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Area woman awaiting cancer surgery pleads for people to 'come together' to end pandemic

'It’s certainly frightening to have cancer running through your body and you can’t get in to have it operated on,' laments Barb Shakell
2021-03-08 Barb Shakell
Barb Shakell is shown in the backyard of her Orillia home.

An Orillia woman awaiting cancer surgery is pleading with people to set their differences aside and work together to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic so she and others can get the care they need.

Barb Shakell was diagnosed with cancer in early January. She was scheduled to undergo surgery at Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital, but it was determined she needed a special team of doctors, so she was referred to the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto.

With the hospital only conducting 50 per cent of surgeries — even less now that the stay-at-home order has been issued in Ontario — a surgeon there told Shakell, “in frustration, ‘I don’t know when I can get you in,’” Shakell said.

If it weren’t for the pandemic, she was told, she would be able to have her surgery the following week.

“At least for the next 30 days, I’m not even on the radar because all they’re doing (for surgeries) is immediate risk of death,” she said. “I’m not at immediate risk of death, but it needs to be dealt with.”

For someone who is battling Stage 3 cancer, not knowing when she can have surgery is “disturbing.”

“It’s certainly frightening to have cancer running through your body and you can’t get in to have it operated on,” she said. “I lay here, exhausted, and I know I’ve got cancer cells running through my body. It’s scary.”

Shakell understands the health-care system is under strain, so she’s hoping individual citizens will take the necessary actions to get to a point where hospitals can get back to operating as usual.

“We have two camps. One is, ‘No masks, no vaccine, go do whatever you want to do,’ and then we have the people who are following the guidelines to the nth degree,” she said. “Guys, stop fighting and turn your energy and your resources to getting people like me into the hospital for surgery.”

Regardless of one’s views on the pandemic and safety precautions such as wearing masks, Shakell wants people to think of those who are being affected by the ongoing situation.

“I’m just one of thousands of people out there who are hurting and, honestly, dying,” she said. “If you’re an anti-masker, stop and think about someone who needs surgery. Think about the other person. We need to come together and figure this out.”

Shakell is hoping for divine intervention, but while she waits for a miracle, she implores people to “be more compassionate and come together to get our health-care system back on track.”

“The government isn’t the total solution,” she said. “We are.”


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Nathan Taylor

About the Author: Nathan Taylor

Nathan Taylor is the desk editor for Village Media's central Ontario news desk in Simcoe County and Newmarket.
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