‘My safeguard, Corona’: Lockdown offers surprising lift for cancer patients

“I’ve begun to develop a strange and admittedly selfish adoration for the virus. This is particularly because in my case – and I’m very much in the minority – COVID-19 has been a protective safeguard.”

Junior Doctor Michele Vanzaghi has been locked inside his house in Franschhoek, Western Cape, for the last two-months like most South Africans, however the 25-year-old’s special circumstances have led him to view the situation with hesitant gratitude. 

Vanzaghi is undergoing chemotherapy to treat testicular cancer, a diagnosis that rocked his world in January 2020.

COVID-19 optimism

Due to the compromised, vulnerable state chemotherapy leaves a patient’s immune system in, it is likely that Vanzaghi would have had to endure a spate of isolation regardless of the extraordinary circumstances that occurred. 

Since the lockdown was implemented in late March 2020, Vanzaghi has found himself enduring that course of isolation alongside the rest of country. 

“With chemotherapy comes great challenges irrespective of a global phenomenon,” he said. “Over the last few weeks I have finally come to the understanding of my own COVID-19 optimism.”

“As much as I am horridly terrified of how critically ‘Rona’ would invade my fragile cells, I am equally grateful for the defences it has brought me from many other tiny little infective particles that pollinate their genetic makeup through us humans.”

“With the major reduction in human movement there is without a doubt a reduction in the probability of me becoming exposed to the multiple other infections that are partners in crime to the Corona Virus, and therefore I am paradoxically protected by the virus itself.”

Not without its challenges

He said that the heightened sanitation in cancer centres have eased his fears. 

“Nurse protocols and ensuring a sterile environment have been ramped up,” he said. “For the people who have cancer, it’s incredibly comforting.” 

He said that the lockdown does not come without its challenges to cancer patients though. 

“When I started I had my whole family around me, but now no one is allowed in while I sit there for four hours getting treatment, that sucks.”

Cancer patients have been given the option to delay their treatment during the lockdown if their cases do not require urgent attention, but Vanzaghi said that he always wanted to power through. 

“I know of two patients who were with me in the beginning who have decided to delay their treatments, it depends on the risk of spread and possible outcomes.”

“But if something was to happen during that delay and you weren’t able to get the treatment that will ultimately save your life, you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself.” 

Silver linings  

Vanzaghi said that as well as the health benefits the lockdown has provided for his own case, he has also felt empowered to battle through his situation alongside millions of other south africans, and feels comforted – selfishly so by his own admission – that he isn’t missing out on anything. 

“Another fascinating positive equivocality of the coronavirus on my life has been the absolute lack of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) that I have felt during my time in mandatory isolation. Chemotherapy regimens attack the immune system and therefore put me at risk of serious infection, so I would have been baking banana bread and hoarding toilet paper irrespective of a novel viruses floating around.”

“However, now I am not alone in these remote times and it is a wonderful blessing to have so many people share a similar eagerness to connect digitally.”

He suggested that everyone follow his lead to the best of their abilities and seek silver linings amidst the chaos and uncertainty.  

“This is probably a strange way to perceive the current ongoings of the world but perhaps it is time that we start to develop an unconventional optimism against this disease. These positivity’s by no measure outweigh or even equate to the absolute brutality of COVID 19 on our entire population, but I strongly believe that amongst all bad we must always seek good.”