Coronavirus dis­ease 2019, or COVID‑19, has been all over the news here in Canada lately as the virus spreads to North America.

Fortunately, so far in Canada, the rate of infected and diag­nosed patients is still at a low level. In order to prevent the spread of COVID‑19, how­ever, large gather­ings have been cancelled.

The Juno's, Canada's annual music award cer­e­mony, were cancelled this month, and the National Hockey League (NHL) has suspended its season early. Even the Toronto Raptors, a mem­ber of the National Basketball Association (NBA), have suspended play along with the rest of their league. Many conferences, schools, and any gather­ings of over 250 people have been cancelled.

In addi­tion, people returning to Canada after being in any other country are being asked to "self-isolate" at home to check if they de­vel­op symp­toms of the coronavirus in­fec­tion.

Hopefully, these Herculean and drastic measures will help to slow the spread of this virus in our pop­u­la­tion. In our country, we are worried about a sudden spike in serious illness that could overwhelm our health care sys­tem. The buzzword for avoiding this "Flatten the Curve."

What am I doing to pro­tect myself, and thus my family, against this new health threat?

As a myeloma patient under active treat­ment, I know that my immunity is lower than I would like and that I need to be very cautious.

As a result, I first and foremost re­solved to self-isolate as much as possible until this pandemic dies down. This is not as easy as it sounds, since I have been in­volve­d with some local or­ga­ni­za­tions for quite a while, and I thoroughly enjoy socializing with the mem­bers of the various clubs and groups.

In addi­tion, I have implemented the precautions that are being rec­om­mended for everyone: hand washing, and staying a safe distance away from other people. I wear a face mask if out in public. We have stocked up on some staples and frozen food. We also bought fresh food, such as carrots, po­ta­toes, squash, eggs, that keep well, and sundries such as liquid hand soap, toothpaste, and the like. I think we have enough supplies to get through two weeks, and we are told that Canada's supply chain is work­ing well so we don't need to worry about re-stocking when nec­es­sary. I also keep current on recent devel­op­ments from our local health authority.

I realize that travel is not cur­rently rec­om­mended for anybody, since it can expose you to the dis­ease. Also, inter­na­tional travel raises the possibility of illness in a foreign country, where one is not as the health care sys­tem.

I was particularly disappointed about the no-travel advisory since I just finished up my sixteenth treat­ment of Darzalex (dara­tu­mu­mab). My first eight treat­ments were one week apart, and the fol­low­ing eight treat­ments were two weeks apart. Going for­ward, my treat­ments are to be four weeks apart. I thought I could do a bit of travelling in be­tween the treat­ments. It seems that is not to be hap­pen­ing for a while yet as I con­tinue with my self-isolation. Seeing the spring flowers in bloom on Vancouver Island will just have to wait!

If I were to be diag­nosed with COVID‑19 despite all my efforts, I would have to be quarantined for at least 14 days, and so would anyone who had been in contact with me. That would in­clude my hus­band, my grown daughters and their families, and even my 93-year-old father, who has been in hos­pi­tal for a while.

As much as possible, how­ever, I want to avoid in­fec­tion, as people with cancer and/or sup­pressed immune sys­tems are at the highest risk for in­fec­tions that be­come particularly serious. In the worst case, an in­fec­tion could de­vel­op into life threatening con­di­tion that could stretch my capacity to fight it.

That said, after thinking about this turn of events, I remembered that I have been down this road before. We were caught up in H1N1 epidemic in 2009 / 2010. That was when I was having my stem cell trans­plant, and my immunities were very low then. I was frightened to undergo the trans­plant at that time, but I went ahead with it anyways. Apart from the actual in­fusion of my stem cells and a two-night stay in the hos­pi­tal, I was treated as an outpatient. During that time, my dear hus­band, a stellar care­giver for me and our whole family, cared for and pro­tected me at home, and I didn’t go out much for a few months. So in a way, self-isolation is nothing new to me.

I truly hope that everyone implements the rec­om­mended precautions as seriously as I do, and that together we can "Flatten the Curve."

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The quotation for this month is from Margaret Chan (1947 – ), a Chinese-Canadian physician and pre­vi­ous Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), who said: "After all, it really is all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic."