When enough is enough!
Early 2020... a pandemic hits the world!
We're all thrust into the unknown. Virtually overnight, we find ourselves confined to our homes, seeing our family and friends only through screens.
Soon, the (virtual) aperitif-confinement became an almost daily custom. It's a chance to get in touch with people we like and share a drink with them. We often laugh about it, as if convinced that it won't last too long if we behave in an exemplary manner.
All "non-essential" life comes to a halt. And finally, it's a bit like entering the world of pediatric cancer.
We, the families concerned, had not waited for COVID to have masks and disinfectant gel at home... Just as when you enter the world of cancer, some lose their jobs, families skin their hands from using disinfectant with every hand movement. We're taught to wear masks, which even children under 12 have to wear. We live in fear of transmitting a virus to our children, a virus that could kill them because their immune defenses are almost non-existent.
From one day to the next, as was the case with the pandemic, we learn to live from day to day. We learn not to plan and, above all, not to anticipate. A bit like with the pandemic, we let ourselves get caught up in the wave.
With the pandemic, the whole world flew over what life with a child with cancer could be like...
Of course, without the treatments, the hair loss and everything else that makes the journey for these children and families as hard as possible and as long as necessary.
2021 is here, and what's changed?
In the end, not much. A back-and-forth of more or less understandable measures, people for and against.... and always the impossibility of hugging and kissing. At least in the world of cancer, it's a bit different... even if we don't let "just anyone" touch our children any more, because we live by blood values, parents and siblings have the right to hugs and kisses. And how important that is. Perhaps even in the world of cancer, this stage of embracing other parents, friends and family is life-saving.
Today, what's changing is that everyone is fed up! Fed up! Fed up with not being able to organize a monster shindig for your 40th birthday... fed up with not being able to go and scratch your throat at a concert! I'm sick to death of not being able to go for 3 swims anywhere other than in an almost frozen lake (even if it does firm up the skin). We're all in the mood for a good movie, with a packet of popcorn, half of which will have fallen on the floor... I'm sick and tired of not being able to take out my best pair of pumps, bought in February 2020, to go clubbing. And what about dinner at the restaurant....?
And yet, if we see the negative, it's because there's something positive. Good cannot exist without evil. In the words of parents who have lived through the worst... when you look, you find.
From a personal point of view, the pandemic has enabled me to spend special moments with my children, and to take a little time for myself too.... It's also enabled me to spend less money on shoes and to enjoy every visit with the people I love; worse, to dream of the day when I'll be able to hug them again.
What about Zoé4life?
Well, of course, we missed our annual Day4life event. We weren't able to meet all the people who rallied around us, despite everything. Nor were we able to visit companies, as we usually do, to present our objectives. We had to give up our participation in the Lausanne 20 km, our volunteer evenings, our business lunches and all the hopes we had pinned on the organization of a major Gala dinner in 2021.
And yet... the pandemic has forced us to question ourselves, to seek and to innovate. Thanks to the pandemic, we have learned to use communication tools that were previously little mastered.....
We offered mail-order items, and you liked them. We created stamps, invented Move4life, set up stands, offered COVID packs for the families we support and continued to mobilize to advance research.
