after chemo (both tasted terrible on chemo), the day I could get back to the swimming pool at the YMCA, my first beer, my hair growing back\u2026all of these were small victories over time that were signposts that I was getting back to \u201cnormal\u201d and I was mindful to celebrate each one of them.<\/span><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt;\">I think our post-COVID life will be similar.\u00a0 There will not be a moment-in-time when \u201cit will be all over.\u201d\u00a0 There will not be a communal celebration, like the 4<sup>th<\/sup> of July.\u00a0 More likely there will be a series of small victories over days and months:\u00a0 returning to work, seeing friends and family in person, coffee in a real coffee shop, going to the mall to buy some pants, a return to the gym, worshipping together in the same space.<\/span><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt;\">I think we better start emotionally and mentally preparing ourselves to recognize, appreciate and celebrate each small step toward normalcy, as they slowly come.\u00a0 Then, one day, we may realize that our \u201cnormal life\u201d has mostly returned.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"parent":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-1172","article","type-article","status-publish","hentry","article-type-news","article-category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyhouseinc.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/1172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyhouseinc.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyhouseinc.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/familyhouseinc.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/1172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1190,"href":"https:\/\/familyhouseinc.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/1172\/revisions\/1190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/familyhouseinc.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}