Tag: cancer

The Thing About the Hair

So I’m addicted to Top 10/20/100/500 lists. Every time Rolling Stone magazine lists top x amount hip hop songs or albums of the rock era or guitarists, I’m all over it. When VH-1 shows top one hit wonders of the 90s or whatever, I tune in, even if I’ve seen it before. So the other day I was watching for the umpteenth time top shocking moments in music—you know, like that time Ozzy bit the head off a dove, or when R. Kelly got arrested for sex with a minor, and all the horrible deaths of icons. Of course, high on this list is that time Britney Spears left rehab and went directly on to shave her head, and then a few days later, attack a photographer with something (an umbrella maybe?) looking especially crazy with that bald head.

I thought, man, when I shaved my head after my second chemo infusion, I wish I’d had the energy to reenact that scene, maybe record it, put it on Youtube. In fact, a friend of mine, in an effort to cheer me up when I called him to say “well, my head is shaved,” said, “good, come over and let’s reenact that time Sinead O’Connor tore up a picture of the Pope on SNL.” If I had not been so nauseous all the time, I totally would have done it. I LOVE to rip pieces of paper in half and yell dramatically (still do, but now I have hair). Lots of my lesbian acquaintances loved my G.I. Jane look, and the gay men loved it too. One man rubbed my head and said joyously, “you look like a little boy!”  Argh, flashback to kindergarten, my mother always kept my fine, thin hair short, and a little boy said to me one day, “you look like a little boy!” I cried and cried (give me a break, I was 4). The man’s words sent me spinning back to that awful moment for a split second, until it dawned on me “oh wait, this is a compliment, he likes my boyish new look.” Yeah, that was definitely one of my stranger cancer moments.

As I progressed from little kid to teen, my fine, thin hair became coarse, curly to the point of bushy-like so I kept it long to weigh down and eliminate some of the curl. It was half way down my back in college, and as I grew older, I kept it trimmed, but a strange thing happened. It seemed to get to my shoulders, and stop growing. No matter how long I went without a trim, it just refused to get any longer, to get back to my college era glorious length. I worried as my hair returned after cancer if my hair would do that reach-a-point-and-stop thing again. And I desperately need the length. When my hair finally reached the 2-4 inches length, I began to resemble Willy Wonka-era Gene Wilder. I’m a bit past that with the hair growth now, but it is not as long as it was when I shaved it, and it is still very curly. I look forward to that going away.

Hair is a big deal in cancer world. Some women fear the loss of their hair more than the loss of their breast(s). Not I, but that’s another post. I heard a lot of “it’s just hair, your health is more important, so you have to endure it to get the healing chemo” type of comments. For me, the issue wasn’t the actual hair, it was what it meant: my normal, pre-cancer, healthy life. Before cancer, the first thing I did each morning as I woke up was throw it into a ponytail to keep it out of my face as I made coffee, walked the dog, etc. After I shaved it, each morning I sleepily reached up to put my hair in a ponytail, and was immediately shocked into the reality of “I have cancer”. Without my hair, it was like I never had even a split second of respite from the knowledge of cancer and my mortality.

The unruliness of my freshly re-grown hair, along with numerous other marks and pains residing in and on my body, are constant reminders of what happened to me, and the fact that it might happen again, and if and when it does, that it might kill me. I did my best at the time to be lighthearted about it, to joke that I’d become Britney, Sinead, and Demi, but as I got further along in treatment and the “whole cancer thing”, my sense of humor about it diminished. Well, my sense of socially acceptable humor, anyway—I still like tumor humor, but some folks, especially those not directly involved with cancer, don’t like it. So thanks to all y’all who make “you look great” comments about the newly shaved cancer patient’s ‘do, but remember some patients don’t like the look, and I don’t think you’d be willing to shave your head unless you had to.

P.S. Attention Film Industry, Hollywood: When you make a movie including a character with cancer, it’s “nice” they shave their heads (ahem, being a tiny bit sarcastic here). But understand that chemo causes HAIR LOSS, not BALD HEAD. That means all hair. Yes all of it. Even the hair on your special place and your eyebrows. So at least have actors thin out the eyebrows for crying out loud. I’m looking at you Joseph Gordon-Levitt (50/50) and Emma Thompson (Wit). Both great actors (I love you Joe!), but grow a pair and really show us hair loss. And you should probably keep your pants on for the role.

