Coronavirus
Comments
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Dear MWCrackinWall,
Welcome to the BCO community. Thank you for sharing your story and offering a good tip. We hope that you will get connected and stay active here on the discussion boards. There is a good deal of support and information to be had here. Let us know if there is any help or direction we can lend as you navigate your way around.
The Mods
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Welcome, MWCrackinthewall! We're glad you've joined us here, and hope you find this community to be a supportive place. We know how much the virus has changed life for so many of you, and we know how scary this time is when you're undergoing treatment. Good call on the wipes - can't be too careful right now!
The Mods
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For the past couple of weeks, my DH & I have hosted or attended "garden parties" every 5 or 6 days. Limited to 3 couples or 3 individuals. Garden gate open, chairs only touched by occupants, couples sit together, but others at least 8ft apart, bring your own everything (drink, snack, napkin), no one allowed in the house. Basically a spread out conversation pit. Now my DH says he thinks we should stop. We are different. He is life of the party when around people, but can sit for days reading, talking on the phone, watching tv, playing games on his phone. I love to be with friends, but hate to talk on phone longer than 10 minutes, haven't been able to concentrate to read a book since MBC diagnosis, bored w/ tv after 6 weeks inside, on top of fatigue from treatment. We are still discussiing. How are you handling social non-contact? Do you see or speak in person to anyone?
I understand my friends may not want me around for a couple of weeks after I visit cancer center in the city next week and will give them that choice.
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nopink, the garden parties sound like a great idea. Why does your dh want to stop? Could you continue even if he doesn’t want to? Are there additional restrictions that could be put in place to make him feel more comfortable about them to convince him to continue with them?
Our next door neighbors talk to us over the fence. It isn’t anything planned, just when we happen to be outside at the same time, maybe once a week. We facetime our ds and his girlfriend once a week. Dh still works so he sees people every day and practices all the guidelines to stay as safe as he knows how. I casually keep in touch with what the extended family is up to by checking social media. Nothing regimented.
Are you interested in doing any crafts, building puzzles, doing some baking or sprucing up a room in your house or tending to the yard? I can understand the inability to concentrate since your mbc diagnosis. I lost interest in a lot of things that first year after diagnosis, too. I needed to find new things to interest me.
The pandemic makes it hard for you to seek out much variety. Try seeing it as a challenge to find an activity or two that you like. If you try one thing and don’t like it, move on and try something else.
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divine, I think he's just freaked about seeing anyone, although we aren't in a hot spot and our friends are very careful too. Mainly I think he's concerned about me, although he is in the high risk age group too. I have tried to stay busy cleaning out some, sewing a few masks for friends, cooking some and keeping the kitchen clean.. Seems I lose interest and the projects lie about unfinished. Weather has turned nice, but I find it hard to get motivated to go outside. but thanks for your comments and I'll try to do better. We're supposed to garden party tomorrow and he hasn't mentioned cancelling.
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Had another discussion w/DH about our "garden parties" and he's agreed that is one of the least dangerous things we could do. And that my sanity is worth it. Yea! Now off to sew some masks for far off family members who are just using bandannas. Going to cancer center Wed, just for fluvestrant & xgeva shots. So quick in/out.
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Nopink2019 - I think that your Garden Parties are a great idea. Yes, outdoor activities with proper distancing should be good. I had a couple of people who just wanted to watch me work my horses a couple of weeks ago just so they could get out of their house and escape thinking about the virus and the quarantine for a little while. I have some very close friends in other parts of the country and I think I might have to do a Zoom meeting or Skype or something so that we can spend time together and visit...maybe a "virtual happy hour".
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Sounds like a plan. I’m meeting a gf tonight at a dog park. We can stay 6’ apart, we all get out of the house for a while. Dogs get stir crazy too!
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There are some potentially good news about one of the drugs being tested for the virus
Pepcid AC, the heart burn medicine, was suggested by retrospective analyses of the Wuhan hospital records. They noted that the poorer farmers were having significantly fewer deaths than the rich farmers (like around half) and when they dug deeper to try to figure out why, they noticed the poor farmers often took Pepsid AC for heartburn, whereas the richer farmers tended to take Prilosec.
Separately, a drug screen was reported in PubMed looking for chemical inhibitors of the viral protease enzyme, which is essential for Coronavirus replication. Among the top inhibitors was the active ingredient of Pepcid AC. So, two independent lines of evidence suggesting the Pepcid component might be a useful anti-viral.
NYC is testing this in clinical trial. Unfortunately about everybody they wanted to test was also already taking hydroxychloroquine as part of a clinical trial, so they just added on another arm to that trial to analyze the effect of having hydroxychloroquine plus the Pepcid chemical. As one of the investigators told Science magazine, "Is it good science to do it this way? No, but it is real world" You deal as you can.
There are some rumors it is working. The director of the Cold Spring Harbor Cancer Laboratory in Long Island, an MD in his mid-40s who specializes in pancreatic cancer, said his sister, also mid-40s, who works as a hospital director in NYC, went into the hospital recently with Covid suffering from fever, aches, and lips blue from lack of oxygen, etc, and she got the Pepcid drug as an IV infusion right away. She recovered quickly, was even much better the next day. She said several others from her hospital had the same response to the drug. So this is just anecdotal so far, but obviously it would be such a boost if we could repurpose a cheap generic drug to help fight this, until there is a vaccine.
The trial uses 9x the amount of the compound that is in the OTC drug, however the original observation that farmers taking regular Pepcid AC for heartburn showed a clear survival advantage indicates that just the normal dose is effective, and if one did not wait to be ill and in the hospital with a high viral burden it could be very effective to take a tablet at the normal dose at the first signs of symptoms. Inhibit the virus before you get sick enough to need to go to hospital. Well anyway, we will know soon enough if it works because preliminary trial results are expected within a month. It would be so wonderful to get back to a normal life...
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nopink, that's wonderful your husband is sensitive to your needs for some social interaction. The garden party does sound like a “least dangerous" activity and it's also true that maintaining sanity is very important during these times. I'm happy for you.
For myself, I mourn the absence of some things. Spring is a glorious time to visit botanical gardens and greenhouses. People say, oh, this will pass and life goes on. Sure, but for me, how many more springs to inhale, absorb the colorful awakening of flower blossoms and trees, the majesty of it all? Places I want to visit are closed so I do not think it can be this year.
I also miss shopping excursions. Every couple months, I'd drive an hour to the mall and spend the day looking at clothes, shoes, earrings, (men's ties—ha,ha, it's something I love to do—), home decor. It's not even about buying as much as it is browsing and seeing what's out there, Because of horrible side effects of meds I was on last year plus surgery on a broken foot bone, it's been nine months or more since I got to enjoy this activity.
On the other hand! Dh and I have settled into a nice routine and we're getting along so well. It's a quieter time but it's working for us. That part I love.
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O Magazine would like to interview a woman who developed (and recovered from) COVID-19 while also dealing with breast cancer. If you know of anyone, please PM the Mods. Thanks!
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