Any interruption in treatment is stressful for cancer patients because treatments are time sensitive, Jones said. As soon as power was restored, patients left anxious messages about missed appointments, only to receive a message about the burst pipes later in the day.
During the storm, cancer center social workers, including Grace Brown, took calls from patients who had stayed tall and dry from the outages, including some with supplemental oxygen and who needed a power source to keep their machines running.
According to Jones, almost every department was involved in setting up a temporary chemotherapy infusion center in the Hillcrest Auditorium for a weekend.
“Looking back, I don’t think I slept much,” she said. “I’m sure most of my team haven’t slept much.”
After the temporary center was up and running, staff had to spend more time following up on patients and making sure no one was skipped after the center was closed for a week.
“There have been patients, believe it or not, who still drove to the cancer center even though they could see the construction workers,” said Jones.
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Radiation and other teams moved to the Baylor Scott & White facilities in Temple or Killeen to increase the distance to patient journeys, some of whom were already driving to Waxahachie for treatments.
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