Cancer in the coronavirus crisis: my weekly diary
Heather Chaney, 49, is a stay-at-home mom from Bellevue, Washington. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer in mid-February 2020, just weeks before the coronavirus outbreak overwhelmed the state. Follow her treatment journey in her weekly diary column
We got the news we’d awaited about my cancer but healing will take time
The results of my follow-up scans are in but the treatment feels like it has replaced me with a low-res version of myself
My cancer treatment is over for now, so where is my sense of relief?
Sure, I’m happy to be finished, but it’s clear that just as my entire cancer journey was shaped around coronavirus, so too will my recovery be
The pain of my cancer treatment was excruciating … but I felt I had power
My brachytherapy session marked the halfway point of my treatment but I wasn’t prepared for the pain of waking up midway
If my coronavirus test comes back positive, it will stop my cancer treatment
The stage 2 cervical cancer has been a disease I experience close up, but coronavirus felt farther away – like an invisible threat
Cancer treatment during the pandemic is bringing back traumatic memories
I am about to go through an invasive therapy for my cervical cancer. The process has brought me closer to my seven-year-old self
Chemotherapy is weakening my immune system during the coronavirus pandemic
All I can do at the moment is move forward with my treatment for stage two cervical cancer and hope
Chemotherapy during a pandemic is exhausting. And yet I can't stay asleep
The routine for my cancer treatment was starting to feel almost relaxing. I shouldn’t have got ahead of myself
The anxiety of physical distancing while undergoing chemotherapy
Sometimes I forget what it was like when I could just go out for a drink with my husband or go shopping with my kids
I started chemotherapy in the middle of a pandemic
I want to keep my family safe from a deadly virus. But to survive cancer I have to go to a hospital daily
'What a terrible time to have cancer': falling ill during the coronavirus crisis
In the first of her weekly columns, Heather Chaney describes preparing for a course of chemo and radiotherapy that will compromise her immune system
