{"id":26133,"date":"2020-06-30T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-30T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oncolink.org\/blogs\/?p=11980"},"modified":"2024-11-03T15:16:46","modified_gmt":"2024-11-03T15:16:46","slug":"weekend-in-new-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/weekend-in-new-england\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend in New England"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Our group of college friends planned to attend alumni weekend in June. But cancer and COVID changed our plans. Through a series of messages, and phone calls, we heard the news: it is cancer.<\/p>\n

The cancer diagnosis and treatment planning all happened during COVID. We still wanted to celebrate our friendship, so we planned our own reunion. Our visit was scheduled around treatment: two weeks after; one week prior.<\/p>\n

We arrived to Connecticut from Arizona, New York and Pennsylvania.<\/ins><\/p>\n

We made her a cancer toolbox. We brought her posters, decorated the car, brought a binder with pictures and folders for organizing bills and papers, hand sanitizer, masks, Aquaphor, hand lotion, Biotene, dumdum lollipops, large print word search, markers, dried fruit and a fun game called \u201cSpot it.\u201d <\/p>\n

We set up in her garage so we could keep her and her home safe. <\/p>\n

We took pictures of us wearing matching teal masks and t-shirts: Never Give Up Hope\/STRONG.<\/p>\n

We listened to the story of her surgery during COVID 19: walking alone into the hospital, waking up without the strength to text or call to let everyone know she was ok; nurses and CNAs who sat on her bed to offer calm, kind and reassuring support; dressing by 6 am in her clothes on day 2 so she could convince her team that she was ready to go home. <\/p>\n

We shared stories of pets and family; who we see and who we are missing. <\/p>\n

We met friends and coworkers who stopped by the socially distant space in the garage for visits. <\/p>\n

We chased a chipmunk and a mouse out of the garage who wanted to join the group.<\/p>\n

We watched her hair fall out even with a short haircut; mini tumbleweeds blowing around our outside socially distanced space.<\/p>\n

We talked about vein access, medications, diet recommendations, communication, and many current and future side effects.<\/p>\n

We listened, we laughed, and we cried.<\/p>\n

We departed with distance hugs and promises to text and to call. <\/p>\n

We checked back in after a five-hour drive; a three-hour train ride and a six-hour flight. <\/p>\n

We will return. COVID and cancer won\u2019t keep us away.<\/p>\n

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Patti Meehan is the Director of Social Work at Penn Medicine. She enjoys spending time with her family and friends, baking, reading, and the beach. <\/p>\n

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Our group of college friends planned to attend alumni weekend in June. But cancer and COVID changed our plans. Through a series of messages, and phone calls, we heard the news: it is cancer. The cancer diagnosis and treatment planning all happened during COVID. We still wanted to celebrate our friendship, so we planned our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5137],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26133"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45635,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26133\/revisions\/45635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}