A 60-year-old client came in a couple of days ago, scratching at an idea shared with her by a friend. "So maybe we're all just tiny fragments of a larger Something," she said, floating the idea aloud. "We live out our little life, but that life is a mere drop in an endless Ocean." I thought I heard capital letters.
She had my full attention. I love conversations like this. What's it all about? What might this Ocean be? What would it mean for her to be "a mere drop"? I was ready to go wherever she needed to go in this conversation. I nestled into my chair.
"So if I am just a drop bobbing along as part of a larger whole," she said, with some heaviness, "where's the rest?"
I ran with the ball, unaware that I had picked up the wrong one. For a minute or two, I waxed existential, wondering aloud about where we find the Rest of the Whole. Are there times when you feel connected to the Rest? I asked. Might there be some comfort in being a tiny fragment of a larger something? Can fragments be whole, too?
In my mind I am coming up with the best deep questions for this person: How do we figure out what we are meant to do with our piece of an infinite puzzle? When do you experience comfort in knowing that the rest exists, even though you can't see it?
She looked at me quizzically when I finally stopped talking and set the ball down, panting and bright-eyed, as I can get when sessions get existential. "No," she corrected me with a little pinch of her lips, the mouth's version of rolling its eyes. "I mean, where is the rest? When can I just rest?"
Oh. Rest. That's what I was hoping to offer you. Jeez, paula, I tell myself: Shut your larger something of a hole, and listen.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
all follicles reporting for duty
Being totally hairless was strange, but actually felt weirdest on the face. The face looks smooth on most women, but is of course wrapped in its (generally) discreet fleece at all times. I hadn't realized how hairy we womenfolk actually are. At the present time, I am practically growing sideburns. Move your head around in front of your screen so you can get the full effect. The new hairs are plentiful and dark. I am reminding myself of the movie "The Incredibly Shrinking Woman," in which, just before disappearing altogether, Lily Tomlin succeeds in reversing the shrinking process -- only to grow and grow until we see that instead of just coming back to her normal self, she is now uncontrollably increasing in size.
At this rate I will end up as hairy as a possum -- with the same combo of gray and black from head to toe, it seems. A possum comes to mind only because we just caught one about an hour ago and took it for a scenic drive to an undisclosed location. I hope it doesn't find its way back (it was hell trying to get that little blindfold to stay on), because it was eating our life savings in the cat's food. Also, whenever the dog spotted the possum on the porch, he would completely flip out and begin barking in tongues.
Anyway, the possum was hairy, like my face.
The family wants me to say that this is not noticeable to them. This is a kind family. It's just that someone needs to disclose that these things happen after chemo. Someone needs to tell you that every single hair follicle on your body closed up shop and patted its plot of land with a trowel during chemotherapy, to the extent that when hairs began to sprout again, they were all in-grown, having to break through holes in the skin that had been sealed for so long. I am routinely scrubbing my arms and legs with loofah gloves to try to open up the hair holes and unfurl the hairs that are stuck just beneath the skin. I am part hairy, part bumpy -- moving toward, it seems, being just plain hairy.
I want you to know, too, that the sensation of having nose hairs still feels very new. That's strange, isn't it? I had nose hairs for 54 years, then 4 months without, and I am still aware of the "new" feel. Why would that be? Since each exhale brings a noticeable sensation of air-wafting-through-something, it keeps feeling like maybe I have a fleck of nosina (no-zee-na, a family term) in there and that maybe it is showing. It's not (har), but I keep checking anyway.
Want to see something gross? That's how I've opened with the kids. Then I stick the spear part of a nail clipper all the way down under the big toenails. They're hanging on by the sides (the nails, not the kids), but there's nothing under the nail itself. The spear-under-nail effect is eye-popping and gratifying. Like a kid who can bend some joint in a weird way and gross out her friends.
I have several drafts of posts that I can't seem to bring to fullness. They're stuck beneath the surface, like all those hairs, and just can't seem to break through. These posts are about things that matter -- things like the recent auction of my dad's art collection, friendship, paradise, my work, wholeness, grief, all that. I don't know why the posts about follicles, nose hairs, and neuropathy come so easily, why the need to document these small things.
The neuropathy? Don't get me started. But isn't it strange that it builds for so long after chemo is over? It's like those scenes in roadrunner cartoons, where Wile E. Coyote is burnt to a crisp but stands there for a long moment, blinking and confused, before crumbling away.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
What have I done?
