When the COVID-19 pandemic essentially shut down society in 2020, people were beginning a 'new normal': for some that included being diagnosed with cancer.
For Daymara Cano, family is life. Her world are her children. In June 2020, Daymara was navigating her new normal with her family like so many, working from home and remote learning.
“With the pandemic, being at home with the two kids at home and working from home and homeschooling, I felt that it was too much and that’s why all the time I was very tired,” Cano said.
One morning, when she couldn’t even get out of bed, her husband rushed her to the emergency room. Testing revealed she had Acute Myeloid Leukemia or AML - a cancer that begins in the blood-forming cells of the bone marrow.
Get South Florida local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC South Florida newsletters.
A diagnosis her oncologist at Baptist Miami Cancer Institute said it rarely seen in someone in their mid 30s.
“When they told me you have cancer and it’s very advanced, I said ‘well cancer is not going to kill me he got the wrong person’,” said Cano.
What would follow would be an aggressive regimen in the height of the pandemic that included chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant and being away from her children for two months.
Local
“We had to keep her away from her family, we had to keep her away from her kids because she had absolutely no immune system for many months and even the smallest cold especially with COVID could take her life,” said Miami Cancer Institute oncologist Dr. Yuliya Linhares.
Daymara’s husband stayed by her bedside for a month of that, leaning on family members and facetime with her children.
“When someone is undergoing treatment for many months, having the support from your relatives and physical presence and human presence is very important. I can only imagine how stressful and lonely it was for our patients,” Linhares said.
For these patients, human interaction consisted of Linhares and her staff.
“It was hard listening to the diagnosis by myself and being by myself pretty much for two months,” said Cano.
Daymara says she knew she would be able to get on the other side leaning on her faith.
“I see everything with a happy face now because I am actually living my life,” Cano told Sheli.
