The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic continues to have a direct negative impact on the healthcare system and on patients who desperately need lifesaving surgery. There aren’t enough intensive care unit beds available for people who have cancer and need to have the tumors removed. And the bed shortage is because of unvaccinated patients who end up in the hospital with Covid.
Artist and woodworker Amanda Harris, from Portland, has openly shared her story about her fight with a brain tumor, that might be cancerous, on TikTok. She explained that she cannot have the surgery done to remove her tumor because there is a lack of ICU beds. She urged people to get vaccinated and boosted so that she and others like her can get the procedures that they need.
As things currently stand, Amanda is stuck waiting to hear back about her surgery. It could be weeks, even months before there’s a slot available, and she was in tears in one of her latest videos. You’ll find Amanda’s story below, dear Pandas.
Bored Panda reached out to Amanda and she went into detail about what's been going on and how she feels, shared her opinion about vaccine hesitancy, and gave some advice for anyone who's stuck in a similar situation as she is. "First off, I want to make it super clear that I am not a cancer patient. It is unknown at this point whether or not my tumor is benign or malignant and that will not be determined until after the resection is done," she clarified.
"These last three months spent waiting for a surgery date and the two months preceding, spent trying to wrap my head around this completely out of the blue tumor discovery and struggling to get the right imaging and the best doctors, has been the most challenging time of my life," she opened up about just how difficult things have been.
"As someone who lives with multiple chronic illnesses, and has spent many years of my life navigating the frustrating system that is American Health Care, I am used to having to advocate for myself, so it came to no real surprise that I would need to do so again with this life-threatening brain tumor. However, the added complications that Covid has brought with it and the fact that it is all entirely out of my hands is something I was not at all prepared for."
Amanda, who has a brain tumor, shared the reason why she can't get surgery
She explained how there are no free ICU beds available
Here is her video in full
Amanda said that she tries to take things one day at a time, focuses on being kind to herself, and accepts any coping strategies that she's drawn to, without judgment. "Some days, I am better at managing it than others but I have to keep telling myself that there is no 'right way' to deal with the kind of situation I find myself in," she noted.
According to Amanda, patients have to be as vocal as possible about what's happening to them. They have to fight for their health and their future with everything that they've got.
"For anyone else in a similar position, waiting for an emergent surgery or medical treatment until an ICU bed opens up, or even for those who are struggling while they wait weeks to months for a doctor’s appointment, I give you this advice: Be vocal about your experience if you are able, never stop advocating for yourself, and try to convince those around you that the choice to be unvaccinated is one with far-reaching consequences," she said.
"The vast majority of Covid hospitalizations are that of the unvaccinated, despite the fact that they make up a minority of our population. The facts are plain, the vaccine is safe and effective and this bed shortage could be prevented if more people were vaccinated."
Amanda stressed that the US healthcare system can't handle the current levels of Covid hospitalizations, "surge after surge." She said: "The whole point of getting vaccinated, isn’t to prevent us from getting the virus, but to prevent us from seeing serious symptoms of the virus and needing hospitalization. This is to shield our healthcare systems from the overwhelm they were experiencing pre-vaccine."
In another video, she once again begged people to get vaccinated and boosted for their own sake and for others
In her opinion, the current situation is preventable and things could have looked very different. "Today, we are still seeing the overwhelm, but it is preventable and now it's causing bed shortages and staffing shortages that lead to patients, Covid and non-Covid alike, not being able to access the life-saving care they need. No beds means no beds for ANYTHING. “No beds for your stroke, no beds for your heart attack, no beds for your car crash, no beds for your sick child,” as @travelingnurse put it," Amanda explained to Bored Panda.
"The prolonged nature of the stress healthcare workers are under is untenable and has already led to mass burnout and staffing shortages. We all applauded healthcare workers a year ago, called them heroes because we understood that what they were being put through was a horrible and draining experience. No one should have to see that level of death and loss, ever, but to expect them to continue to do it year after year when so much of it is preventable with a vaccine, is simply wrong."
Amanda was in tears in one of her most recent videos because she still doesn't have a fixed date for her surgery
Bored Panda also wanted to get Amanda's opinion about why there seem to be so many people who are still hesitant to get vaccinated. "I think there is a small and loud group of people that believe the outlandish conspiracy theories and blatant disinformation that surrounds the vaccine. However, I think most of those who have yet to get vaccinated are scared and confused by the constant stream of conflicting information they hear," she mused.
"With the lack of cohesive education coming from the CDC, FDA, WHO, etc., and the pervasive nature of dis/misinformation, it is no wonder that people are hesitant."
She believes that vaccine mandates won't be enough to convince "the 25% of Americans who can, but haven’t yet gotten vaccinated." Amanda thinks that there will always be some people who won't get the shots, however, that's no reason to throw proper communication and mutual respect out the window. "To tell you the truth, many will probably never be swayed but I think the only way to convince the hesitant is to stick to the facts and hear people out about their concerns. It’s easy to get defensive when discussing these things, especially on the internet, but the second you stop trying to see from their perspective and communicate with respect, you’ve lost any and all chance of getting them to consider being vaccinated."
In another video, she shared that many other people are facing the same challenges as she is
Amanda went to the California College of the Arts and then finished her studies at the Oregon College of Art and Craft. She’s a big fan of painting as well as woodworking and continues working with both.
It is frustrating and heartbreaking to see Amanda in tears—she’s stuck not knowing when her lifesaving procedure can even take place. It’s unclear when any ICU beds will become available, as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to spread. It’s unclear whether or not the tumor pressing up against her brain stem is cancerous or not until it gets removed.
According to Amanda, the main reason for this is that not enough people are vaccinated against Covid, therefore, when they get ill, there’s a higher chance that they will end up in hospital. This means there’s a long backlog of patients without Covid who are pretty much stuck in limbo. Having to live with that kind of fear sounds overwhelming and soul-crushing. It takes a lot of bravery to go through this.
NPR reported back in August that the situation was critical and pushed hospitals to the brink in many states, meaning that some overwhelmed hospitals even had to put critically ill Covid patients on planes, helicopters, and ambulances and send them to other states for treatment.
Meanwhile, the shortage of ICU beds isn’t an ‘American-only’ problem, it affects many parts of the world. For example, in the United Kingdom, one patient had her surgery canceled a whopping three times in a month. Gillian Crawford, who lives in Dundee in Scotland, was then scheduled to travel to the closest specialist center in Manchester for the operation.
Here's how some people reacted to Amanda's videos about ICU beds and vaccinations