When I read Anne Melissa's comment on a recent post, I experimented aloud with several possible tones in her apt use of "WTF." I had used WTF in the post, but I think our tones in this were subtly different, and I strained to zoom in on the distinction. Anne Melissa, feel free to leave a phone message consisting only of how you hear the two "WTF"s. I will reciprocate with a message to your machine with my own rendition.
These tonal variations remind me of a pastime that my beloved sister, Ellen, and I played as kids.
We would take a simple sentence that one of us had said or heard, and then try every possible emphasis-related iteration of that sentence. " I had to sit on the couch." "I had to sit on the couch." "I had to sit on the couch." "I had to sit on the couch." "I had to sit on the couch."
I confess that we could do that for many minutes. It's how I learned to play with changing meaning through word emphasis, and how I learned what simply thudded, such as emphasizing articles: "I had to sit on the couch." Unless you really stretch for kind of a sinister meaning, Thud. No wonder Chinese took a pass on articles.
Anyway. What have I done? Inevitably, as I caretake myself back toward health, I now have the energy to second-guess my drastic, irreversible decisions. All that has lingered from surgery and chemo are signs of damage. I have begun to wonder if I have damaged my body more than the tumor warranted.
Did I just take an uzi to get at a mouse in the wall? All this collateral damage, for a 2.2 cm tumor? Could I have willed it away somehow instead? Could I have gotten at it with Reiki?
Between the long, vertical Caesarean section scar ("Yani's door," the family has always called it), the mastectomy scars, and the still kvetching port scar, I look pretty cut up. If Laura were to leave me, who would love this body? It's not that I am counting on attracting anyone with my body anymore (insert small snort here), but people are generally more drawn to those who have all their bits, aren't they?
It's really disconcerting that the neuropathy is worsening as time goes by, marching onward, swinging scythe to nerves almost 3 months post-chemo. At its most gentle, it is a matter of nerve damage that is creeping up my arms like invisible, arm-length gloves, mildly numbing me up to the pits. And it now has reached mid-thigh on its way upwards from the feet. It has reached the left side of my torso, but not yet the right. I scratch slowly along the margins of the numbness, trying to detect where normal sensation remains.
The numbness is creepy, but the stiffness is truly annoying. My hands are too stiff to hold a pen and write comfortably. And when I get up in the middle of the night, I can barely walk for the stiffness in my feet. I do not embellish here: I walk like I am channeling Marcel Marceau, who is parodying a tottering old woman. It's got that layer of the absurd in there somehow.
After stretching out during the walk to the bathroom, I've loosened up a bit. The walk back to bed is easier, and I almost feel like I should do some 2:00 a.m.-type errands before my feet lock up again.
The first trip down the stairs in the morning is ridiculous. I double step on each stair. On the stairs it is no longer the mime and the tottering old woman. Having to plant both feet on each stair, I feel like I ought to be carrying a blankie and sucking my thumb, heading down for bwekfuss. I am in the course of each day acting out the whole life cycle.
It crosses my mind, though, that if chemo is still killing nerves, it must still be able to kill cancer cells. I try to comfort myself with this thought. But it troubles me that sometimes neuropathy remains forever, and that there is little to be done other than to wait and see if it does. Oh, I'm doing my best to invite healing - from acupuncture to B vitamins to getting good exercise, but it may be that those things can't cajole the nerves into regenerating, ever.
Alas, I haven't felt any positive effects from the acupuncture, except for the sweet catnap that I get when Stan leaves the room while he lets the needles do they thang. I had wanted to be sold on Chinese medicine, once and for all. I'm not there yet, and I am disappointed to have to acknowledge that.
I'm going through a little self-conscious something with my concave chest, too. I haven't felt a need to say anything about it up to this point, since the baldness was a clear signal that something was up. But as my hair grows back, and people aren't so sure, I feel more awkward. Is she ill, or does she just have extremely short, thinning hair? And I know some people will continually wonder, surreptitiously glancing to see -- wait a second, does she have boobs?
I anticipate wanting to work in an explanation as I encounter people, but it will never be appropriate. "Hi, I'm paula. I had to remove my breasts.""I had to remove my breasts." "I had to remove my breasts." "I had to remove my breasts." "I had to remove my breasts."
As I listen to the tones of all of those, the one that stings my eyes now is this one: "I had to remove my breasts."
These tonal variations remind me of a pastime that my beloved sister, Ellen, and I played as kids.
We would take a simple sentence that one of us had said or heard, and then try every possible emphasis-related iteration of that sentence. " I had to sit on the couch." "I had to sit on the couch." "I had to sit on the couch." "I had to sit on the couch." "I had to sit on the couch."
I confess that we could do that for many minutes. It's how I learned to play with changing meaning through word emphasis, and how I learned what simply thudded, such as emphasizing articles: "I had to sit on the couch." Unless you really stretch for kind of a sinister meaning, Thud. No wonder Chinese took a pass on articles.
Anyway. What have I done? Inevitably, as I caretake myself back toward health, I now have the energy to second-guess my drastic, irreversible decisions. All that has lingered from surgery and chemo are signs of damage. I have begun to wonder if I have damaged my body more than the tumor warranted.
Did I just take an uzi to get at a mouse in the wall? All this collateral damage, for a 2.2 cm tumor? Could I have willed it away somehow instead? Could I have gotten at it with Reiki?
Between the long, vertical Caesarean section scar ("Yani's door," the family has always called it), the mastectomy scars, and the still kvetching port scar, I look pretty cut up. If Laura were to leave me, who would love this body? It's not that I am counting on attracting anyone with my body anymore (insert small snort here), but people are generally more drawn to those who have all their bits, aren't they?
It's really disconcerting that the neuropathy is worsening as time goes by, marching onward, swinging scythe to nerves almost 3 months post-chemo. At its most gentle, it is a matter of nerve damage that is creeping up my arms like invisible, arm-length gloves, mildly numbing me up to the pits. And it now has reached mid-thigh on its way upwards from the feet. It has reached the left side of my torso, but not yet the right. I scratch slowly along the margins of the numbness, trying to detect where normal sensation remains.
The numbness is creepy, but the stiffness is truly annoying. My hands are too stiff to hold a pen and write comfortably. And when I get up in the middle of the night, I can barely walk for the stiffness in my feet. I do not embellish here: I walk like I am channeling Marcel Marceau, who is parodying a tottering old woman. It's got that layer of the absurd in there somehow.
After stretching out during the walk to the bathroom, I've loosened up a bit. The walk back to bed is easier, and I almost feel like I should do some 2:00 a.m.-type errands before my feet lock up again.
The first trip down the stairs in the morning is ridiculous. I double step on each stair. On the stairs it is no longer the mime and the tottering old woman. Having to plant both feet on each stair, I feel like I ought to be carrying a blankie and sucking my thumb, heading down for bwekfuss. I am in the course of each day acting out the whole life cycle.
It crosses my mind, though, that if chemo is still killing nerves, it must still be able to kill cancer cells. I try to comfort myself with this thought. But it troubles me that sometimes neuropathy remains forever, and that there is little to be done other than to wait and see if it does. Oh, I'm doing my best to invite healing - from acupuncture to B vitamins to getting good exercise, but it may be that those things can't cajole the nerves into regenerating, ever.
Alas, I haven't felt any positive effects from the acupuncture, except for the sweet catnap that I get when Stan leaves the room while he lets the needles do they thang. I had wanted to be sold on Chinese medicine, once and for all. I'm not there yet, and I am disappointed to have to acknowledge that.
I'm going through a little self-conscious something with my concave chest, too. I haven't felt a need to say anything about it up to this point, since the baldness was a clear signal that something was up. But as my hair grows back, and people aren't so sure, I feel more awkward. Is she ill, or does she just have extremely short, thinning hair? And I know some people will continually wonder, surreptitiously glancing to see -- wait a second, does she have boobs?
I anticipate wanting to work in an explanation as I encounter people, but it will never be appropriate. "Hi, I'm paula. I had to remove my breasts.""I had to remove my breasts." "I had to remove my breasts." "I had to remove my breasts." "I had to remove my breasts."
As I listen to the tones of all of those, the one that stings my eyes now is this one: "I had to remove my breasts."
Friday, July 2, 2010
watercolor
My hair feels like a Chinese watercolor brush. I've probably damaged a few of those in my time, fondling the soft brushes that Pop had rinsed and set down to dry. I'd flick them along my cheek. So soft.
It's funny, this point along my cancer ride. I am noticing that I feel like I would deserve more attention if I were to have a recurrence of the cancer; that is, that I deserve less as I return to health. A recurrence would make for more interesting reading, wouldn't it? A couple of publishers are glancing at the blog, I hear tell. Who wants to read about nothing happening, just hair growing back, pointed and soft? Who wants to read a story with no clear ending?
