Covid and Healthcare: It's Personal - Sandy Plummer

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​Sandy Plummer has been a writer all her working life, but mostly a legal writer. She is quite new to memoir and the idea of writing about herself but is beginning to see some value in it, for herself, for her family and perhaps for a wider community, now and later.
 
Wednesday 18 August 2021 — Day 1 of Level 4 lockdown
When I was diagnosed with two cancers, in November and December 2020, I said that 2021 would be my lockdown year. I was thinking then that although other New Zealanders might be beginning to travel overseas again, my plans to travel, and celebrate a significant birthday, would definitely be postponed, as I had a full year of treatment lying ahead. I expected that 2021 would bring greater personal challenges for me than 2020.

As 2020 drew to a close it seemed that, as a country, we had pretty much dodged the virus. We felt lucky that mostly we had stayed safe and well and retained our freedoms, though confined within our own borders. Hopefully we were done with lockdowns and the first half of 2021 would see us all vaccinated. Throughout 2020 I’d been very concerned for family and friends in the UK and elsewhere overseas. They had all, thankfully, escaped Covid-19, but it had been a very tough year with the virus rampaging, case numbers and deaths out of control, hospitals overwhelmed.

We started the year in a good position, still Covid-19 free, but by 14 February 2021 Auckland was put into a snap level three lockdown. That same month the first group of 100 nurses were vaccinated but it transpired that vaccinating us all was going to take many months. I was vaccinated in June. My blood cancer and the chemotherapy I have been on decrease my immunity, so avoiding all infections is critical, not just Covid; any ill friend or a crowd of strangers are unwelcome.

From 1 March New Zealand was Covid-19 free but by early August the government had begun to say it would be ‘when’ not ‘if’ we have a Delta variant case in the community; eventually and inevitably our border controls would be breached. On Tuesday 17 August I visited the physiotherapist as part of my surgery rehab. She was talking about readying her business for another lockdown. Then I rushed off to meet my daughter, she had the day off after working Saturday in the hospital. I had bought tickets for a movie which I thought would be enforced, but enjoyable, rest time, for her and me, and it was. We sat in the lazyboy seats and ate our ice creams; there is something especially decadent about going to the movies on a weekday and in working hours. On leaving the theatre, discussing The Justice of Bunny King but also checking our phones, we learned a case had been found in the community and a lockdown was likely imminent, the Prime Minister would make an announcement at 6.30pm. We discussed going to the supermarket but had a cup of tea and a chat instead. I stopped for milk, fruit and vegetables on the way home as my fridge was pretty bare. There were around a dozen people filling our small local greengrocer when I arrived at about 5.30pm; we weren’t well-distanced. I wondered if shopping was a mistake, but one case and in Devonport, 25km away, I shouldn’t worry. I wanted bananas, there were none, I wanted broccoli, there was none. I took just one bottle of milk as there weren’t many left. The staff were restocking shelves where they could and reassuring everyone that they would be open tomorrow with more stock.

The Prime Minister’s announcement came. We learned we were to be in full (level 4) lockdown, just like March 2020, from midnight. The impact was nothing like the shock and disbelief of her first lockdown announcement in March 2020 but still it was sudden and would take some adjusting to.

On Wednesday morning I learned that a nurse at Auckland Hospital was one of the handful of cases discovered so far and that the hospital was ‘locking down’. I thought my hospital appointment would be postponed. I also thought I wouldn’t mind a break in nine months to date of constant tests, treatments and multiple medical and related appointments. I didn’t rush to shower and dress. At the same time I was concerned about my daughter who works across several wards at Auckland hospital.
By 10.00am I’d received a call to say my appointment was on, I was to see the haematologist and collect from the hospital pharmacy my week’s supply of growth factor injections preparatory to my stem cell collection. The collection would proceed next week as planned. What a relief, that whilst everyone but essential workers stayed home, my treatment would continue. But did I really want to attend a hospital in lockdown?

Postscript 6/9/21
Over 24-26 August and in level 4, the three-day stem cell collection took place and was successful. My cells will be frozen and returned to me, later this year, following powerful chemotherapy, and when, subject to bed and nurse availability, I rise to the top of the waiting list.

My daughter and partner completed fourteen days of isolation, entirely confined to their flat, having visited, briefly, while masked, a ‘location of interest’ shortly after the movie on 17 August.

My brother-in-law, in the UK, was laid low in bed with Covid the week of my stem cell collection but is now recovering, slowly. He and my sister had been double-vaccinated and were incredibly careful, but the incidence of Covid-19 in the UK remains high.

I was back at the hospital again today for my weekly chemotherapy injection. I didn’t want to go. Patients and medical staff were nervous already, understandably; and now an in-patient presenting with unusual symptoms that were not initially flagged had since tested Covid positive at Middlemore Hospital yesterday.

Hospitals are essential but not entirely safe places to be at this time. Although I have severely compromised immunity, I continue to interact weekly, if not daily, with the healthcare community, with staff and patients, despite Delta still being amongst us. I am pressured to carry on by the unspoken opinion of the professionals caring for me that the alternative, to pause or delay treatment, to stand still, is riskier.

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