Head Trip

wig heads

In September 2012, I was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of uterine cancer. Treatment was successful, and I am happy to report that I am cancer-free and doing well. I wrote for a private circle of friends and family about my experiences at the time, and am now sharing some of my musings here. 

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My husband and I spent the first night of our honeymoon 27 years ago in a beautiful bed and breakfast overlooking Napa Valley. It was high on a hill, had a fabulous hot tub, and served scrumptious banana bread for breakfast. The owners, however, made us very nervous—their bookshelves were filled with far-right Christian literature and books favorable to the Third Reich. When we opened the closet in our room, a Styrofoam lady’s head jabbed with a hat pin fell out.

I thought of that head when I went to check out the free wig program at the American Cancer Society. The office was abrim with white Styrofoam heads, all with blank eyes and wigs that looked like wigs. Another layer of pretending to have the same life I’ve always had fell away as I surveyed my options. Exactly one wig matched my hair color, even sort of resembling its texture and style.

Everything I’ve read since googling “Chemo hair loss” has advised not to wait till my hair starts to fall out. One site was especially helpful in propelling me into action. It essentially said, “You will lose your hair. Don’t waste any time in denial, hoping you won’t.” Being proactive gives you a sense of control, not to mention an actual hair color and style to approximate. At least I hoped to match my current look—the photos of henna’d scalps or jaunty stories about women with cancer trying out fun new colors and styles left me cold, even with my still-full head of hair.

Before my Google search, my research had consisted of reading strong, sexy, savvy stories in More Magazine. Fortuitously, given my recent initiation into the cancer club, there was a personal essay by Jenny Allen called The Cat on My Head, about her headgear choices during chemo.

Allen’s tale was truly hair-raising. First, there were the prices–$5,000-$6,000 for a human hair wig, though she guiltily settled for one that cost only $900, made from the hair of exploited women from India. In Allen’s world, synthetic wigs didn’t even merit consideration. Although the wig looked great, Allen didn’t like it. Instead she proudly chose fabulous scarves after stashing her wig in the back of a dresser drawer.

This story depressed me more than my diagnosis, more than leaving the hospital after surgery with a catheter. Luckily, my friend who was a few months ahead of me in the chemo circuit told me that her wig cost $150, and that synthetic wigs are now considered preferable and easier to manage than those made from human hair.

So that’s how I ended up at the Cancer Society, where cheerful volunteers stood ready to hand out free wigs without so much as demanding a doctor’s note to verify that I did indeed have cancer rather than a Halloween party to attend!

The volunteer and I quickly agreed on the one wig that sort of matched my hair color and style. As a person who has always been hair-illiterate—I sleep on it wet and barely know how to use a blow dryer—I didn’t even realize I had a style. But I quickly saw that even a bad hair day on a person who favors $20 cuts from non-English-speakers is more stylish than what awaited me. I stuffed my real hair into what looked like a very short stocking, joking that I could use the hairnet for bank robberies, too.

“Everyone says that,” remarked the Cancer Society volunteer.

Great. I am not just losing my reproductive organs and my hair, but apparently all claims to cleverness and originality.

My wig, despite More Magazine’s clever title, did not look like a cat on my head. It looked like a rabid squirrel pelt, if the squirrel happened to be dirty blonde going gray right before meeting its demise. The wig sat awkwardly and hung limply. Worse, I realized that I would soon have bangs, because that’s what hides the mesh nylon edges. I don’t want bangs—it reminds me of a childhood under my mother’s sewing shears as she tried to turn me into Julie Andrews. I don’t want cancer, either. But I don’t have a choice. I guess I’ll give this pelt a try.

The volunteer gave me a wire stand instead of one of the Styrofoam heads. She must have heard about my honeymoon.

