HOW TO QUARANTINE LIKE A PRO? DO IT FOR OTHERS

The question isn’t “To quarantine, or not to quarantine.”

Instead, the question is, “How do people make it work?”

If you’ve got it figured out, great. You’re ahead of the curve. If not, here’s how it worked during cancer quarantine.

After I heard cancer news, I flipped the switch from sadness and self-pity, to, “Now what?” as fast as I could.

That’s the big question to ask now. What else is there to do? Is moping acceptable?

Moping is acceptable if you don’t mind being a mope. However, if you’re not a mope, it’s harder.

I felt like I had a green light to mope, or not mope; I saw a green light to do whatever it took to come out the other end resembling who I thought I was before it started.

By the time most of us reach a certain age, life changing things have happened. By paying attention, we notice these life changing things.

Coronavirus will be life changing for some, life ending for others, and a big inconvenience to those who don’t log changes unless it hits them in the face.

Ever been hit in the face?

I sparred with a boxer once and tried to do my best Muhammad Ali. I leaned back when he swung a big punch, just not far enough. The headache lasted a couple of days.

I sparred with a basketball player using old boxing gloves. His had the palm ripped out, so when he swung big, his bare-knuckled fist came out and drilled me right in the face.

Getting punched in the face is no party, but it helped when I stopped a man from beating up a woman . . . with my face.

Believe me when I say the first reaction to change so big it feels like a punch in the face: You blink. A lot.

Cancer quarantine felt a lot like covid-19 quarantine. I didn’t feel bad at all during the initial phase of chemo and radiation. I stuck to my goals of avoiding secondary infections wherever they might lurk, avoiding an opioid habit, and killing the hell out of cancer.

The back half of treatment felt like a brush with death, except instead of a brush, death carried a blow torch. The radiation to my neck was so severe I got a sunburn.

The worse I felt, the more I worried about getting tagged by some creeper virus or bacteria. Everyone and everything was a threat, just like now, but instead of social distance on the outside, I stayed in.

If anyone wanted to stop by, I had masks and hand sanitizer at the door. For them.

After I returned to the normal activities of daily life, I started giving advice.

A woman at the gym asked me talk to her husband. He got the cancer call, so I said, “The first thing to remember is how to answer the big question of How Are You? You’ll need to lie to your wife and say you feel fine.”

“But why would I do that?” the man asked.

“Good question. Let’s talk to your wife, too. I just told your husband his big job is lying to you; your big job is pretending to believe him. Do it well enough and you’ll be solid.”

Quarantine Effects

People are all wired differently. For example:

Most reviewed studies reported negative psychological effects including post-traumatic stress symptoms, confusion, and anger. Stressors included longer quarantine duration, infection fears, frustration, boredom, inadequate supplies, inadequate information, financial loss, and stigma. 

That paragraph comes from The Lancet, and is an example of quarantine failure. It happens. When you feel things slipping away, when you lose your grip, ask for help.

Sure, you might feel some stigma for asking, but do it. See, even while I was a cancer patient, which I thought made me the center of attention, I was wrong.

If the patient buckles under the stress, the dominoes start falling. I needed to buck the hell up to avoid being surrounded by downers with mope faces wondering what happened to the person they used to know.

Early on, I realized I had to lead the cancer parade, or get scooped up after it passed.

During an appointment with a hospital social worker I let my anxieties run free. Actually, my wife encouraged me to ask questions, explain how I REALLY felt, and let the social worker do their job.

So, I hammed it up, whined and complained, asked out loud what I’d been asking silently: “Why me? Why, why, why,” in my best Nancy Kerrigan imitation.

I said I had the worst of the worst in the worst place it could ever be. I got all worked up, and it felt pretty good.

I took a breath and the social worker added, “Actually, it could be worse,” which didn’t sound hopeful, but I asked how that could be possible.

She said, “Sometimes the cancer in your neck presents in other places with other patients.”

She had me. “Where would that be?” I asked.

“Sometimes it presents in the anus.”

“So my takeaway here is to be glad I don’t have ass cancer?” I asked.

“That could be one takeaway.”

“How about that. You know, I’m feeling a whole lot better knowing that.”

“That’s what we’re here for.”

The Quarantine Takeaway

I don’t traffic in ‘what about’ and ‘would you rather.’

If I did, I’d say what you’re feeling now, if you’ve got the isolation jumps, is a normal reaction. Remind yourself you are in quarantine to prevent the coronavirus spread. Unless you’ve been tested, you might be a carrier, which means you could be a spreader.

The unknown is a bitch on its best day, and it confuses and disorients the more it weighs on us.

Think of someone to be strong for, living or dead. Whether you have contact with them or not, make them proud of you.

Who are you strong for? Who is being strong for you?