I've actually noticed that I find great comfort in being among crowds of people now. Wandering among the masses, strolling along a street, I can see that most people don't have cancer. I like taking that in: Huh. Most people are pretty healthy. It feels good to be reminded in this way that my situation is unusual. For reasons I can't articulate, when you have cancer, you forget that, and start to wonder if illness is the norm, that it's gonna gitcha.
I still am on intimate terms with fatigue, though that is so much better than it was. The neuropathy in my hands and feet remains a drag, especially as it turns out that it peaks around 3-5 months after chemo ends. Well, bust my buttons -- no one told me that. I see the good people of the clinic waving goodbye to me, waving to each chemo patient as she finishes treatment. When the door closes, they tiptoe over to the window to watch me drive away. They sigh with relief when I am out of sight, having escaped having to tell me that the neuropathy would get worse for quite awhile. Nothing to be done, but it would have been nice to know, nice not to have to google "neuropathy: WTF."
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Stan the acupuncturist
I went to see an acupuncturist yesterday. Stan. Stan the acupuncturist. Imagine that.
I went to Stan for help with the neuropathy in my hands and feet, hoping to invite the nerves that may have died to choose rebirth. He put needles in here and there, felt my various pulses, checked my tongue, asked about what I eat -- all those good Chinese medicine things. All seemed copacetic with my chi at that point. I'm thinking he's going to be impressed by my chi, in fact. But he tsked and tutted once he probed pressure points around my shoulders and neck (ai ya! as they say in Chinese -- it hurt). Stan queried me about my activity levels, then informed me that I am getting too much aerobic exercise.
He looked at me kindly, but as he spoke I could tell that he thought he was stating the obvious: "You are supposed to be getting rest." He advised me to run 2 miles instead of 3, to do more yoga, to take more naps, to get back to my meditation practice.
Stan said that the whole idea of Chinese medicine is that below the dantien, the physical center of gravity, one's chi should be strong, grounded. Above the dantien, one's chi should be light, clear, flowing. He says my chi is too heavy above my dantien, and that I'm not helping things by how active I've been, how little I am resting. If energy gets clogged up in one's chest and head, sometimes tumors appear. Also, that heavy energy may be behind the damned nose warts! Sold! That's all I needed to hear.
Resting turns out to be pretty difficult, though, as does making the energy in my shoulders, neck, and head "light and clear." I still live by my to-do list -- I like my list. I am like a happy kid in a marching band, with the music propped in front of her. I'm having a good time, but I'm following the notes, and maybe I am marching more than is good for my upper chi.
It's not like my list is heavy, thoiugh. Today includes "weed garden, pick up petals, water houseplants, meditate, run, call electrician, fix front step, call Elizabeth, go to organic farm." Come on, this makes one's head chi heavy?
How can I be lighter, clearer in my upper chi? Probably not by thinking about it too much, but thinking is one of the melodic themes in the music dangling in front of me -- has been for as long as I can remember.
Anyway, I am working on lightening up my upper body chi. Back to Stan in a couple weeks. Stay tuned; stay light, stay clear. Send upper body chi pointers if you have them.
Full disclosure in closing: It's true that I've stopped meditating regularly since all these twenty-somethings have moved into the house. It's been fun to have them around, but it's harder for me to find quiet time. There's a lot of activity, tidying up, talking, directing traffic. Plus these people are like locusts, except they take longer showers.
I went to Stan for help with the neuropathy in my hands and feet, hoping to invite the nerves that may have died to choose rebirth. He put needles in here and there, felt my various pulses, checked my tongue, asked about what I eat -- all those good Chinese medicine things. All seemed copacetic with my chi at that point. I'm thinking he's going to be impressed by my chi, in fact. But he tsked and tutted once he probed pressure points around my shoulders and neck (ai ya! as they say in Chinese -- it hurt). Stan queried me about my activity levels, then informed me that I am getting too much aerobic exercise.
He looked at me kindly, but as he spoke I could tell that he thought he was stating the obvious: "You are supposed to be getting rest." He advised me to run 2 miles instead of 3, to do more yoga, to take more naps, to get back to my meditation practice.
Stan said that the whole idea of Chinese medicine is that below the dantien, the physical center of gravity, one's chi should be strong, grounded. Above the dantien, one's chi should be light, clear, flowing. He says my chi is too heavy above my dantien, and that I'm not helping things by how active I've been, how little I am resting. If energy gets clogged up in one's chest and head, sometimes tumors appear. Also, that heavy energy may be behind the damned nose warts! Sold! That's all I needed to hear.
