BOISE, Idaho — UPDATE: Lynda Shane says she has never been completely out of food - just out of the food she can eat without feeling sick. People have been asking how to help her. She is getting her needs met at this time and requests people to make donations to the Idaho Foodbank or their local food pantry.
As the spread of coronavirus continues to fuel a run on shelf-stable food and paper products, Idaho's seniors and most vulnerable residents are left to wonder whether they will be able to get the essentials they need.
Lynda Shayne of Kuna has metastatic breast cancer, which has progressed to Stage IV.
"I'm on hospice, and I have been in the house for three years," she said. "They thought I was going to pass right away. I have cancer all over."
The medications she is takes to make it unsafe for her to drive, so she typically does all her shopping online. But since the COVID-19 strain of the coronavirus began hitting the U.S., she says, it is getting harder and harder to find what she needs.
Shayne says people who are hoarding products like toilet paper or canned goods need to think of the elderly in their community - and make sure they are leaving something for their neighbors.
People loading up their carts with packages of toilet paper do not need that much, she said.
"Hell no. No, absolutely not," she said. "I don't understand the toilet paper thing."
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Her own neighbors have stepped up: One woman brought Shayne a few rolls of toilet paper on Wednesday after learning she had run out.
Due to her cancer treatment, about the only meal Shayne can stomach is peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.
For three days, Shayne ran out of her preferred sandwich supplies.
"I don't eat very much because of my cancer, but that's about the only thing I can eat," she said. "And how I got it is actually my niece who's a school social worker, and she had to go [to the store] for days to find some."
She is begging people to only buy what they need. And Shayne is not the only person in the Treasure Valley in such a precarious position.
"This panic buying needs to stop," she said. "My neighbors next to me are elderly and sick and they also have not been able to get items that they need."
Shayne has lived in Idaho for 40 years, and says she has never seen anything like this. Already, she is down to one loaf of bread and two containers of peanut butter. When that runs out, she's not sure she'll be able to find more.
"I think people need to look inside themselves and rethink what they're doing," she said. "We're all in this together."
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