In one part of the movie I was astounded to see the protagonist having to take the public bus system home after going through his regular chemotherapy at the hospital.  After watching what K went through I can’t imagine anyone having to do that, particularly with the type of chemo it looked like he was getting; but perhaps it’s not that uncommon. Chemotherapy takes on many forms but from what I have seen it can be an absolutely brutal treatment reducing the person to a thin and terribly weakened state in which sleep becomes the primary activity.

There are quite a number of chemotherapy treatments and a variety of ways they are administered.  In the first round of chemo that K went through, a port was inserted in her upper chest that allowed the chemo to be administered directly into one of the heart’s atriums. Having this installed was an operation that took part of a day and the port stayed in until her death without any problem. I hated that this had to be done to her, but she was cool about it. Having the port provided some convenience in that she was able to take the chemo treatment 24 hrs a day at home or anywhere else. This was accomplished by having her hooked up to a small portable box that dripped the drugs through the port into her system eliminating the need to run back and forth to the clinic. I can’t tell you how much I ached for her each day she was attached to that box curled up on the bed hours on end hardly able to move but it’s the price we figured must be paid to get cured.

In the movie, the main character, Adam, starts off having his girlfriend take care of him. His mother also wants to help (played by Angelica Huston) but he wants nothing of it because he finds her to overbearing. His good friend, Kyle, can think of nothing but how cancer can be a real turn on for women and a great way to get a lot sex. That being said, their friendship is strong and caring, and a great support for Adam.  This is an amusing picture of the loneliness, stress and cluelessness someone could face today in a similar situation. Having to go through complicated relationships and strained communication when you are grappling with the thought you may die soon, while at the same time getting beat up from chemo, would be totally overwhelming and  cause me to flee to a cave.

If you are going to be supporting someone about to get chemotherapy take time to learn about the side effects for that particular treatment so you are ready to help. Don’t be surprised to find them exhibiting overwhelming weakness, frailty, big loss of weight, loss of hair, incontinence, intense nausea, vomiting and much more.

If you want to get information about the different types of chemotherapy and their side effects here are some good sites:

• National Cancer Institute  NCI is part of the government’s National Institute of Health. This link will take you right to the chemotherapy resource page.
• Chemocare.com  Lots of great information, stories (including one by Scott Hamilton the Olympic gold medalist figure skater)
• Cancer.org  Site of the American Cancer Society. This link will take you directly to the Chemotherapy page.

It’s not like it’s bad, but I don’t really look like me. Even though its been a year, I still don’t feel like myself.

Losing my hair was a huge deal. I’d never realized how much I identified with my hair. So much so that when I lost it, I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. I was ashamed. I didn’t want to face my friends and family.

You can never really prepare for what chemo will do to you. It made me feel so sick. And my shoulder-length, straight, thick hair kept falling out and out and out. I needed to get a broom to sweep up the bathroom every morning.

The constant shedding got to be too difficult, so I went to my trusted, longtime hair stylist on a Sunday when the shop was closed to shave off the remaining strands of my hair. I had no idea just how emotional it would be for me, so, when she asked, I allowed my sweet daughter to join me. Big mistake.

When my hair was shaved, tears just rolled down my face. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t keep them from falling. My daughter was rubbing my leg and telling me how beautiful I looked. My 8-year-old daughter. It is a memory I don’t enjoy bringing to mind. Yes, I had a beautiful wig to wear (which is a long story in itself), and felt OK with it on. But from that day on … even still today … I don’t see the same woman in the mirror. I remember my husband’s face when he saw me when I returned home. It was that swift look of horror before he could put his game face on. My son gave me that same look.

From that day, my son and daughter never wanted me to leave the house without my wig on. As time passed, I didn’t care so much anymore and the wig was itchy, but my children felt better when I wore the wig. My Bella would say, “Mommy, are you going to wear your wig when you come to my school?” “Mommy, if my friend so and so comes over, will you wear your wig?”

So today, even though my hair is growing back — curly! — I still don’t see Viki in the mirror staring back. It’s not like I hate the person I see. It’s more like I’m resigned to the person I see. My mom asks me why don’t I cut my hair short and spiky like when it was first growing in? It looked so cute and contemporary then, and I know it looks more like a mullet now or something out of Vegas in the Elvis days, but I need to get it back to that shoulder length. Somehow, I’ll get control back then. If I want to cut it off at that point, at least it’ll be on my own terms. I’m in control, not cancer. But I wonder, when it’s shoulder-length again, will I look like me again? I fear not.  Certainly, there is the possibility that it will never get that long hair again because my disease will return and I’ll lose all my hair again … but mostly I fear that that person I’m looking for in the mirror is gone.

I realize it doesn’t have to be bad to be different, but when you are used to something for 40+ years, it takes more than a year to grow accustomed to someone else when you look in the mirror.

There was something magical about the remodeled bathroom.  If I closed the door and got into the large, stand up shower I could pretend that I was one of those multimillionaires across the way.  The tile along the walls was a warm cream color with specs of browns, blacks and tans mixed in.  The fixtures were all treated in a matching chrome finish and the stand up pedestal sink looked as if it had cost a fortune.

But nothing is ever as perfect as it seems.  My biggest gripe with my new oasis was picking wads of hair out of the clogged drain.  I was the kind of girl who couldn’t ask a boy to do anything for her.  I’ve always said my father taught me to be too independent for my own good.  Killing spiders, building furniture and unclogging drains were all things I felt I had to handle on my own and to ask anyone for help meant failure.  As a result of this stubborn independence and utter disgust over wet chunks of discarded hair, I made it a point in my daily shower ritual not to allow my hair to get anywhere near the drain.  As I wove my hands in and out of my long strands of hair, I pulled any stray pieces out and stuck them to the wall of the shower.  The pieces collected, some days the wad was larger than others, and as soon as the shower was over, I rolled my finger along the wall, collecting the hair in one large ball before removing it entirely and tossing it in the trash.

The first time I lost a large chunk of my hair due to chemo treatments, I was completing this ritual in the shower.  I had just finished the shampoo cycle.  Lather, rinse and repeat.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  The repeat part was particularly important to me.  I pulled my hands through my hair, expecting to come out with a couple small strands, but instead I was grasping a handful of hair, almost as if I had cut off a large section with a pair of scissors.  My muscles tensed and I found myself frozen, completely unable to do anything but stare at it as the warm water streamed down my back and the hot steam filled the small, enclosed space.  My vision began to blur and I began to feel lightheaded.

I pushed my hands out, fumbling for the wall, anything that I could grab onto.  I slowly lowered myself to the floor, I thought I should crawl out of the water, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  I placed the handful of hair down and watched as it circled and swirled with the running water, spreading out at first and then coming back together near the drain.  Drain, lane, sane, train, chain, vein, brain, pain.  I was surprised at how I had felt nothing.  No pain, no tug as the hair released from my scalp.  My hands were shaking as I reached up again to feel my head.  I pulled again, another large clump.  I released that into the water as I resisted the overwhelming urge to cry.  It was only hair.  It was only hair.

I reached up and maneuvered the shower handle in the opposite direction, hoping the cool water would help with the dizziness.  It didn’t.  In fact it was probably the nausea that kept the tears from streaming down my face.  I placed my cheek against one tile wall while staring straight into the other.  One of the black splotches in the tile formed what looked like a silhouette of Abraham Lincoln, top hat and all, against the creamy brown background.  I moved my eyes for just a short moment and when I tried to refocus back on the same spot, it seemed to have disappeared.  Things that appeared solid were always disappearing.

It took me fifteen minutes before I could tear myself, still shaking, from of the shower floor.  I dragged myself into my bed, naked and soaking wet and cried myself to sleep that night.  It was the first time I had cried since I received the news from my doctor.  I never did clear the hair from the drain.  Quentin must have found it and dismembered it himself without telling me.  Three days later, my hair was gone entirely.

Carol’s Cancer Journey

Carol Patterson is a two-time cancer survivor – the first time she chose to do what the doctors advised – and horrendous though the effects were it seemed for a short time to be working. The second time round Carol was offered disfiguring surgery. She decided to go down the alternative route – and she is now cancer free. It is salutary to read the story in her own words -

http://www.treatgene.com/?p=1412#comment-

She has written a  book Cure Your Self of Cancer.

Note: The Cancer Survivor’s Bible (2012) is now available – see www.fightingcancer.com

“This is the book everyone with cancer needs.”