A New Year & We're Still Dealing With COVID

 It's 2022 and I realize I haven't posted anything new for a few years now. First, update. I'm still NED and had my last clean mammo in May 2021. I am inching ever closer to that big anniversary of 5 years when some, but not all, doctors would use that "in remission"  terminology. Oh and by the way, my annual mammogram got bumped to May (instead of April) because of ... get ready, wait for it, you know what's coming ...

COVID!!! Delta, Omicron, Whatthehellacron ...

For two years, I have watched this insane interruption to everyone's life go on, wondering when it's gonna end. Now before you mark me as one of those crazy, right wing people who don't even believe COVID exists and it's all a government conspiracy ... Let me say I know it's real and I know it's a threat. I have lost people in my circles like Anne Fenney and John Prine. Several people in my family have had mild cases of it. I am fully vaccinated.

But here's what I don't understand... We have shut down the world and changed the way we do things for almost TWO YEARS now. COVID has become a political football deepening the deep divide we have in our country even more which has resulted in us getting kicked around like that pigskin. 

Segway:: Congratulations to the L.A. Rams!!

Everyday you hear the news reports about new hospitalizations, new deaths, etc. The facts are that it kills only a small percentage of the people it infects. The Spanish flu was worse. 

And I wonder, what if we treated cancer like this? What if we "shut down the world" to deal with it? What if we made national mandates and broadcast new hospitalizations and deaths every day? What if we really put the resources and effort into dealing with the causes of our cancer epidemic? Cancer affects and kills way more people every single day than COVID ever did or ever will.

COVID proved to me that we can do a much better job in our war against cancer. 

One friend asked me if I was frightened of COVID and I told her no, when you've fought cancer, COVID looks like a Sunday walk in the park. 

That said, prayers and sympathy sent to the people who've lost loved ones to COVID. But I know there's more out there who have lost people to cancer. And it frustrates me that we act as if that's acceptable and we are helpless. We've proven we can go after an epidemic with guns blazing. Why can't we now point those guns at cancer?