anesthesia. Then she reached for her phone, and recorded separate video messages for her two young boys.

Her blue eyes glazed thick from painkillers, she addressed her 3-year-old son, Corben. Smiling reassuringly, she told him to continue his toilet training with his grandmother, and that shed be home soon. Then she spoke to 7-year-old Landen. Hey. Im OK. Im out of surgery, she said in a near-whisper. With her bandage peeking from her pink surgical robe, she told him that shed be home the next day, and that they would soon be able to watch movies together from the bedroom recliner. I love you, I dont want you to worry about me, Landen, she said. OK? Im doing really good. Bye, honey.

Then she tapped send. Landen watched the videofrom his own hospital room across town, where he was being treated for leukemia.

Amy and Landen, two generations fighting cancer, are united by something else: They are going through the most frightening and painful moments of their lives without the family warmth and support that was standard practice at the nations medical centers until Covid-19. The pandemics broad impact on cancer care in the U.S. is well-known: non-essential surgeries, biopsies, and scans delayed, and clinical trials disrupted. But its in stories like the Sapien familys that one sees the depth of the harm its causing.

Amy was able to schedule the mastectomy right away only because her cancer was spreading, but she couldnt have her second breast removed at the same time since it was deemed elective. Instead shell