re: Imagine being a cancer patient

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Cancer patients are not being put on the back burner, sir.

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All over the country, patients are finding their nonemergency surgical appointments canceled as hospitals prepare for a spike in coronavirus cases. Surgeries for early-stage cancer, joint replacements, epilepsy, and cataracts are all getting pushed back

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Alison Krupnick was mentally preparing herself for the surgery set for early in the coming week that could eliminate her early-stage cervical cancer. But on Friday, she got word from the hospital: Because of the crush of coronavirus patients, her surgery was being called off.

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San Francisco Bay Area surgeon Mary Cardoza is juggling multiple breast cancer patients. But she can't operate on any of them. Breast cancer surgery, it turns out, is considered an elective procedure — now put on hold as hospitals focus on COVID-19 cases.

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Since making its initial recommendation, the American College of Surgeons has been issuing increasingly urgent bulletins, with its March 24 missive detailing triage guidelines for cancer, cardiac and pediatric surgeries. It now finds itself in the grim position of recommending that removal of cancerous colon polyps be deferred for three months and breast cancer surgery be delayed if the disease responds to hormone therapy. In hospitals with heavy COVID-19 caseloads — those with no spare ventilators or ICU capacity — it urges that all surgical procedures be avoided unless the patient is likely to die within the next few hours or days.

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The guidelines specify that treatment shouldn't be delayed if it would harm the patient. Heartbreaking individual stories are emerging by the day. A 33-year-old man whose long-awaited liver transplant was canceled told NBC News it was a "death sentence." After a 7-year-old boy's urgently needed kidney transplant surgery was put on hold, his mother told the network's Washington, D.C., affiliate it was a "nightmare" scenario, "but it's not even the worst one you could find."

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Lichtenfeld said some radiation and chemotherapy treatments have been postponed, along with some surgeries.

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Last week, Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, MACP, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, said in a report on the organization’s website that the nation is “headed for a time when there will be significant disruptions in the care of patients with cancer.”

Lichtenfeld added that for people with cancer, things won’t be normalized for quite some time.

“For some it may be as straightforward as a delay in having elective surgery. For others it may be delaying preventive care or adjuvant chemotherapy that’s meant to keep cancer from returning,” he said.

“These circumstances will take months to resolve, and even then, we will continue to have changes in the way cancer patients receive their treatment,” he added

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few weeks before the coronavirus hit the Eastern Seaboard—a lifetime ago, in other words—my partner’s cousin noticed a lump in her breast. Her mother had survived breast cancer, so the next few steps were no surprise: consultation, biopsy, and, when the biopsy confirmed cancer, rearrangement of her calendar in order to schedule a lumpectomy. A chef by training, she took all these preliminary steps with calm efficiency, as though assembling a mise en place: all that remained was to actually have the surgery. It was to happen on a Monday at my hospital, in Boston, with an exacting breast surgeon I’d scrubbed with as an intern. Then the virus hit, her surgery was deemed “elective,” and we got a terse update from her husband via text message: “Surgery delayed a few months. Estrogen therapy.”

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“I need you to feel free to say you would prefer not to do any of the cases today,” a senior surgeon wrote to me, out of the blue, in late March. “I completely respect your choice.” Assisting him had never been optional before; suddenly, every operation seemed to carry overwhelming risk. But it soon became moot. After the Stanford report came out, every case in our hospital was cancelled for the rest of the week. The board became a lonely purple background.

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AP) - Some cancer surgeries are being delayed, many stent procedures for clogged arteries have been pushed back and infertility specialists were asked to postpone helping patients get pregnant. Doctors in virtually every field are scrambling to alter care as the new coronavirus spreads.

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Luciano Orsini's operation, set for April 1 at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, was pushed to April 29. He lost one kidney to cancer last year and was eager for this surgery to remove tumors on the sole kidney he has left.

"I don't want it to get any larger," Orsini said of his cancer, which his doctor says it's growing so slowly that he should be safe waiting. He understands but said: "The anxiety of just have this inside of you and not knowing and wanting to get it out" is hard.

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The cancer society on Tuesday urged people to forgo mammograms, colonoscopies and other routine cancer screenings until the outbreak eases.

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etc., etc, etc., etc. What you're saying is not accurate. Cancer patients have been put on the back burner for the last two months, along with heart patients, transplant patients, etc. The response to this virus is not just crippling the economy, the healthcare repercussions will be felt for years.