Customer having chemo/you have cooties

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

There were a duo of what looked like Hispanic ladies wearing masks at my library on Thursday - I was a bit startled, as I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen people wearing masks out in public in the south, and for some reason, it surprised me that they weren’t Asian.

But it didn’t occur to me to be bothered by it, or to worry about them more than I do my other patrons. I was mildly curious, but that was about it.

If they had asked me to use hand sanitizer, I think I would have asked if they minded me actually *washing *my hands instead tho, or using a heavy mist of rubbing alcohol and letting it dry - that gel is just super-disgusting to me.

I do think it would be sensible for someone with a compromised system to have things of their own with them - silverware, pens/pencils, napkins, etc. That way they don’t have to rely on the goodness of strangers for their health so much.

22

I wanted to quote this for emphasis. It’s not just that they might get sick and have a bad day if you infect them with something. People on chemo can die from infections that a person with a healthy immune system would be able to fight off easily.
The medications used to treat cancer are better than they used to be and not everyone on chemo is always sick and miserable from it, but I still would definitely cut a lot of slack to anyone who is on chemo and asks for special consideration.

23

My sister went through chemo. I live on a farm. I didn’t go any where near her the entire time because I didn’t want to risk anything carried in a small bit of mud on my shoe or something like horse boogers on my clothes.

24

My mother went through chemo two years ago (she’s relapsed and is going through chemo again), she almost died from a simple cold. I am not exaggerating, the doctor did tell us to say our goodbyes. In the end she pulled through, but it required a long hospitalization.

I can’t imagine anyone so selfish that they would be irritated at a chemo patient asking for a small consideration.

25

Ignorance being fought!

I know exactly zilch about chemotherapy. Everything being said above about chemo zapping the immune system is news to me. Now, if somebody should ask me to be double-triple-sure to sterilize my hands and other things like that, I’ll remember this thread.

26

Chemo works, in part, by killing off rapidly dividing cells, like tumor cells are. Unfortunately, bone marrow stem cells, which produce our red blood cells and immune cells, are rapidly dividing cell types as well. So those cells are collateral damage and people become anemic and suffer from a damaged immune system. Skin cells are rapidly dividing too, which is why chemo patients often get severe mouth and skin sores as a side effect.

It’s a toss up for many types of chemo, can we kill the cancer before we kill the person.

27

As others have pointed out:

  1. She can die from cooties.

  2. You won’t know that unless she tells you.

  3. You have cooties.

  4. You can take a few simple steps that may help her avoid getting your cooties.

  5. So why would you get irritated?

28

My uncle was using hand sanitizer like mad before he died – in fact at one point he ran out and I had to go home and get him some more. It’s just one of those things you don’t think of until it actually hits you, or someone close to you.

29

I had daily chemo and radiation for months on end a couple of years ago. I live alone. Had to drive myself to treatment everyday. I chose to be there at Eight AM as early as I could. Had to run all my own errands and walk the dog. I would even go down to the local Pizza Place and sip icewater and spit it into a styro cup. And I’m thankful for it. Had I taken any of the offers for live-in care, I don’t think I’d have responded to treatment as well as I did. And I’d still have the live-in care. That kind of help doesn’t go away.

30

Wow. I had no idea. When my sister had chemo, I visited with her and she never mentioned any special precautions at all…and her house is in no way a clean zone…I had to scrub her kitchen and bathroom before I could cook or shower, and it was always like that, even when she was well. Plus she was teaching high school at the time and while she had reduced her time at school to two days a week for the duration, she was still exposed to all those kids. I guess there is a wide range of chemo experiences that we just don’t realize when we only see one at close range.

31

My mom had chemo for the relatively easy to kill anal cancer, I warned her going in to expect to feel like death and to keep her strength up as possible. She said her doctor told her it was a breeze and called me up after her first treatment to tell me told you so, she felt like dancing.

Three weeks later she called barely able to speak between crying tears, she needed three pints of blood because her bone marrow was essentially not functioning.

Chemo essentially is the process of trying to kill part of you by poison, but just enough to kill that part and not kill the rest of you.

32

I didn’t find it irritating at all. I think people who don’t understand how their germs could harm a chemo patient might. I agree with Lasciel that she increases her odds of avoiding an infection by having her own hand sanitizer and whatnot.
Plus, ignorance fought! I’m glad.

33

Any kind of immunosuppressive drug regimen, be it from chemo or after an organ transplant, sucks.

