Cancer in the time of COVID-19

There is no such thing as right timing when it comes to cancer. Still, it came to me at the worst possible moment I could imagine: at 23 years old, and in the middle of a global pandemic.

I believed I was a healthy young adult — I was never hospitalized save for that one bout of dengue. I exercised almost daily and ate my vegetables. I neither smoked nor drank.

Nonetheless, a tumor started growing inside my chest, slowly crushing my heart and suffocating my lungs. At its largest, it was the size of a grapefruit. The warning signs came in the form of unexplained fevers, rapid weight loss, and a cough that just would not go away.

At first, I suspected that what I had was COVID-19, but a negative swab test told me otherwise. I consulted a pulmonologist who thought what I had was tuberculosis. Despite being on antibiotics for a month, my coughs persisted. They were not the kind you would want to hear near you during a pandemic.

Getting sick in the middle of a health crisis made seeking treatment challenging. Going to check-ups in person when hospitals are at the forefront of fighting COVID-19 made each trip a potentially dangerous one. All my consultations were done online, because my parents and I feared visiting the hospital.

The final straw that forced us to rush to the emergency room was a resting heart rate that shot up to twice the normal of a healthy adult. Because my symptoms mirrored those caused by the dreaded virus, I had to be examined in an isolated area together with other patients under investigation.

My doctor, clad in a surgical mask and face shield, delivered the news to me that same evening.

“It looks like lymphoma,” he said, revealing the results of my scans. No amount of covering could hide his sorrow as he gave me his initial assessment. It was not every day that he had to hand down a life-shattering medical opinion to someone at the cusp of adulthood.

After three biopsies and two agonizing weeks of waiting, I finally received an official diagnosis: Primary Mediastinal B-Cell Lymphoma.

My world was brought to a screeching halt. I had to take a leave from law school just after a week into my penultimate year. Even though our semester was held online, I did not think I could endure the mental rigor that our classes required. I instead shifted my energies toward researching my illness. I abandoned law books and jurisprudence for medical journals I could barely understand.

Battling a rare and aggressive form of cancer in my 20s made me reflect long and hard about my future. Will I even have a future? I yearned for answers. I began scouring social media for stories of survival of young cancer patients like myself. I spent hours googling my disease, desperate for the study that guaranteed that I would live.

While my peers were planning their vacations for when the pandemic was over, I worried about the long-term effects of the chemicals being injected into my body. While they stayed up late to finish their readings, I lay awake at night on a hospital bed, wondering if I could still finish my degree.

I became dependent on my mom, dad, and younger sister. Even the most basic of tasks, such as climbing up a short flight of stairs or walking to the bathroom, required their assistance. Conventional social expectations dictate that at my age, I should be the one taking care of myself and later on, my parents. As I struggled to accept my condition, I also harbored feelings of guilt.

At a time when I am most in need of a warm embrace, the pandemic physically isolated me from my loved ones. I could not entertain visitors nor go on unnecessary trips outside my house. My fear of the virus escalated by a hundredfold. While it could manifest as mild symptoms for healthy people my age, it could mean the difference between life and death for immunocompromised patients like me.

From the moment I stepped into the ER, each day has been a test of courage. I still find myself holding my breath while waiting for the result of each scan. Even the slightest hint of pain sets off a new round of catastrophic thinking.

But, each day is also an opportunity to hope. My time in isolation has allowed me to explore new hobbies and revisit old ones. In the mornings, I practice meditation. In the afternoons, I read novels that transport me to other worlds. After half a year of treatment, all the symptoms I had prior to being diagnosed have ceased. I can finally walk a whole kilometer with ease.

The world is starting to heal, too. After much delay, we have started rolling out the much-awaited vaccine. Ordinary people have shown individual acts of goodwill as well as collective forms of action. The pandemic has given us a glimpse of humanity’s limitless capacity to demonstrate compassion and generosity in the midst of all the problems we must urgently confront.

And so, I hope to continue my life in a better world. One that is kinder and wiser, in the same way that facing my mortality at a young age made me question my old ways of living.

An end to this pandemic is surely somewhere on our horizon. I just want to be there for it.

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Alexa Grace Fontanilla, 23, is on leave as a law student at the University of the Philippines College of Law. She is from Kiangan, Ifugao.

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