*

After a visit to a stylist and lots of practice, I became quite fond of my wig. As one friend put it, “It just looks like you finally learned to use a blow dryer.” Here I am in my wig,  three months after completing chemo: 

wig

And here I am back in my own hair now, a mass of grey curls:

post chemo hair

 

 

 

Losing the Crazy

bathroom scaleCancer has touched a lot of things in my life, but not my obsession with food and weight. I used to keep a lid on these neuroses more, trying hard not to ruin my daughters. But when the girls reached the truly crucial ages of 10 and 13, I blew it all up by joining Weight Watchers, sacrificing their health for my own as I tracked points and talked incessantly about food and weight. I managed to lose 25 pounds and have kept most of it off most of the past 11 years. Every New Year’s our family has a ritual of writing out our hopes for the coming year and the high and low points of the year just passed. For years my daughters’ “Low” lists were topped by “Mommy talking about points,” until they grew old enough to rebel against the ritual altogether.

But inadvertent ruination of one’s children is not my focus here. I just want to set the scene for my first reaction upon learning I had uterine cancer. Thinking initially it was the “No big deal” kind requiring just a hysterectomy with maybe a dollop of radiation, my only concern was how long I’d be laid low by surgery. “Three weeks’ recovery from a hysterectomy,” replied the doctor.

“Oh, shit! I won’t be able to hike for three weeks! I’ll gain weight!” was my only thought. (I had just spent the entire summer losing 9 pounds acquired during a month-long vacation and several late-night, at-home rendezvous with open bags of chocolate chips.)

By the next day, I knew I had the bigger-deal kind of uterine cancer. As I shared my diagnosis and crazy initial reaction with my friend Ruth, she said, “No, you’ll be getting chemo—you’ll lose weight.”

“Oh, good!” I thought.

You need to fast 24 hours before surgery, so when I stepped on the Kaiser scale the morning of my hysterectomy, the number for once did not lead me to ponder how much heavier street clothes are than nightgowns. Or whether that second helping of cake was really such a good idea. In fact, the surgeon told my husband that the procedure had taken longer than usual because it was difficult to maneuver given that “she’s so thin.”

So thin! Could I get that in writing? Could cancer be worth the steep admission price?

It’s one thing to lose the weight, quite another to lose the crazy.

*

In September 2012, I was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of uterine cancer. Treatment was successful, and I am happy to report that I am cancer-free and doing well. By the way, I gained five pounds during the course of chemo . . . 

 

Bucket List

Bucket

A speaker I once heard said, “The key to happiness is wanting what you have, not having what you want.”

I thought about this a lot after I was diagnosed last year with a rare and aggressive form of uterine cancer. Suddenly I knew I wanted the life I already have–just more of it.

Right before they wheeled me away for a full hysterectomy, I turned to my husband, Jonathan. I expected to wake up from surgery, but you never know.

“I don’t really have a bucket list,” I told Jonathan, “Because I’ve already had everything I’ve ever wanted—this great life with you, our girls. . . ” I did not add that the things I still longed for were beyond my control—seeing our daughters settle into adulthood, spoiling our future grandchildren with too much chocolate.

Almost a year before my cancer diagnosis, Jonathan and I had stood in line at the Marsh Theater Box Office to pick up our tickets for Marga Gomez’s solo comedy show, “Not Getting Any Younger.” The woman in front of us had the bloat and stubbled hair of someone for whom chemo has nothing left to offer. She lived in the neighborhood, and had just spontaneously dropped by to see if she could catch the show.

“I’m afraid we’re all sold out,” the man behind the ticket counter told her. “But our run has been extended, so you should come back!”

“I’m not sure my run will be extended,” the woman replied.

“Hang on,” said the man, waving her to the side, then disappearing for a moment. He came back and fetched our tickets from the Will Call box, and we went to find our seats in the tiny, crammed theater.

Just before the show began, someone came in and set up a folding chair on the edge of the stage. The woman whose run was up sat down.

I watched her almost as much as I watched the show. She, like all of us, nearly fell out of her chair laughing as Marga Gomez switched from character to character chronicling the vagaries of aging.

Sometimes it seems unimaginative how little I thirst after adventure. But looking at the woman whose bloated face was beaming, I realized that I’d want to be like her if I knew I had limited time. Not off climbing peaks or having peak experiences in foreign lands. But to be right in my own neighborhood, among friends and loved ones, laughing my ass off.

