Items

• 0020-06-03

  Cancer during COVID

  During the covid 19 pandemic I had a rather unique and tragic experience with one of the world’s best and most prestigious health care facilities. My grandmother who was seventy four was diagnosed with acute cancer on Christmas Eve last year. As she was told there was a high chance of survival because she caught it very early we all were obviously devastated and heart broken. But we continued on and supported her as a family, the whole way through her treatment. However I can remember going back to school after that christmas break and we followed COVID from the very beginning in my world events class. But what was so ironic is that me and everyone in the class had seen what this did to China and not one of us could have ever imagined it turning into having to wear a face mask everywhere you go and no sports for months. Yet it invaded the U.S. like a wood trojan horse once did with the city of Troy, as COVID put the world into an instant frenzy shutting everything down left and right. I recall me and many of my friends begging our parents to go to the grocery store everytime something ran out even if it was as simple as a stick of butter just so we could get out of the house for a few minutes. However as COVID spread my grandmother’s cancer actually was able to be neutralized and went into remission around may of this year. As I look back upon the last time I saw her in person it was definitely an odd goodbye as I stood about ten feet from her and had a normal conversation with her and my grandfather, each word was half understood as it mumbled through our face masks. Then just like that they were on their way back to Johns Hopkins in very high spirits as the doctors had told us that she needed a final surgery and she would hopefully beat it completely. However due to COVID this surgery had to wait until a time when non emergency surgeries could be done, so it was scheduled for late june. But when someone who has cancer gets a simple illness like pneumonia, their immune system cannot fight it. She was in the hospital for about a week and fluid buildup around her heart caused her to lose her life on june 3. However my final memory of her is me and my family standing on the street outside the hospital, me in my cap and gown and each of us holding encouraging signs. We each spoke to her through the phone as she looked down upon us from the tenth floor and waved to us. Luckily my grandfather was admitted to stay with her that night and the next morning she took her last breath. Yet COVID continued to strike as the funeral could only have 25 people in the room at a time.