Some days take a turn for the better and seems it happens when you’re not still looking. Stare at a day all day and will it to change and what do you get? The same day you started with. Get out, make plans, busy yourself with something other than that day you weren’t thrilled with and what do you know, you have a new day on your hands.
Yesterday I was sitting at a counselor’s office – the free one you get with the diagnosis – bemoaning the fact that I’m terrified of losing my hair not helped by the fact that the wig lady at the hospital doesn’t have any openings in the near future. Folks, the hair is dying on the vine, ready to drop at any moment, and this girl needs a wig. Stat. Hearing my frustration, my counselor told me of another place. I got up, dried my tears and called them on my way out. Within a half hour, I heard back. They could see me within the hour.
Stopping for fifteen minutes to inhale a few fish tacos at my very favorite westside hole-in-the-wall, I next found myself in their chair trying on the only blonde wig in the room. It’s got bangs and is cut bizarrely short, yet in its defense, it’s just a demo for color and fit, both homeruns. With it on, even with my own frayed dying rat tails for hair dangling underneath it, I felt oddly good, like someone had wrapped a warm, high quality blanket around me. Yes, I realize with this “do” you could call me Florence Henderson, give me a fried drumstick in each fist and send me off into my own Wessonality commercial, but the real wig’s hair will be longer and by the time it comes in, my own dead hair will be history. I feel bad for it as it’s tried so hard to hang in there with me and stay in the game, but it’s just had enough. We knew chemo kills hair and we were right. 
Yesterday was a roller coaster ending on a high note meeting this woman who will help me finish out this hair chapter. I went to leave and she asked for a hug, like a mother pretending she needed it, but knowing it was me who did. She also had some health thing years ago and knows firsthand what it’s like to be on a hunt for hair. Not just hair, good hair.
Today I woke up with a plan. Feeling the dreadlock clumps my hair has morphed into, barely hanging on yet now void of any life, I up and ordered the wig. Check. Later on I had tentative plans to see a movie with a friend, which I kept, and we ducked into the dark theater, each with our own bag of popcorn. Decadently perfect. I felt so normal to be carefree and out at the movies with a girlfriend. I am normal.
Returning home, I walked into the kitchen to the most divine smell. And saw this. Another friend had said she’d make me a pot of her lovely kale white bean soup, and here it was, lovingly prepared, marvelously delicious and still warm, waiting for me in my refrigerator. Who gets this? Evidently, I do.
I’m beginning to trust how this all works. We inherently want to help each other and just need to know how or on the receiving end, need to trust that others will prop us up when we most need it. Need to ask them to and then let them. We can’t begin to presume how a given day will go, and there are nice surprises in store when we stop giving a day the reins and sit back only to watch it paralyze us. When you let people really see you, the sky’s the limit as to what you can accomplish, what you can give and what you can receive.
Lean into people if you need help, let them know how you’re stuck and what you need. We’re not here together to just fly solo when some days call for an entire fleet of copilots. Because sometimes there is turbulence.
I’m in the thick of it. No, not suddenly showered with the thick tresses I’ve wanted my whole life, but rather I’m in the thick of chemo. The twitching eyes, the mouth threatening to develop a sore if I don’t swish with mouthwash thrice daily, and then there’s the hair, which now resembles a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. With each step around my house, its needles fall, and it seems the tree’s trunk has weakened and bent over.
Why does our hair have to be such a thing? I was born bald and by all accounts a plenty cute and happy baby. Yet as my hair grew in as full sheets of cornsilk and as I grew, like many girls, I don’t think I appreciated what I had. My hair was whisper thin, though to its credit a bright natural blond, and over the years I grew to love it, especially since I didn’t need to color it, but for the two times I did foils just for fun. All my life, my hair’s sleek softness, shine and spirit has wrapped my head and shoulders in health and bounce and in some ways, I suppose I took that for granted, assumed it would always be there, a pretty veil covering the nape of my neck.
