Season to Share: Illness, first COVID, now cancer has cost a mother her independence and her home
All Shawania Wyatt wants is her life the way it used to be, when she worked long hours, raised her two sons, took classes to move her career forward, and when she had her home and her health.
She can’t remember the last day she felt strong and healthy. She can remember the last day she worked, though.
“It was January,” she said softly, and pauses. “January 4.”
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She remembers when she could still pay rent. She also remembers when she had to give up the West Palm Beach home that she and hers sons shared. That was February.
By then, the 39-year-old nurse, mother and student had been sick for more than eight months, first with COVID-19, and then with a rare cancer that she continues to undergo debilitating chemotherapy to fight.
A licensed practical nurse, she worked full-time as a secretary at Delray Medical Center and part-time for a home nursing agency when she contracted COVID-19 in June 2020. Her sons, a preteen and a teenager, got it, too, but had no symptoms.
She was hospitalized for five days. When she came home from the hospital she still struggled to breathe. After several more trips to the hospital, she went home with an oxygen tank.
Before, she had never known serious illness. Her strength and stamina supported her determination to give her sons an example and the resources they would need to have satisfying and successful lives.
“Always,” she said, her voice gathering strength as she thought about the life she had “working two jobs and going to school.”
Back then, she was going to school to become a registered nurse.
Because she had become infected through her job, she had workers compensation, she said, which helped cover some of her expenses. By then, though, she was realizing something else was wrong.
She had pain in her belly and her stomach was upset. During a doctor visit for her ongoing COVID symptoms, she asked for a scan.
When she learned she had cancer — a rare sarcoma, she started crying.
“I didn’t know if this was going to be the end of me.” She continues to be treated by a psychiatrist for the depression, anxiety and frustration that the uncertainty of her illness has left her with.
She had to travel to Miami for chemotherapy. “It’s a very aggressive cancer,” she said.
She came home from Miami after her first week of chemotherapy weak and needing multiple blood transfusions. She went to stay with her mother, while her sons went to stay with their father temporarily. She faced another round in three weeks.
“This time I got really sick,” she said. When she returned to her mother after that second round, she relied on a walker to move from bed to bathroom.
The doctors tried a new chemotherapy regimen. The tumors began to shrink. Then they stopped shrinking.
She and her sons have have been guests in other people's homes since February.
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On a recent weekend, she and her sons were staying at her grandfather’s house in Riviera Beach, and she was bracing herself for another round of chemotherapy. She was trying to get comfortable sitting on the couch. Sitting hurts her bones. She wears a wig. Her hair fell out in front of her sons, she said.
Her sons do what they can to help; Kevin, who is 17, driving her to appointments and errands, Kamari, who is 12, bringing her drinks and snacks. As she started to describe her illness to a visitor, she told Kamari he didn’t have to stay.
They’ve shown great maturity, she says, with a sigh suggesting they are growing up too suddenly.
She can tell the last year has affected them. “My oldest the most,” she said. “I can tell from his attitude. He’s angry.”
She is trying to get therapy for all of them.
She was dreading the week ahead, and another round of chemotherapy. With the pandemic barring visitors, she would be alone, looking at the walls of her hospital room and wondering about the future.
She hoped a scan after the next round would answer questions.
“I hope I can get better,” she said. “Live my life like we were living before. Going back to school. Being productive. Living on my own again, with my kids.”
She remains vulnerable to infection and protecting herself while living in other people's homes during during the pandemic has been challenging. She wants to focus any energy she has on defeating the cancer and getting her strength back. She believes having their own home will give her older son space he needs right now.
She looks at her life differently now. “This could happen to anyone,” she said. “I never thought it would happen to me.”
SHAWANIA WYATT'S WISH
Wyatt needs resources to provide a stable home for her family. She needs gas vouchers to travel to her many medical appointments. She would like to be able to provide for her sons over the holidays. Donations for rent and furniture will help the Pink Queen foundation to secure a place where Shawania and her sons can live and heal.
Nominating agency: The Pink Queen Foundation, Inc.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Charity: COVID, cancer cost Riviera Beach mom her home, donations needed
