Maine Voices: Seeing the immune-suppressed in the COVID pandemic
For people with invisible illnesses like Crohn’s disease to become a priority when vaccines are allocated, our stories need to be told.
By Tanya SheehanSpecial to the Press Herald
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For the last 10 months I have been living at home in quarantine. As college professors, my husband and I teach and attend meetings online. Our toddler spends just an hour a day at day care – outdoors, weather permitting. No one in our family sees the inside of a grocery store. When one of us absolutely needs to visit a doctor, we snag the first morning appointment and hold our collective breath for 14 days. And so it was earth-shattering when I checked into a teeming Boston hospital Christmas week, presenting with small-bowel obstructions, as COVID-19 cases hit record highs.