I feel a tad guilty about this vanity realizing I am lucky I’m even alive since my jarring discovery just three months ago. Still, I can’t wait until these drugs are done doing their thing and my hair and body can return to doing theirs, return to how they were, but that much stronger and better. Good hair days sure can carry you, help out a shabby wardrobe, dulling makeup, a bad mood. But good health, like a tall towering tree trunk, has the power to lift you like nothing else.
On my way out I saw a glorious sunrise, which filled me up. I had to buy ice and the locked box outside wouldn’t open with the key the gas station attendant gave me. Only the 20 pound bags were accessible and I wanted 10 which already my cooler wouldn’t hold. The attendant grudgingly came outside to help and me and she also couldn’t open it. Hoping she’d take pity on a running late girl and let me head out with the 20-pound bag having only paid for the 10, but no such luck. We had to go back inside and recharge my AmEx after I waited in line behind other customers. This extra 10-15 minutes cost me being on time and left me a tad frazzled. Got there with all my gear – my big Ikea bag carrying my weighted blanket (a godsend!), another soft blanket, my washed cotton bonnet which goes under the cold cap, the spray bottle to make sure head is soaked before starting cold cap, magazines, my lunch, steroids for morning and afternoon doses, socks for feet for icing, cooler for ice, containers to put my feet and hands in while icing and a hoodie and more socks. Got settled into a chair with my friend Elsie by my side and we began round 2.
Nurse struggled with IV for a long time telling me she’s trying to weave it in. Elsie looked over with concern seeing the nurse struggle and watching me whince. I reminded her to please just not look. I’m not going to as I never do, and I can’t handle the concerned looks as they bring worry to her face and to my mind. So we kept up some semblance of a conversation while the nurse kept poking my wrist from different angles and it didn’t seem like she was making any headway. All I could picture is she’s a novice crewel embroiderer (not cruel as she was super sweet) and is trying to do the satin stitch but instead working on some combination of it and a chain stitch, a frenetic criss-crossing of holes and angles, needle going in and popping back out at a strange angle. Had I looked I knew it would appear my wrist lost its battle with a box grater. I can say that it most assuredly hurt like hell. She suggested she get someone else to try to which I enthusiastically nodded yes, and another lady came by and switched to my right arm. This one took thankfully without too much embroidery gymnastics involved.
Re my hair, it did major shedding these last few days, as the cold cap folks warned, but it’s still there. Doctor thinks if I was going to lose it all it would be noticeable by now, so I think the cap might be working. They warn that you will have a good deal of shedding but don’t be alarmed as that’s normal around first and second treatments. It should taper off as I go on. These steroids have left me with English cheeks, that lovely flush you see in old fashioned paintings, but mine’s more intense and spread out.
Up today eating toast and drinking Gatorade. Pets all around and my dog has established a strange little nap routine, tucking her head under her mat. I’m feeling much much better. Graduated to a sweet potato and a little chicken. Last steroid this afternoon will be it until my next treatment so looking forward to no more big energy bursts and English cheeks, and settling into whatever this next round will bring. So much better to at least have experience of the first round and even this second. Anything goes with these crazy drugs and I’m good and ready. Despite a rough day yesterday, I am optimistic and thankful. It feels so good to have this behind me. Going through this you actually look forward to the next treatments. You want time to speed up and I’ve been filling mine with loads of things — good foods, a little TV, and some of my favorites have been loads of walks and talks. A handful of girlfriends have stayed in good touch and we’ve begun doing long walks. I started getting into that 10,000 steps thing using my health app on my iPhone. The other day I did a dog walk and two separate walks and talks with friends and that got me up to 6.4 miles! So fun and efficient to catch up with dear girl friends and travel all over town, in neighborhoods, downtown by stores, wherever. The conversation and our legs take us loads of places. Far better than sitting over a glass of wine like I used to do, though I do want to resume those, albeit sparingly.