Alone with cancer: How treatment, support changed for some patients during the pandemic

"No one fights alone." 

That was Jennifer Cartlidge's mantra all last year when the 47-year-old was diagnosed and being treated for stage 2 breast cancer.

She wore that mantra on a custom bracelet each time she had a chemotherapy treatment. Her two best friends made bracelets with the mantra to wear each time Cartlidge had a treatment and texted photos to her.

Cancer treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic can be a lonely place, but Cartlidge found ways to bring in her friends and family, and found connection in virtual support groups.

"The pandemic has really isolated survivors," says Jeannine O'Deens, the executive director of Susan G. Komen in Austin, Central Texas and East Texas. "They've had to be in an oncologist's office and hear they had breast cancer without their husband there. It's not the same as having somebody side by side."

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Fighting that alone feeling

When Cartlidge officially received her diagnosis in the middle of March 2020, Texas had just shut down for COVID-19. Hospitals were preventing visitors except for caregivers of children or adults with conditions like dementia. Treatment centers and doctor's offices also limited who could come through their doors, mostly restricting access to patients only.

"I've felt a little bit alone in this whole process," Cartlidge says. "Normally, you would have people by your side through everything. There were appointments where I had to go through it alone." 

Doctors' appointments were also different, with check-ins with her doctor and nurses by telehealth and online chats. "I didn't meet the oncologist face-to-face for several months," she says. 

Her friends or family members had to drop her off at the entrance to a hospital or treatment center while she walked in alone for in-person procedures.

She says in normal times, she would have been the patient who invited friends and turned chemo into a party.

During the pandemic, she did each treatment sitting in an infusion chair alone. Social distancing safety measures meant that she and the other patients getting chemotherapy were kept isolated from one another.

Her only interaction was with the nursing staff, who became like an extended family. "It's really about the staff that's there," she says.

When her chemo port became infected in July 2020 during a COVID-19 surge, she was alone in the hospital for three days. 

During treatment she was also immune compromised, which meant that she had to isolate in her house. People would drop off things or she'd talk to them in a distanced way.

As people got vaccinated and we learned more about COVID-19, some of the early restrictions eased. Dr. Caroline Coombs-Skiles of Texas Oncology says hospitals are now letting a family member come with a patient before a surgery, and Texas Oncology now allows one family member or friend to come with a patient during an appointment.

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When those visitors were restricted, Coombs-Skiles would follow up with a phone call to whichever family member a patient wanted her to call to share information about the diagnosis and the upcoming surgery. 

Telemedicine, though, has opened up options because even more family members can attend appointments with the patient as long as the patient agrees. Coombs-Skiles says "if anything good can come of COVID, telemedicine is one of them." 

She says it's revolutionized the way she can share results and the frequency at which patients can connect with her to ask questions, as well as the way she can connect them to available resources, including nurse navigators and support groups. 

"It's helpful to know they are not alone," Coombs-Skiles says. "There are resources they can tap into."

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Building her personal army

Cartlidge found ways to build her network of supporters and live that "No one fights alone" mantra. 

Friends Amy Harvey and Amy Evans kept texting photos of them wearing their bracelets on chemo days. 

The nurses at Baylor Scott & White Cancer Center in Round Rock made an exception and snuck in her husband, Mike Wiesman, so he could be with her to ring the bell on her final chemo treatment.

Her mother-in-law, Susan Davis, told her, "when you lose your hair, I'm going to shave my hair with you." She made good on that promise. First she shaved Cartlidge's hair, then her own.

"It's those little things that get you choked up," Cartlidge says.

Davis also came to stay with Cartlidge for two months after her double mastectomy last October. "She would take me on walks to the edge of the driveway and back," Cartlidge says, because that's what Cartlidge had the energy to do.

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Tapping into cancer support groups

As great as her friends and family were, Cartlidge needed the support of women who had been there before her.