*

I’m fine now, no longer contemplating a limited engagement. What would you want if you knew time was running out?

 

 

 

 

You Are Not Alone

Picasso's Blue Nude

In September 2012,  I was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of uterine cancer. Treatment was successful, and I am happy to report that I am cancer-free and doing well. I wrote for a private circle of friends and family about my experiences at the time, and am now sharing some of my musings here. 

Two packages arrive today. One, from my friend Gale, is a CD called “preparing for surgery: guided imagery exercises for relaxation and accelerated healing.” I wonder about the all-lowercase title. Is it meant to be soothing and low-key, the typesetting equivalent of hushed tones? Or reminiscent of ee cummings from decades ago, when none of us worried about preparing for surgery?

The other package, from my friend Mary, also contains information about surgery preparation, including another CD. “Successful Surgery and Recovery” promises to help me “LEARN AUTOGENIC PRESURGICAL TECHNIQUES, MINIMIZE COMPLICATIONS, ENHANCE THE HEALING RESPONSE, CONTROL POST-OPERATIVE PAIN.” The full caps are even more alarming.

I’ve told my friends, By all means, bring it on–send me anything you think will be helpful. I am open to all resources, good wishes, prayers, and casseroles. But now that the material has arrived, I think, Get this stuff out of here! I do not wish it in my life. More accurately, I do not wish to have cancer and the kind of life that requires knowing what “AUTOGENIC” means.

Mary has enclosed a card. It’s orange and red and grey, with a picture of a smiling little girl with straight-cut bangs holding a cake. (Mary and I are both good bakers, and know how to deliver comfort by creaming butter and sugar.) The front of the card says “shine a light where it’s dark and scary,” and my goodness, hasn’t cake often been that kind of light?

Inside the card Mary has written, in her beautiful Catholic-school cursive:

 Hope some of this ‘shines a light.’ You are, of course, in my thoughts and prayers. Get better soon!!!

The last thing I pull from Mary’s care package is another booklet: “You Are Not Alone: A Guide for Women Newly Diagnosed with Cancer.”

I burst into tears.

 

Ten Minutes

Diet Coke can

“Did you know that every Diet Coke takes 10 minutes off your life?” my daughters asked.

Their campaign to break my habit reminded me of myself at their age, on a crusade to get my mother to stop smoking three packs a day. My daughters never tried to flush my Diet Coke down the toilet, as I often did with my mother’s cigarettes, but their worry was the same. And although I generally only quaffed a can a day and did not poison them with second-hand backwash, I was the same as my mother: I ignored the concerns of my loved ones.

“Ten minutes!” I replied. “So what?”

I did a quick calculation. If I drank one Diet Coke a day for 40 years to come, that would mean 101 days off of my life. Double that, to allow for hyper-caffeinated days plus all the diet soda I’d imbibed since adolescence till this moment of truth with my adolescents. We were still only talking about 202 days off the long life I envisioned ahead of me.

“That’s way less than a year!” I told my daughters. “It’s worth it.”

Years passed as I merrily sipped away. Then I was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of uterine cancer. Different calculations preoccupied me: Would I see my daughters marry? Get to babysit their children? Make it to my youngest daughter’s graduation from college in a few months? How long till Christmas? I craved every one of those 202 days I’d been so blithely willing to forfeit. Every ten minutes might help me reach some important milestone.

I swore off Diet Coke the day I was diagnosed, and haven’t touched a drop since. It’s not that I think it caused my cancer (“If only figuring out what causes cancer were that easy!” said my Kaiser nutritionist). Since Diet Coke was about my only vice if you don’t count chocolate, I spend very little time blaming myself. Cancer happens. To a lot of us.

Since those dark early days, I’ve learned that my cancer was detected at the earliest possible stage, and that my prognosis is excellent. I should have many, many good years ahead of me. But they’ll be free of Diet Coke.

It’s my pledge to my daughters. I can’t promise them that I won’t eventually succumb—to something, if not cancer. But I can promise to give up Diet Coke.