Clarification on Earlier Post about Stress & Cancer

I post on a number of blog sites, and I recently posted—on all the sites I use—Art Therapy and Mindfulness Training Lower Stress in Breast Cancer Patients. Basically I posted a link to the article on HuffPost, along with the comments I left on HuffPost’s comment section. I’ve experienced some strange reactions, which I might discuss in a later post. I may have gone off on the article “half-cocked”, but I still stand by my comments.

I am not against lowering stress, using meditation, art, yoga, or anything anyone wants to do/indulge in, to feel better, cancer patient or not. I do some of these things and more, which works for me. But I must express what bothers me about the article and its presentation, (not the methods or the idea of de-stressing). Here are the first few words of the article: “Stress is especially dangerous for those with cancer — it’s even been tied to lower survival rates…”

I don’t doubt that this is true…hasn’t it been said for years that less stress is better for your heart, your immune system, your…everything? So less stress should also be beneficial to cancer patients….and some articles even note all the reasons we are stressed. Well, duh-huh. It’s like this report my friend told me about, which pointed out that women who want children and experience failed IFV attempts are often more depressed/stressed and consequently more likely to become ill and/or die than women who successfully had children. Captain Obvious strikes again. Who the hell awards grant money for this stupidity?

To get to the cancer-n-stress report I am babbling about, you have to click a few times to get to a page written in medical-ese, which is a little challenging for non-medical professionals to understand, and the casual reader is not going to jump through these hoops. They will only see the sound bites. And that is why I am worried. Those words—stress as dangerous to those with cancer—good grief. Guess what is really dangerous? Cancer!! Know what makes cancer patients stressed? Cancer! Know why cancer is so stressful? It kills!! How about I point a loaded gun, safety off, at your head and tell you to not be stressed?

My point is that it is natural to be stressed in a stressful situation, and in the beginning I felt an unreasonable pressure to be a “good cancer patient” as a result of interactions with people I know and exposure to various news articles constantly lecturing why stress is bad and how to get rid of it as if it were unnatural, and that all of human society must collectively strive to obliterate, not just alleviate it. I used to watch that show Charmed, about three good witches charged with protecting innocents with their magical powers. In one episode they upset some cosmic balance and every one had to be happy all of the time, and the merest hint of an expression of a slightly negative emotion could get a person arrested/killed…except the characters could not talk about death, because everyone was acting like it did not exist.

Sometimes I felt like that television episode in Cancer Land, especially the cancer swathed in the cheery pink ribbons. When assaulted with this don’t worry be happy attitude, I felt as though my legitimate emotions were being dismissed—that  I was being dismissed for not getting on the rah rah train. I no longer feel this pressure, because mainly it was self imposed because I thought I needed to fulfill everyone else’s expectations. Now I feel: fuck your expectations! I am ALLOWED to feel the bad along with the good, and so are you. I know I am not the only one who just gets more stressed when told not to be stressed. For a much better expression of this concept (because I think I am starting to suck here), please check out The Human Side of Cancer, Jimmie C. Holland, M.D., chapter 2, The Tyranny of Positive Thinking.

But worst of all, those words, stress is dangerous to cancer patients, once again suggest the notion that anyone can exert control over cancer, or life, even. One of the worst interactions non-cancer patients have with cancer patients is when “they” start asking those slightly accusatory questions…did you smoke to the lung cancer patient…did you get a pap smear to the ovarian cancer patient (which does not detect ovarian cancer, but that question was asked of my friend nonetheless)….did you drink too much in your youth/do you exercise/what is your diet like/are you stressed—to any type of cancer patient. Those without cancer wish to almost blame us, to put “us” on the other side of an imaginary line so “they” can remain safe, and therefore unlikely to get cancer. I know, I was once a “they” or an “I”. “I” thought quietly to myself, “I” do or don’t do xyz, “I” am safe, “I” won’t get cancer. WRONG! I’m sure everyone can think of that one anecdotal situation of someone so healthy, running miles every day, happy as I don’t know what, etc, and the person still got cancer. It happens, we are powerless, and the randomness and meaningless is still a struggle for me, as is the lack of control, but that is a whole other post!

The cause of cancer is unknown, which is why people still get it. And it’s nice some medical research is advocating for recognizing the health benefits of less stress—hell if it results in medical insurance coverage of yoga classes or whatever, wonderful. But what would really relieve my stress is the knowledge there will be better, easier-to-take treatments, should my cancer return. Less nausea = less stress. Less burnt skin = less stress. No more disfiguring surgery = less stress. Better yet, find a way to PREVENT cancer altogether. That is why I get so frustrated when I see a report like this, in which money and energy were spent studying something that seems so damn obvious.