She joined the Susan G. Komen virtual support group survivor calls. There she learned tips such as suck on a lemon drop to get the metallic taste of chemo out of your mouth, and put ice packs on your hands and feet to avoid neuropathy.

"So much of what you have to do when you go through chemo just sucks," Cartlidge says. "The support group calls were huge for me. It did give me a point of connection."

Before the pandemic, these groups would get together in person every few weeks. "You could get a physical hug," Cartlidge says. Now it's a virtual one.

Through those calls, she heard from women who had been through cancer two and three times. "It was super reassuring and comforting," she says. "I can get through this. It's not a death sentence."

All of Susan G. Komen's support continues to be online, but O'Deens says, "there are some silver linings. It's expanding our reach to women and supporters who may not have had the bandwidth to get there." 

Even after the pandemic is over, O'Deens says she thinks the nonprofit will continue to offer virtual support groups because people who don't live close by can still participate and feel connected.

Celebrating an end to chemo

Last September, when Susan G. Komen was holding a virtual walk in Austin, Cartlidge remembered her  sorority doing the walk while she was in college at the University of Texas. 

She called Harvey and Evans and asked if this would be something they would do with her. Just like when they showed up at her doorstep 30 minutes after she told them about her diagnosis, they showed up and helped plan a celebration for Cartlidge in their local park. They enlisted the help of a philanthropy group at Cedar Park High School that was looking for a project during the pandemic. Twenty people walked with Cartlidge while others held up signs in support, blew bubbles and celebrated her with a Champagne toast. 

Her husband named their team "Double Bubbles" after a Cheech and Chong reference to breasts. It had to be "Double Bubbles," she says, "after everything he did to support me through it. So much of it he couldn't be there for." 

Team Double Bubbles will be back for this year's Susan G. Komen More than Pink Walk, which will be both in-person and virtual. 

"No one fights alone," Cartlidge says. " I really did come to understand I'm not really alone. There are resources, people who are supporting you, even if they can't physically be there."

Get your cancer screenings

"One of the downsides to (the pandemic) is people stopped doing their screenings," says Dr. Caroline Coombs-Skiles of Texas Oncology. That includes mammograms, colonoscopies and annual well check doctor visits.

Screening centers are open with COVID-19 safety measures.

Doctors worry that cancers that could have been caught in 2020 are now being caught a year later and potentially at a more advanced stage. 

"That's going to affect breast cancer statistics for at least the next decade," Coombs-Skiles says.

More cancer resources

Breast Cancer Resource Center, a local support and resource network, bcrc.org

Texas Oncology resource page, texasoncology.com/cancer-centers/austin-area/cancer-resources

Regarding Cancer, a local support and resource netowrk, regardingcancer.org

American Cancer Society, cancer.org

Carebox Program, which helps people with cancer with needed supplies, careboxprogram.org

Susan G. Komen More than Pink Walk

9 a.m. Oct. 24 virtually and at the Long Center, 701 W. Riverside Drive

Sign up for the walk or find resources at komen.org/community/texas/austin-and-central-and-east-texas/

Other Susan G. Komen fundraising programs

Baby A's will give a portion of the proceeds from items on its pink menu to the nonprofit throughout October.

Camp Gladiator is selling a Support the Cause shirt, and 50% of proceeds will be donated.

The Grove Wine Bar & Kitchen is donating 10% of sales on Oct. 18. 

Austin Eastciders will give a portion of sales on Oct. 24. 

Kendra Scott breast cancer initiatives

20% of sales of the Shop for Good Breast Cancer Awareness collection at kendrascott.com goes to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. For every piece purchased in that collection, Kendra Scott donates a special rose quartz jewelry piece with a handwritten note to a woman touched by cancer

Kendra Scott will host a Kendra Gives Back event at The Domain from 5 to 7 p.m. Oct. 20. 20% of sales will go to Susan G. Komen. At kendrascott.com shoppers also can use the code GIVEBACK-ATICF at checkout Oct. 20-21.