“When will your treatment be finished?” I still get this question a lot from friends and family.

For the past few years, the answer has not changed much. My guess is that people forget my answer so they keep asking. I understand the curiosity.

Photo by L. Laguna

Here is the answer:

Due to the current nature of my breast cancer, the treatment may never be completely finished. There are situations where someone with my diagnosis shows so much improvement that they are taken off of treatment, but that tends to be the exception more than the rule.

There are multiple reasons specific to my healthcare experience that explain why and how I ended up under these circumstances. Some of those reasons are evident in my past blog posts. A broader explanation is that there was a poor public health response to the pandemic, and patients, who required essential medical care, encountered additional barriers to treatment. That is an understatement.

This should have already been obvious to anyone who experienced the peaks of the pandemic, but I am stating that here in case it was not clear enough.

There are people who chose to engage in non-essential activities during the height of the pandemic, and the legacy of those choices continue to be felt by the most vulnerable segments of society.

Maybe you were fortunate to get back to normal, but that option was not afforded to everyone.

For some people, their pre-pandemic normal was not even good, so the pandemic only made circumstances worse.

For those who decided to party and travel for fun while others were enduring hell or dying, you might regret your decisions, but regret does not lead to resurrection.