Resting turns out to be pretty difficult, though, as does making the energy in my shoulders, neck, and head "light and clear." I still live by my to-do list -- I like my list. I am like a happy kid in a marching band, with the music propped in front of her. I'm having a good time, but I'm following the notes, and maybe I am marching more than is good for my upper chi.
It's not like my list is heavy, thoiugh. Today includes "weed garden, pick up petals, water houseplants, meditate, run, call electrician, fix front step, call Elizabeth, go to organic farm." Come on, this makes one's head chi heavy?
How can I be lighter, clearer in my upper chi? Probably not by thinking about it too much, but thinking is one of the melodic themes in the music dangling in front of me -- has been for as long as I can remember.
Anyway, I am working on lightening up my upper body chi. Back to Stan in a couple weeks. Stay tuned; stay light, stay clear. Send upper body chi pointers if you have them.
Full disclosure in closing: It's true that I've stopped meditating regularly since all these twenty-somethings have moved into the house. It's been fun to have them around, but it's harder for me to find quiet time. There's a lot of activity, tidying up, talking, directing traffic. Plus these people are like locusts, except they take longer showers.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
first things first
This is the kind of thing one learns only by having chemo: nose hairs grow in more quickly than head hairs. Nose hairs grow to their full length as fast as a chia pet -- then they stop, praise Be. What a mess it would be otherwise.
Though not all my head-hair follicles are visibly at work yet, I now have my full quota of nose hairs. Clearly evolution has conveyed to the body that this is the first order of business: filter the air first -- worry about covering the scalp later.
When they fell, nose hairs stole away like thieves in the night. I never saw one hair on all the kleenices I blew into during chemo. And that's a lot of kleenex, since chemo removes the washer from the nasal faucet. If the hairs didn't come off upon nose-blowing, it leaves me wondering -- did I inhale them? Did they fall off during an air puff over a witticism while I was reading? Are they hither and thither on rugs around the house?
Well. The upshot is that my nose drips more slowly now by virtue of these new plantings on the nasal hill. It still drips, but I can usually catch it in time, if you know what I mean.
While we're surveying the upper acreage, here is a shot of my eyebrows coming in. These hairs are very short, but promising. With the eyebrows it went entirely down to the wire, literally. Until yesterday, there was just one (relatively) long, wiry hair still standing from the old eyebrows. While the new stuff has been growing in, that one hair has been like a grand old mature oak tree you see in a forest, surrounded by spindly maple saplings. Anyway, the old oak fell sometime last night. Now it's all saplings.
Lastly, here is the pate. It's not quite the romantic horizon shot I achieved in the previous post, but this way I can show that there are finally some dark hairs coming in. The new hair is as soft as a duckling, and once you touch it you can't stop. I'm telling you. I just spent five minutes rubbing it back and forth while deciding what to write. Now I feel all peaceful and sleepy. It's like rubbing your blankie when you were a kid.
Soon I'll be writing about our We Could Have but We Didn't Weekend, where we ducked out (more ducks!) of the American Cancer Society We Can Weekend and instead went to Gloucester. Oh! Just lost another few minutes rubbing my head. Everyone in the house is touching my hair (head hair, not nose) all the time, oohing over its softness. I feel like I could make a pret-ty penny standing out on Main Street, charging people for the chance to rub my head for good luck and comfort.
Except for the cancer thing, I guess, which tends to creep people out.
When they fell, nose hairs stole away like thieves in the night. I never saw one hair on all the kleenices I blew into during chemo. And that's a lot of kleenex, since chemo removes the washer from the nasal faucet. If the hairs didn't come off upon nose-blowing, it leaves me wondering -- did I inhale them? Did they fall off during an air puff over a witticism while I was reading? Are they hither and thither on rugs around the house?
Well. The upshot is that my nose drips more slowly now by virtue of these new plantings on the nasal hill. It still drips, but I can usually catch it in time, if you know what I mean.
Soon I'll be writing about our We Could Have but We Didn't Weekend, where we ducked out (more ducks!) of the American Cancer Society We Can Weekend and instead went to Gloucester. Oh! Just lost another few minutes rubbing my head. Everyone in the house is touching my hair (head hair, not nose) all the time, oohing over its softness. I feel like I could make a pret-ty penny standing out on Main Street, charging people for the chance to rub my head for good luck and comfort.
