In Part 2 of this episode, we’re sharing two more stories about the powerful love that has sustained us throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

First, we’ll hear from journalist and Story Collider senior producer Misha Gajewski. In her story, Misha takes her father to his chemo appointment early in the pandemic, and reckons with their shifting roles.

And then, the final story of this Stories of COVID-19 series, from infectious disease researcher Youssef Saklawi! When Youssef’s research team launches a COVID-19 study, he becomes immersed in his work — and begins to feel attached to the patients he sees only through glass.

We hope you enjoyed our first Stories of COVID-19 series! Over the next few months, we’ll be airing bonus episodes featuring stories on other topics, but we’re hard at work on our next Stories of COVID-19 series. If you would like to pitch a story for inclusion, see our Submissions page.

Story Transcripts

Story 1: Misha Gajewski

So it's a sunny day in June and my dad calls me from my driveway to say he's ready to go. I walk out of my house and I see him on my driveway and he's wearing his most stylish blue jeans and a freshly ironed orange dress shirt, and I think, “God, only my dad would get dressed up for chemo.”

Misha Gajewski is a freelance journalist, an educator, and a senior producer for The Story Collider. She’s pictured here hosting Story Collider Toronto pre-pandemic.

So, for the last year or so, my dad has been driving into downtown Toronto for his chemo and radiation treatments because he is diagnosed with stage three colorectal cancer. The doctors are putting him through these treatments to, hopefully, stop the cancer from growing further but also to shrink the tumor so that when they can finally schedule surgery in the middle of this pandemic, they don't have to take out so much of his colon.

Usually I'm not really around when my dad comes downtown for these treatments, but since the pandemic I have a lot of free time and I've not been leaving my house or putting on pants so this is an excuse to do both those things. It's also just great to spend time with my dad.

So today's no different. He calls me and I come out and we set off on our walk towards the hospital the recommended six feet apart. Now, my dad and I have only really liked three topics of conversation, so on these walks we talk about, one, when I'm coming over for family dinner. It's usually Sunday. Sometimes we add in what we're going to have for family dinner.

Two, how I'm doing for money, which might be weird if this was any other 28-year-old, but I'm a freelancer so there are times where I'm very not okay for money.

And three, what I'm working on, which is my dad's sneaky way of asking if I'm okay for money. The rest of the time, we mostly just make fun of each other for what we're wearing.

Misha (right) is pictured here with her family, her dad in his signature orange.

He'll say I look like Peter Pan because I'm wearing green leggings, and I'll tell him he looks like a human pylon because he's dressed in head-to-toe orange, as per usual. Today, he's just a half pylon but he's accessorized with an orange backpack.

So as we're walking through the old university campus and the trees finally have leaves on them so it's starting to actually look like summer, we're talking about what I'm working on. And I'm telling him about the latest Forbes article I'm writing.

Then instead of transitioning to Sunday dinner or something, I threw a curveball in there, and I ask, “Hey, Dad, how's it going? How are you feeling?”

And he says, “The neuropathy is not going away.”

“Oh?” And I'm kind of surprised he's telling me this because usually these are the kind of updates I would either get from my mom or in kind of a group text message.

He's like, “Yeah. They're like pins and needles sensation that I'd get after chemo, like in my hands and feet. It used to go away after three days but it's not going away anymore after this last round. It doesn't hurt or anything but it's just… it's annoying.”

If this was anyone else but my dad, I might offer him some advice because I wrote about cancer research for two years day in and day out at this giant cancer charity in the UK. But it's my dad. He gives me advice, I don't give him advice.

So I just say, “That sucks. How many more rounds of chemo do you have left?”

He's like, “Two, but I think I think this is going to be the last one. I don't want to do it anymore. I think I'm going to tell the doctors I'm going to stop.”

And all I say is, “Okay,” but in my head I'm spiraling. I'm floored. What? You can't stop chemo in the middle of a pandemic when you don't even have a surgery schedule. You can't do that. Like, okay, I know you can theoretically stop treatment at any time but you have stage three cancer so you can't just go against what the doctors say. Like every little bit of treatment helps.

I'm floored because my dad doesn't quit things. He's the kind of guy who makes to‑do lists on weekends to do no-fun tasks. And he's the kind of guy who for the past 30 years has gotten up at 5:00 in the morning every single day to work out like a psychopath. And he's the guy when he has the stomach flu he still eats an entire spaghetti Bolognese dinner, so what's a little pins and needles and nausea? This isn't my dad. He doesn't quit things.

While I'm in this spiral, I failed to realize that we're coming up to the hospital and my dad started to trail behind. So I look back at him and I'm like, “What's up?”

And he's like, “I don't want to go.”

I'm like, “Well, duh. No one wants to go to chemo. It's no fun, but you got to go.”

And he's looking at the hospital like if he glares at it long enough it'll disappear. He's shuffling his feet and he's grabbing the straps of his backpack. He's like, “I don't want to go.”

He looks scared and he looks tired and he looks like he doesn't want to be alone. I don't know what to do with this because I've never had to comfort my dad. My dad's the one who comforts me. He's the one who would rub my stomach when I didn't feel good and he's the one who would bribe me with KitKats to do no-fun activities, and I don't think a KitKat is going to cut it in this situation.

And everything else I know how to do to comfort people isn't an option right now because I can't give my dad a hug because I don't want to risk giving him COVID on top of cancer. And I can't even go into the hospital and just sit next to him while he gets poison dumped in his body, because they're not allowing anyone in but patients. I don't know what to do.

I feel like I'm failing in this one moment I'm supposed to be there for my dad and the only thing that I know would kind of make him feel better is a vodka martini but I didn't bring a flask or olives on our 2:00 p.m. walk on a Tuesday. So I'm at a complete and utter loss.