I have a friend who has had a kidney and pancreas transplant and the anti-rejection drugs leave her wide open to all kinds of nastiness. Her purse looks like Mary Poppins’ carpet bag with the hand sanitizer, antibacterial soap and wipes, medication bottles for the stuff she has to take when she’s out for the day, and Lord knows what else. She has gotten some irritated comments from people who assume that, because she’s not obviously sick, she must have OCD or extreme germ-phobia and that they’re doing her a favor by not indulging in her behavior. BTW, she’s far from a drama queen about this; she typically does it as discreetly as she can. And, truthfully, it helps that a lot of people use hand sanitizer so she doesn’t necessarily stand out; the comments tend to come from people who have seen her do it frequently over a relatively short period.

That said, what probably stands out about the woman on chemo is that she asked the cashier to do it and didn’t do it herself. She probably came across as demanding when she didn’t necessarily mean to be. And who knows, maybe she did. But this really is a petty hill for the OP to die on.

34

In all fairness, I don’t think the OP himself (herself?) was annoyed.

For all we know the customer just ran out, forgot the right bag, or is new to this and figuring it all out.

35

Agreed. If you know that you’re more likely to be susceptible to infection, you might want to assume that nobody can accommodate you and bring your own materials. However, I’d be fine with sanitizing my hands for this reason, but would prefer to wash them.

Agreed. After years of learning that sanitizer just makes for a grosser situation (dried gel that has dead germs and dirt smeared on your hands just isn’t fun), I would rather wash my hands to accommodate the request.

36

It’s not my hill, for God’s sake. I just thought it was an interesting situation.

37

Just want to throw in my own recent tale in regards to sanitation and chemo.

As many of you probably know, my little boy has leukemia. He has been doing really good lately, but still has another 2.5 years of monthly lumbar punctures and chemo to go through. That being the case, while he isn’t always neutropenic (meaning he has no immune system), his numbers are often very weak.

His seventh birthday passed on March 4th this month. We were going to celebrate his birthday a little early, on the 2nd, as that was my usual weekend with him. On the 1st, he came into contact at his school with a kid who had visited a cousin who had norovirus - none of us knew it at the time. Sure enough, Saturday morning, he was sick as sick could be, throwing up all over the place, and in general miserable. A few other members in my family caught it as well before we knew what was going on (for a kid on chemo, vomitting is a pretty regular occurance, so we didn’t realize it was a bug until we’d been exposed already), and while it only lasted a little more than 24 hrs for all of us, he was sick for a week and a half.

Then, two weeks later, and only two days after getting over the norovirus, he got sick again - this time, from a person who had gotten over a cold, but had apparently sneezed and not sanitized their hands after, before shaking his hand when he was out with his mom. We spent another week of him being miserable and very ill (two nights in the ER) from that cold.

We were finally able to celebrate his birthday this weekend (my ex was nice enough to let us have him on her normal weekend so we could do so). We took him to a movie - and there, he wore a mask the whole time, save for when he was eating or drinking, and we brought our own straw and drinking vessel for him (our theater manager knows us and knows his condition and was kind enough to let us do so). We brought lysol wipes and sanitized the arms of his chair, and kept hand sanitizer with us to use any time we interacted with anything.

Excessive? It may seem like it…but when you’ve spent the better part of a month with a kid severely ill and in an emergency room multiple times a week, you learn that a bit of precaution is absolutely worth it. Would hand sanitizer have helped in both cases? In the first one, maybe, maybe not. I’d say yes, as the kid who had come in contact wasn’t ill, so the likely form of transmission was germs on his hands that transferred to Riley. And in the second case, I’d say yes as well. We’ve all learned that we just have to stay vigilant, no matter how well he seems to be - because it just takes one bit of exposure to make him a very miserable little guy.

38

Empathy is a very good thing.

I feel I should point out that 1) there are many different cancer drugs and regimens, and many do not depress the immune system to the point that one is at significant risk from everyday “germs”, 2) arguably, it is mostly up to the patient to minimize such risks in routine transactions by wearing a mask/gloves, 3) we can all help minimize risks of serious disease transmission to the immunosuppressed by keeping ourselves and our families immunized according to recommended schedules.

39

As I’m sure others have observed, she may not have that luxury.

40

I have done chemo twice, and I have been seriously lucky to be able to not work and have my husband or roomie run all the outside errands so I could avoid random germs.

I have a buddy from a previous job who is on supresants for a kidney transplant, and unfortunately it has taken the form of absolutely thousands of little spots that seem to randomly turn into tumors that need to be removed. It has gotten so bad that he is now retired on permanent disability at the age of 55. He just got out of the hospital for 4 months of fighting off what ended up as pneumonia.

[@Woeg - you are lucky, my sister was a guinea pig for various treatments for leukemia back in the early 60s. It sounds like your son is a survivor though alas my sister was not.]