Except for the cancer thing, I guess, which tends to creep people out.
Friday, June 4, 2010
homebody, incurable, part 2
The kids, Laura, and I were scheduled to take part in the upcoming "We Can Weekend" sponsored by the American Cancer Society. This was going to repair my group experience at Stowe Weekend of Hope, from which I returned feeling acutely aware of my sometimes too solitary nature. I felt kind of like a -- what are some solitary animals? Wikipedia says: leopards, jaguars, almost all spiders, most species of rhinoceros, polar bears (except for mating), the maned sloth. Not much to work with. Certainly nothing maned. At Stowe I felt like a rhino at an elephant party. No offense to the very kind elephants who were enjoying the group experience.
Anyway, the kids were willing to go with us on this weekend designed to support the cancer survivor and her family. It offered groups for, among others, young adult "children," where they could talk about the impact the cancer has had on their own lives. I thought maybe that would be good for the kids, good for me, good for Laura. But as the time approaches, we all feel like doing something unprogrammed as a family might be better. And we already talk about cancer a lot. So we backed out. Homebody, still and again.
One thing, though, would have sent us to the Hell Yes We Can Weekend, homebodiness or no. Laura had an ultrasound on both breasts early this morning; she got called back after her mammogram two weeks ago. We exhaled around 8:30, chests pumping from holding our breaths for ten days. All clear. Her breasts are pretty bulky, so we saw all kinds of things in the ultrasound -- cysts, fat globules, my favorite striped sock, and that missing earring I wrote about in December.
Needless to say, we are relieved, as we had been entertaining some weird fantasies about being the bald and breastless lesbians walking together down Main Street, Farmington. Aside from being scary, painful, and extremely inconvenient, it would have been creepy to have Laura hit with cancer, too.
Despite our relief, Laura confessed that there was a part of her that had been curious to know what I have gone through. There is no thought that is so weird I can't imagine having it cross my own mind, so I understood this. Surely we all hold an innate curiosity about experiences, particularly things that test our mettle. How would we each cope, we wonder, given any conceivable trial that others have faced?
Truth be told, I haven't felt great about my mettle. I had hoped I'd be more of a brick through chemo; less needy of attention and sympathy, less fascinated by symptoms, less anxious about the whole thing. Maybe even more of a rhino, in some ways. The elephant in me came through more than I wanted it to. I like the sociable pachyderm in me, but am not always as accepting of the elephant that is clinging anxiously to the tail in front of it.
Here's an almost pastoral shot of my cranial horizon, hair slowly rising. The furrows in the foreground show you I am smiling.
Anyway, the kids were willing to go with us on this weekend designed to support the cancer survivor and her family. It offered groups for, among others, young adult "children," where they could talk about the impact the cancer has had on their own lives. I thought maybe that would be good for the kids, good for me, good for Laura. But as the time approaches, we all feel like doing something unprogrammed as a family might be better. And we already talk about cancer a lot. So we backed out. Homebody, still and again.
One thing, though, would have sent us to the Hell Yes We Can Weekend, homebodiness or no. Laura had an ultrasound on both breasts early this morning; she got called back after her mammogram two weeks ago. We exhaled around 8:30, chests pumping from holding our breaths for ten days. All clear. Her breasts are pretty bulky, so we saw all kinds of things in the ultrasound -- cysts, fat globules, my favorite striped sock, and that missing earring I wrote about in December.
Needless to say, we are relieved, as we had been entertaining some weird fantasies about being the bald and breastless lesbians walking together down Main Street, Farmington. Aside from being scary, painful, and extremely inconvenient, it would have been creepy to have Laura hit with cancer, too.
Despite our relief, Laura confessed that there was a part of her that had been curious to know what I have gone through. There is no thought that is so weird I can't imagine having it cross my own mind, so I understood this. Surely we all hold an innate curiosity about experiences, particularly things that test our mettle. How would we each cope, we wonder, given any conceivable trial that others have faced?
Truth be told, I haven't felt great about my mettle. I had hoped I'd be more of a brick through chemo; less needy of attention and sympathy, less fascinated by symptoms, less anxious about the whole thing. Maybe even more of a rhino, in some ways. The elephant in me came through more than I wanted it to. I like the sociable pachyderm in me, but am not always as accepting of the elephant that is clinging anxiously to the tail in front of it.
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