Cynthia Duckworth's experience with chemotherapy treatments during the COVID-19 crisis
My pre-surgery chemotherapy treatments began at Northwestern’s Delnor Cancer Center in Geneva on February 13, 2020. Immune-deficient at age sixty-five, I was cloistered within three weeks. Supportive visits became video chats as social distancing and ‘stay at home’ orders were implemented. Conversations centered on how to navigate chat rooms, get groceries and fill our time until they inevitably shifted to me.
Early on, I was often asked, “How does it feel to be bald,”
“Not as bad as you’d think,” I’d say. “I now have a fashionable array of caps.”
“And without a cap, how does it look?”
Much as I wish my bald profile resembled Tilda Swinton, in Dr. Strange, the sad truth was Uncle Fester from the Adams family, was closer to the truth.
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A dear friend who regularly brought homemade chicken broth to our door also made my husband, Dave, and I top notch cloth masks since we were mandated to wear a face-covering due to COVID-19. His grocery store get-up had him looking like a Ninja Turtle, remember them? When he arrived at the busy checkout lanes, everyone six feet apart, a checker pulled him aside to a special, no-waiting register. He thinks it happened because his was the only basket sporting a flower bouquet.
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We were encouraged to limit trips to the grocery store by stockpiling dried foods and canned goods. At the same time, one common side effect of chemotherapy is metal mouth. If you’re not familiar, its that blend of magnesium, zinc, iron, cobalt…, that invades your teeth, tongue and gums, robbing you the pleasure of having eaten dry toast and applesauce. Add to that waking at night and being forced to choose which primal need is more desperate, misting your mouth with Biotene spray or a knee-knocking trot to the toilet.
While sweets briefly masked the rank taste, additional methods were essential to beat the metal mouth dragon. I avoided canned foods and eating meat- especially if it had been cooked in or on anything metal. I dined with plastic cutlery, rinsed with mouthwash every hour.
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What do I miss during this pandemic?
Coffee in the morning
In-person gatherings
Feeling well-rested
Tasting the flavor of food
Walking outside before dusk – my cocktail of chemo drugs is light sensitive, so I break out in skin sores if outside in daylight, with or without long sleeves and sunscreen.
Having more than 1/16” hair on my head - but then I’d have to worry about how to get it cut!