An Open Letter To: .@KirkCameron

Yesterday, I sat in the parking lot of the James Cancer Center in Columbus, OH and was reduced to an inferno of rage and sadness. I screamed in my car and scared a passerby. I cried, but tried not to so when my husband got back in my eyes were only mildly red.

You see, he had to go into his first post-op colon cancer visit to his liver doctor without me. You read that right, liver doctor. His cancer had traveled to his liver. I like to say "traveled" instead of the common "spread". It makes it sound less threatening to me.

His amazing team used robotics on the 10th to remove three liver tumors. Then they took out the tumor in his colon that was the size of your fist and had closed off the colon. There they removed 24 lymph nodes and yesterday, on the phone with my husband while he sat in a doctor's

office without me in physical form with only my voice through the phone, he heard that 2 of those lymph nodes also had cancer. He heard how he needs to start chemo as soon as possible (mind you it's Christmas, so yay! what a present). And through all of this in "normal times",

I would have been holding his hand, squeezing it when hard things were said out loud so he realized he is not in this alone. I was reduced to a ghost-like voice in that examining room asking things like: Can you tell how aggressive the cancer is through the pathology report?

Can you tell me whether your finding the two extra tumors in the liver during surgery means the cancer is more dangerous because it traveled further? What are the affects of chemo on his heart because the veins in his legs aren't viable to use for bypass? Did genomic testing

occur? Can targeted therapy be used? Can you print out the pathology report because our "local oncologist" will need it to determine the chemical compounding he will use? I asked all of these questions to Husband's doctor as a disembodied voice coming from an iPhone.

Why, you might ask? COVID protocols. Something you might not know: the two types of people most in danger of this horrible virus are the elderly and those who are immunocompromised. You know who is immunocompromised? I bet you have guessed it: CANCER PATIENTS. So that whole

building which houses the team of surgical wizards who saved my Husband's life also is the place where hundreds, if not thousands, of cancer patients travel EVERY DAY to hear results, get updates, hear the hard news, hear the joyous news. And those hundreds, if not thousands,

of patients yesterday - all but a small percentage of them heard that news alone. The elderly cancer patients who are hard of hearing, like my neighbor's Dad, and who are not tech savvy, might not have heard "everything" and their caregivers heard none of it. By reducing their

access to that information, in that very moment, their "best chances" take a knock. Yes, they can go on patient portals and ask there virtually. But, I can say from experience gained in our very scenario: my being at the first, and only, visit I was allowed to go through (first

consultation) they were planning on another mapping of treatment until I spoke up and told them they were missing various tests and then handed them my four inch binder of Husband's medical records and the research I had put into his cancer diagnosis - because of my being RIGHT

THERE with him, I was able to guarantee that Husband had a dual surgery, that robotics were used for the liver section, that it was all done at once before chemo started, while he was at his TYPE1 Diabetic strongest. Had I not been in that room for the one, and only, appointment

I will ever go to in person with him, surgeries would have been done separately and the process would have been months longer and maybe the outcome not as positive as it has been so far... Going forward we won't be as lucky because I am not allowed in with him. What might I miss?

THAT thought terrifies me. Enrages me. Keeps me up at night. Has me writing an open letter to @KirkCameron who will probably never read it but maybe one of his cult will and they will think about my Husband, the cancer patient, when making life choices.

On the day of Husband's surgery I was allowed in a surgical wait room with, I believe, 133 other families. There were those of us who paced, those who napped, those who went to get the best grilled cheese they ever had in their lives. I watched all of this, all day. Husband was

the next to last out of the surgical room that day and he and two other patients were the last to be in recovery, awaiting a room to be taken to. It was midnight before I was able to lay eyes on him. I was allowed to visit him the next day and then was not allowed back in the

hospital for the ENTIRE stay after. The day he was released, I sat in a que of cars all occupied by cancer patients' loved ones and waited in a "drive thru" style fashion for Husband to be brought to the door for pick up. He was wearing socks and no shoes because I had his shoes

post-op and forgot to take them back the next day for my one visit. I was not allowed up during his discharge so he was reduced to coming out in his stocking feet. I laughed through my tears at the sight of him, hobbling into the car, in his socks and sleeper pants.

Yes, they removed all of the cancer they could find. Yes, that allows his chances of living beyond five years increase slightly. Yes, we are optimistic. But it is hard to combat the burden of the mental aspect of it. To sit ALONE for these meetings, even having someone in the car

waiting, the EMOTIONAL TOLL OF GOING "ALONE". Who would ever want to put someone through that? Who would be so reckless, so careless, so worried about extending their fifteen minutes of fame that they would join a force of idiots who throw caution to the wind to, what, be funny?

So this is where my open letter to you comes in Kirk. Yesterday, after a long two weeks of being terrified of Husband's regularly timed winter dry cough, after sitting in a car in a police parking lot outside of a cancer center I was barred from entering due to COVID, after the

quiet two hour drive home where I was filled with rage, so much rage I could taste it. At life. At circumstances. At cancer. At all the fucking anti-maskers out there who are so fucking selfish. So fucking self absorbed that they do not care about the ramifications for OTHERS

that THEIR actions cause.... After all of that - I sat at my desk as my husband walked out to his shop. Both of us trying to find some mindless task that would allow a respite of a few moments. For him, it is looking at the airplane he is building. For me, it was opening Twitter.

An Open Letter To: .@KirkCameron

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