Thinking about good luck, bad luck, and risks

Flowers from the garden

Here's a story that hit a nerve.

Finding, and Curing, Cancers May Be Another Casualty of Coronavirus, begins, "Our leukemia team just cared for a young woman who had gone to a hospital 50 miles from ours because she wasn’t feeling well. She had delayed seeing a doctor for weeks, fearing that emergency rooms and urgent care clinics were akin to Covid hot zones. She didn’t want to catch the coronavirus if she didn’t already have it.

Some of the symptoms she had — fever, cough, fatigue — are also symptoms of having leukemia. They can also be confused with a coronavirus infection. But because of the pandemic, instead of having blood counts drawn, which are the first clue to detecting underlying leukemia, the well-intended emergency room staff tested her for Covid-19 and admitted her to a “Covid rule-out” unit within their hospital."

From the headline, or the "hed," as we say in the news biz, you can see where this is going. She did have leukemia, and by the time they caught it, it was too late, and she died.

For obvious reasons, this story resonated with me. First of course, I was so sad to hear she didn't make it. Second, I knew that the same thing could have happened to me. I didn't even have fever and cough, just extreme fatigue after that Saint Patrick's Road Race. If it had happened now, I wouldn't have gone to the doctor, and my leukemia very likely would have progressed like this young woman's did.

I was lucky.

I have been super careful to stay out of the virus' way, and I don't want to try my luck by doing anything that I shouldn't do, going forward. But it is not that easy to know exactly what to do. Last week I knew I wasn't going to stay out of stores forever. So I went briefly into Atkins. It was fine.
But am I going to play doubles? It is outside, so that is good, but it means opening up my circle. I miss my friends and want to do it. In an email, Melissa said the risk is low but not nothing. I am going to hold off for now. I know I get enough exercise, but that's not what it's about.

Plant salon

For the fall issue of Chicago Health Magazine, I'm writing a story about cancer patients and COVID-19 as society reopens. I asked one doctor which patients are most at risk. He said the list includes stem cell transplant recipients, whose cells have been manipulated in a crazy way.

Obviously those in the first year "out" are at highest risk. I wanted to know, where is the cutoff? (Subtext: What about ME?) The doctor couldn't say. I assume the risk is lower the further away you are. Eleven years isn't bad, but it is something.

Ways of trying not to dwell on this too much today included cutting flowers from the garden, weeding, and giving my inside plants a trim. I figured that with people going back to salons, it was a good day for a plant salon. My friend Bubbe watched.