Profile For Annie

If all of you don't mind, I'd like to interject with the POV of someone that's not on either side of the aisle, but of someone that's been affected by debates just like this one nonetheless. Apologies if this is longwinded, but it's been a h** of a year and a half and this is as short as I can make it without losing context and, hopefully, the emotional impact.

My mother has cancer. A very curable kind of cancer, thankfully. She's been battling it since February of this year. Despite the cancer being curable, we got the news after three rounds of chemo that her cancer was growing through it and they needed to reevaluate her to find a better treatment, which is quite terrifying.

Enter Covid.

Back in July, the VA assigned her caregivers to help her out, as she was hospitalized for about two months and lost nearly all of her mobility, (she had a severe, life threatening bout of UTI/sepsis, which is the only reason we found out about the cancer). Three days out of every week they visited her. Two weeks in, she got a call saying one of her caregivers who had been unvaccinated and unmasked ( which was against the agencies policy), had the delta variant and that she should get tested. She tested positive. She was vaccinated. My father was not. My father, another Vet, has COPD. There was no way to separate them even if I could convince my dad to do so for his own safety, so needless to say, he got it as well.

I lost contact with them for three days, their landline went down in an unfortunately timed way, and I called both of their cell phones so much I literally listened as their batteries ran out. So I did the only thing I could do and called for a wellness check. The officers said they talked to my mother who said they were both fine but I didn't buy it, so the next day when I had the ability to do so I drove over there to check myself.

They have a dead bolt on their door so I couldn't get inside, and Dad wouldn't come to the door. Dad never does that. Ever. I wound up beating on the side of their trailer trying to get either of them to answer me when I finally heard my mom's weak voice. I asked her what was happening and where dad was and her answer was " I don't know!" Honestly I think those words will stick for me for a while because I could hear in her voice that she was suddenly worried too, like it hadn't occurred to her something bad was happening. So I made my way to the back side of their trailer and spent a solid minute slamming my fist into the side of the wall to get some sort of response out of my dad.

Finally his hand reached up and tapped the window. That image is definitely burnt into my brain. I won't lie, I don't have a very good relationship with my parents. But, to see these people absolutely helpless as they were in that moment, something I've never in my life seen before..., I don't really know how to describe the mixed bag of emotions I felt, still don't. Fear, disgust, anger, sickness. The amount of unadulterated anger I still feel.

This person walked into an elderly couples house (67-70) specifically to care for a CANCER PATIENT, with no regard for them. They were just a paycheck to her. You're suppose to trust nurses. They're suppose to protect you. To take care of you when you can't take care of yourself.

Had to call the fire department to get the door open, had to spend 20 minutes convincing my dad to go to the hospital, they both went eventually and were put on supplemental O2, both of them are too stubborn/pain in the a**es to die from this s*** and will survive Covid, after being hospitalized for about a month.

But remember my mother has cancer? Throughout this 2-3 month ordeal she was unable to receive chemo, for a cancer that's rapidly growing. I was on the phone with her a few days ago and she told me she's made her peace that she's not going to survive this, and unfortunately I had to agree with her. I've tried my damnedest to keep her positive but what can I say at this point? Cancer is cancer and she's got other comorbidities to her name that wasn't helping her get better and then to go months without treatment on top of it all...

The point of all of this, and I cannot stress this enough, is this is not an agenda. This is not some political BS used to force people to do things they don't want to do. These are PEOPLE, people that deserve to live, to have a fighting chance against a horrible disease that everyone hates.

My question to all of you is this, have any of you ever faced that kind of fear? Seen someone you love so sick they couldn't even crawl to the bathroom, not six feet away from them? Have you ever feared them dying?

We all live on this earth together, we share it. What h*** happened to people giving a s*** about other people? Why is this not a thing that we can all agree on? Why can we not raise each other up, protect each other, like one big family? Wouldn't that be nice?

If there is even a remote, slim chance that masks, or vaccines, or social distancing can help reduce the chance or stop other people from getting sick or sicker, I'm going to do it and whatever else I can to protect others because I'm a good person and I care about other people.

/end

*I apologize if the dates/months don't add up, like I said at the beginning of this post, it's been a long year and I honestly can't remember exact dates at this point

** Also completely off topic, thank you for the wonderful preparation test, it's incredibly in-depth and helpful