BY EMILY SEBIRI
As restrictions begin to be lifted thanks to flattening COVID-19 curve, anxiety is growing among people with pre-existing conditions and immunosuppression about the public’s responsibility to continue practicing social distancing.
If you have two parents with cancer, as I do, the concern is overwhelming.
In December of 2019, my mother was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer and began her treatments in January of 2020.
Less than a month after her first treatment, my father was diagnosed with stage 2 Hodgkin’s lymphoma. His treatment began within a week. As if their diagnoses were not worrisome enough, they came as stories of the global virus started to reverberate in the U.S.
As we began to feel the effects of the pandemic, things in our household changed drastically. After New Jersey implemented social distancing and restricted gatherings, new practices began in our Morristown home:
• Wash hands for 20 seconds at least five times a day.
• If you are eating anything with a skin, wash the skin with soap before cutting or peeling.
• After leaving the house for whatever reason, upon return, we have to strip immediately and shower. The clothes are brought into the laundry room with gloves and cleaned rapidly.
• Anything someone brings us from the grocery store is dropped off and cleaned out- side with Lysol wipes, then left on the counter for a day before anyone touches them.
• Packages and mail are treated separately.
• The mail is brought in with gloves, sprayed with Lysol, and put in a box for a couple of days before anyone touches it with their bare hands.
• Packages are sprayed with Lysol and left outside the garage for a few days before opening. The process then is repeated with the contents.
Tensions are extremely high in our home. As some may know, before chemotherapy treatments, nurses take blood samples from the patient, checking white cell count, red count, platelets, hemoglobin, etc.
Since the drugs in chemotherapy are so strong, blood counts often dip after each treatment, leaving patients more vulnerable to illness.
As the virus still ravages our state, another question comes to light: After restrictions are lifted, are my parents more likely to get sick if they wish to go out in public?
My family is far from alone in dealing with pre-existing health concerns, and that knowledge is comforting. As we navigate this unprecedented time, we are doing what we can to stave off sickness here, and take solace in the collective efforts of our community.
While the nation slowly emerges from lockdown, guidelines on how to resume some activities are coming from the scientists leading the battle against the pandemic
Reopening the country “strongly relies on public health strategies, including increased testing of people for the virus, social distancing, isolation, and keeping track of how someone infected might have infected other people,” states the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Social responsibility is vitally important for effectively reopening states without another mass outbreak.
It is encouraging to know residents of our town are responsibly practicing social distancing so that our healthcare providers can attend to the sick — whatever the illness.
I know masks are not the most stylish and comfortable accessory, with summer here. But I hope people will continue to wear them, even as restrictions ease up.
The lives of my parents, and many others, depend on it.
Morristown resident Emily Sebiri is a student at the County College of Morris. Originally published in Morristown Green.
The article originally appeared in the July 30 – August 5, 2020 print edition of The Two River Times.