So all I say is, “Did you bring your mask?”

He pulls his mask out of his pocket he's like, “Yeah.”

So I'm like, “Well, do you want me to take a picture of you on your last day of chemo?” Because humor is all I got right now.

And he says, “No. I don't want to remember any of this,” and he stomps off petulantly towards the hospital.

As the automatic doors close, I think, “Yeah, me neither.”

I wish I could take away those bad memories from my dad or at least just make them not so terrible, but I can't. But maybe next time I'll know what to do.

Story 2: Youssef Saklawi

I was going about my day when my boss called for a huge meeting that afternoon. I head in and that's when she announces that we will be doing a randomized controlled trial for COVID‑19. COVID had just started rampaging all across the globe. And what this meant is that we will be trying a new medication called Remdesivir to try and treat COVID.

Youssef Saklawi is a post-doctoral research fellow at Emory University’s Hope Clinic.

I was extremely excited. I had a smile from ear to ear and I immediately raised my hand to volunteer to be part of this effort. You see, I'm a medical graduate from Lebanon. And I had moved to the US to pursue my passion for infectious disease. Lebanon, unfortunately, is crumbling.

I kept thinking to myself, “How lucky is this kid 6,000 miles away from home in this place at this time doing infectious disease research during the pandemic.” I was elated.

Clinical trials are usually slow and tedious. We usually take our time to learn the protocol, its ends and outs, the inclusion and exclusion criteria. This was not going to be the case this time. We ran through the chart immediately, prepared the ready protocol and reviewed the inclusion‑exclusion criteria.

We headed to the hospital the very next day. COVID was still a new disease then and we didn't know much about it. The hospital didn't have many COVID patients. The COVID unit felt like Batman's lair. It was underground. It had multiple doors that needed badge access. It had the negative pressure ventilation and cameras everywhere.

I still remember my doctor getting into his PPE, which was a hazmat suit. He looked like an astronaut. I still remember standing outside the room as he entered to talk to the first patient. I was standing there peeking through a small glass window. I was reviewing the inclusion and exclusion criteria in my head. I had this mixed feeling of excitement and anxiety. I was super excited but I didn't want to be the person who messes up the research in the time of a pandemic.

My role as a research coordinator was to make sure that everything runs smoothly. I had to make sure that we enrolled the right people, that the data is great and that we got all the samples.

One of my rules as well is to get the medications to the patients every day. I would head in, medication bags in hand, and go around the different hospital floors. However, unlike any other research study, I wasn't allowed to enter the room to give the medication. This is because they wanted to limit the number of people who are exposed to COVID.

What this implied is that I will not meet the patients in my very own study. Instead, I would get a tiny glimpse of them as the door is being closed shut. Or I would get a small peek through a small window at the door. We would always smile at each other and I would wave at them.

It was hard to remember all the individual patients without actually being able to interact with them. Instead, I would put labels for them in my head. Mrs. Smith had long red hair. Mr. Perez had big brown eyebrows. Miss Williams was a seven-year-old African-American woman with a big smile and she would always wave at me vigorously.

This was just the start of the trial and things started getting busy. In the first week, I worked for seven days. Second week, seven days. Third week, six days. We were working very hard to enroll as many people as we can. We became extremely immersed in our job. I would head in at 7:00 a.m. and come back home at 7:00 p.m.

I took selfies in the empty hallways that looked like a deserted no man's land. Forgetting to have breakfast and lunch, which would usually never happen to me, became a daily thing. Even though I would sometimes reward myself with a burger at the end of my day I had still lost eight pounds in three weeks.

I work with very dedicated people. They're all extremely compassionate. If my doctor had one question for the patient, he would head in and talk to them for an hour. I would always make fun of him because he would come out of the room drenching in sweat from all of his PPE.

The jokes and the camaraderie kept me going but I couldn't see my friends or family. I had a saying that I kept telling them. The pandemic doesn't stop, so neither can we.

Part of the difficulty of working at a hospital during a pandemic is not just that I couldn't see my friends, but also that my friends are afraid of seeing me as I may be a vector of disease. It was like we were perpetually playing a game of hot potato and that potato was me. I hadn't seen anyone in months and I missed the small things, like being able to hug my friends.

There is that experiment where a scientist separates the rhesus monkeys from their mothers to see the effect of lack of affection. I felt like I could finally relate to that monkey.

I remember going into the ICU one day to deliver the medication and I see Miss Williams lying unconscious on her bed. She had a breathing tube in her mouth, multiple bags of medications around her, and she was under heavy sedation. I just froze there standing in the ICU. As the doctors and nurses were jumping around, I started understanding the impact of this disease.

You see, COVID on the news is a series of numbers, a case fatality rate and infection rate. Even in my head, I really wanted to find a cure for this disease, but patients were still patient IDs and charts and data.

Often in research, when a patient is incapacitated, we have to call their legally authorized representative or their family member to ask for permission for them to be part of our research. Often, I would call a patient's spouse only to find out that they had passed away due to COVID.

In the hospital, I had a mother and son sick in adjacent rooms. I had siblings in the same hospital. I had a patient skip her follow-up visit to attend her father's funeral. Family members were not allowed in the hospital. I still remember a compassionate nurse going into the patient's room to Facetime their family and their last moments.

A month later, I went in to conduct a follow-up visit with Miss Williams. Thankfully, she had made it and was energetic as ever. We both almost screamed from joy when we saw each other. We didn't hug, obviously, but we did hold hands through our gloves. It was like meeting someone I had known for a long time.

COVID had created barriers, like walls and masks and windows. And despite all of that, we still managed to build connections with one another.

She told me how happy she was to be part of the study and thanked us for taking care of her. Moments like this, cold hands held in latex gloves, are what make it all worth it. Thank you.