There isn’t anything funny about cancer but it did change my life and some of the changes, like wearing a wig on a windy day, were surprising. I once thought my wig had blown off and after searching for it under and around the car, I found it in the hood of the jacket I was wearing. A week later, I was filling up the gas tank on a windy day, and mindful of the previous experience, had one hand on the pump and the other on the top of my head. The man at the pump ahead of me commented, “Mighty windy today – good thing you’re not wearing a wig.”
I had been diagnosed with stage-3 breast cancer in November, 2009, had a mastectomy, and started chemo in January, 2010. Before my first chemo treatment, I had my head shaved and bought a couple of stylish wigs that were near my own hair color, grey, being in my 60’s. I liked my wigs; they made me look like I had finally found a competent hair stylist. The greeter at the Big Box Store where I often shop had never given me more than a cursory greeting before I showed up in one of my new wigs. Now he caught my eye with a merry twinkle in his own and a cheery “WELCOME to Big Box! Can I help you find anything?” his eyebrows bobbing up and down. Now, having the geezer at Big Box try to flirt with me is one, albeit small, compensation for going through chemo.
I began writing to friends via email about my experiences and realized that while some of what I was learning about cancer treatment and its side effects was scary as hell, some of it was a bizarre look at life and could be interpreted in several ways, one of them being to find the humor in it.
After telling my story about losing my wig, a friend reported that her older sister, also on chemo and wearing a wig, had a car accident. The impact wasn’t bad but hard enough to knock her wig off and onto the car floor, so when the other driver walked over to see if she was OK, she was bent over searching feverishly for her wig on the car floor. The other driver, seeing only a woman slumped over, opened the car door at which point her wig fell out on the pavement. The poor man was horrified thinking her head had rolled out of the car. That story was a gift.
People reacted in different ways to the news that I had cancer. I wanted to share what was happening to me in a way that would let them know that it was OK to talk about it, to ask questions, or to crack a joke. So I started looking for what was funny as well as what was serious. God knows there is enough that is serious about cancer and I had to know more than I ever wanted to in order to understand my treatment; but my friends didn’t. They wanted to know that I was OK.
I began reporting my experiences at the U of M in chemotherapy as a way of having something to do; a reason to pay attention to what was around me in the chemotherapy unit so that I had a story to tell. As I got settled into the comfy reclining chair and the nurse hooked me up to the meds, I would look for a theme or a story in that day’s experience around which I could frame a report. I didn’t watch the TV that hung from the ceiling; eavesdropping on the other patients and staff was much more interesting, like the lady with the hat that looked like she made it herself out of scraps of 70’s yellow shag carpet. Call the fashion police.
One of the instructions given to me in the “Skills Training” session prior to starting chemo was that while chemo causes fatigue, I should not take long naps, presumably because this would interfere with getting to sleep at night. I like Gandhi’s guidance better: “Eat when you are hungry; sleep when you are tired,” and that became my mantra. After concluding one email letter to friends in which I said I was off to take a nap, one responded that she would nap with me “in solidarity” and so the Nap Team was born.
Everyone wanted to help and so that is what I asked my readers to do; take naps for me and did they ever come through. Women friends got their husbands and children to take naps and reported on their “progress”. I really felt better knowing that people were taking naps for me. Some say that knowing people are praying for you helps. For me having the nap team taking naps or sleeping in on the weekends really made me feel better. I am not kidding about this.
You may not realize this – why would you? – But you need nose hair to make boogers. I bet you haven’t really thought about this, so take my word for it. After all my hair fell out, including eyebrows, eyelashes and nose hair, I had a constantly runny nose; nothing big, just drippy. It finally occurred to me that it is the nose hair that catches the drip and gives it a chance to dry. Is a runny nose funny? Maybe s’not.
