At-risk cancer patient pleads with community to heed coronavirus warnings

Nurses lined a hallway of the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center in Pittsburgh’s Shadyside neighborhood, clapping and cheering as Sherry Williams reached out with a blue-gloved hand to ring a bell, celebrating the completion of her 16th and final chemotherapy treatment Wednesday.

Williams, 50, of Mt. Lebanon, laughed and smiled, looking back at the camera as her fiance filmed the triumphant moment.

“It feels great,” Williams said before acknowledging the fear that hung over the happy scene. “If I can make it three weeks without getting infected, my immune system will be a lot stronger. This first week will be the most vulnerable.”

Williams, who has multiple sclerosis, was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer on April 1, 2019. She faced a series of challenges the past year as she fought the disease. Williams contracted an e-coli infection and lost one breast implant following a double mastectomy. She then came down with a severe staph infection a month later, losing the second implant. Those illnesses were followed by shingles.

Now, she’s taking every precaution to protect herself from a global pandemic, the novel coronavirus covid-19, that puts people like her who have compromised immune systems at extreme risk.

“Everyone is scared,” Williams said, describing the scene as she received her treatment Wednesday. “Especially the patients. Everyone was asking how worried they should be, sitting very far apart. I took Clorox wipes with me and wiped any chair or door that I had to touch. Nurses are scared, too. But they were still so nice and calming.”

Courtesy of Sherry Williams

Sherry Williams, 50, of Mt. Lebanon takes a selfie with the N99 mask she wore to protect herself from exposure to covid-19 during her final chemotherapy treatment at the Hillman Cancer Center of UPMC Shadyside on Wednesday.

Williams said she did not have to sign in and pens were removed from check-in areas. The waiting room was emptier than usual, with some patients waiting in their cars until their appointments, she said.

Cancer patients’ immune systems are generally weakened by cancer and further stressed by its treatments.

That includes chemotherapy, which involves using drugs that travel throughout the body to kill cancer cells.

This puts those patients at especially high risk for any infection, including covid-19.

“We’re headed for a time when there will be significant disruptions in the care of patients with cancer,” Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, said in a statement posted to the organization’s website. “For some it may be as straightforward as a delay in having elective surgery. For others it may be delaying preventive care or adjuvant chemotherapy that’s meant to keep cancer from returning.”

The best way to prevent illness is to avoid exposure, and cancer patients should call their doctor if they experience any symptoms of covid-19, according to recommendations from the American Cancer Society.

Williams, a former emergency medical technician, wears an N99 air filter mask when she has to leave the house for the grocery store or for chemotherapy. As residents across Allegheny County and the state reluctantly practice social distancing, Williams barely leaves her bedroom. She’s urging the community to take those restrictions seriously in order to slow the spread of covid-19 and to protect vulnerable people like herself.

“I don’t think anything would make me feel OK right now,” she said. “I think there’s just so much information, and so much that they don’t know. It’s scary to even be outside of my house. Even outside of my room, because I have teenagers.”

Allegheny County reported six new covid-19 cases Thursday, bringing the local total to 18. Westmoreland County reported its first two cases.

Those cases were among the 52 new cases reported statewide by the Pennsylvania Department of Health Thursday, bringing the statewide total to 185. That’s an increase of 39% over the previous day.

When asked how the health system would accommodate ongoing medical treatments like chemotherapy, UPMC officials provided the same statement released earlier this week to announce that elective surgeries would not be postponed due to the covid-19 outbreak.

UPMC’s decision comes despite calls from county, state and federal health experts to cut back on nonemergency procedures in order to start preparing for a potential influx of patients infected with covid-19.

Thursday evening, Gov. Tom Wolf repeated his call for hospitals to stop performing elective surgeries.

Allegheny Health Network, which operates seven hospitals and five surgery centers in Western Pennsylvania, is limiting nonemergency surgeries.

When asked about ongoing treatments like chemotherapy, officials said the health system will take extra precautions.

“Care is continuing for our patients under the heightened precautions and safety measures recommended by the CDC, both for the overall clinical environment and for individual patient scenarios,” said Dr. Brian Parker, chief quality and learning officer for Allegheny Health Network.

Excela Health, which operates in Westmoreland County, also is canceling elective surgeries.