Are you washing your hands every hour? Are you practicing social distancing? Or are you thinking all this coronavirus hype is crazy and the media is blowing this out of proportion?
As a breast cancer survivor this “wait and see and hope and pray” scenario is triggering all kinds of emotions for me. I feel like I am back in treatment three years ago facing all the uncertainties again. Will the cancer have spread? What will I be like after treatment is over? What will become of me?
Fast forward to today and it’s: How will this disease affect the well-being of my family? How long will our life be disrupted? What will life be like when this is over? What will be the world’s “new normal” and the impact on the future for our kids?”
All that being said, because I am a SURVIVOR, I know this is a moment in time that is going to be difficult and we just have to stay strong and get through it as best as we can. I have learned how little in this life I can control, and in some ways that lesson is a blessing.
Unfortunately, that does not help the women who are currently in treatment for breast cancer. Women who are financially disadvantaged. Many, who have had no choice but to fight all their life for what they need; a roof over their head, food on the table, stability for their children. The fact that they get a breast cancer diagnosis is just another obstacle in the rough, mountainous landscape of their life. These women are rooted in struggle, and their voices have not been heard. These are the women I help through my Connecticut nonprofit, Infinite Strength. We provide financial grants to underserved/underinsured breast cancer patients to help pay their rent, mortgage, utilities and grocery bills. We give women support so they can put their efforts into fighting this disease. Most of them are single mothers facing their battles alone and already below the poverty level:
A single mother of five with Metastatic Breast Cancer who was living out of her car trying to keep her kids safe. She wins a small victory and gets assistance for a little apartment where her children have beds while she sleeps on the floor. Her condition worsens, and she then struggles to ensure her kids will be taken care of when she passes. This is where I walk into their lives. Wanting to do something that will genuinely make them happy, I bring a photographer friend with me and we take pictures of their family. We give the children a memory of their mother they can have forever. But it is not enough. I can’t take away her pain. I cannot give the children more time with their mom. Her three youngest are my own daughters’ ages and it breaks my heart in pieces.
The single 38 year old mom who is battling breast cancer and can no longer work, but because her illness has gone on for so long she has exhausted all financial assistance, and the apartment complex she lives in wants to evict her, along with her 16 year old son; put them out on the street in one of the most dangerous areas of the city. I can help them stay in their apartment for a little while longer, but what then? Who will help her next month?
And the sweet 57 year old woman, who is diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer; what about her? She does not understand a breast cancer diagnosis, let alone what Triple Negative is about. She doesn't know how to navigate the system for financial assistance. She does not know how to stand up and say “I need help!” She can’t make sense of all the appointments and the paperwork and the tests. I make calls, I go to an appointment with her and speak to her doctors, and sit with her during her first infusion. I try to ensure she will get the best possible care. But in the end, is it enough?
Now, breast cancer patients are facing yet another obstacle. One none of us have ever seen. Coronavirus. Not only do these women have to deal with the fear of getting this disease when their immune system is compromised, but they have the additional worry of the economy plummeting and the potential of not being able to find any financial assistance from nonprofits like mine. If people are out of work, if people are not getting paid, if the economy continues to spiral out of control, nonprofits like mine will not be able to raise funds during this critical time.
I am being honest when I say I know very little about dealing with most of the life challenges these women have faced, but breast cancer is now the thread that binds us together. Age, ethnicity, race, income, geography... none of those matter. They have now joined this impossibly large family of mine which none of us asked to be a part of, but now cling to.
I founded Infinite Strength so that I could provide women what I wish someone had offered me when I was undergoing treatment: Understanding. I speak the words I wish someone had spoken to me: “This is going to be a long, tough road and when treatment is over you will wonder who you are, but you do not have to figure it out alone.”
What will happen to these women if nonprofits like mine can’t continue to raise money in this economy? Who will take their hand and walk with them up that mountain? These are among some of the questions which keep me up at night, creep into my brain as I do my daily tasks, and sometimes make me cry when all media frenzy becomes too much.
So please, stay home! Practice social distancing and stay safe. For your loved ones. For your community. For cancer patients.
We all have a role to play in bringing this crisis to an end swiftly.
