Dog Lived (and So Will I) (24 page)

I sent the email and told my neighbors, for the first time, about my cancer. Judy called immediately. She let me know that she too was a breast cancer survivor.

“Please don’t worry about the dog. You have enough to worry about. I’m so sorry we called. We didn’t know,” Judy said.

“Oh, I know. And I’m so sorry he bothered you. We usually don’t leave him alone.”

“You had no choice. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help. Anything at all. And don’t worry at all about Seamus. You do what you need to do.”

Our neighbor on the other side responded shortly after and, much to my surprised pleasure, offered to watch Seamus for us if we ever needed it. I wouldn’t have been more surprised if she had offered to assume my cancer for me.

• • •

• • •

When I woke Thursday morning, exactly two weeks from the chemo infusion, I hesitated to lift my head from the pillow, suspecting my hair would not come up with me. I’d been told this was when the hair loss would start. In the shower, I washed my hair gently, fearing it would drop out all at once. I combed it out slowly and let it air dry, carefully pulling it back in a low ponytail. So little hair came out that day that I began to think maybe I’d be lucky. Maybe Wednesday’s hair loss was it. But then Dr. Glaspy’s words came back to me: “One hundred percent guaranteed your hair will fall out.”

I called Kelly, my hairstylist, to arrange for her to shave my head on Friday evening. I got my wig ready—I’d be a redhead soon. All dog owners begin to look like their dogs eventually, right? It was not the wig that won in my blog polling, but it was a respectable second place, and the process helped me determine what I really wanted to do. And what I wanted to do was have a little fun with the situation.

I was tired of the stress of constantly worrying when and if my hair would fall out. I wanted to get it over with. Somehow I felt the sooner I got the hair loss out of the way, the closer I’d be to finishing all of the treatments. I could move on to the recovery stage.

Kelly arrived at 5:15, and Chris made us all margaritas. But Kelly was not anxious to get the shaving over with. She kept asking me if I was sure I was ready.

“Kelly, I have to be ready. Let’s just do it.” I sat down on the chair Chris had brought into our living room on the wood floor. I could see Kelly was fighting back tears. “No crying! This is not supposed to be harder for you than it is for me.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. You’re really brave.”

I’d heard “brave” from a lot of people since my diagnosis, but really, what’s the other choice?

While Seamus watched, seated in front of me, staring up, and Chris took photos, Kelly wrapped a cape around me and began cutting. At first she cut six inches of length, and for a brief time I had a bob. Then she cut the sides much shorter, and we laughed at my mullet. The hair in the back went next. I did not look down at the floor; it was easier to look ahead—sometimes at Seamus, sometimes at Chris. It’s only hair. It grows back. It’s a small price to pay for living.

Kelly pulled out men’s hair clippers. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

“It’s a little late to stop now,” I said. There was only about an inch of roughly chopped hair left on my head. “Go ahead.”

“I’m not going to shave it all the way down. It’s too risky that you’d be cut. If I leave a quarter to a half inch, you’ll have less scalp irritation.” She turned on the clippers.

I heard the humming noise of the clippers and felt the tickle of hair falling down my neck, and in only a few moments it was over.

She handed me a mirror.

I was not shocked by my appearance. I had the same face, wore the same clothes, was the same person. I just had a lot less hair. No one would refer to me as “blondie” now. I wondered though, without makeup and colorful clothing, and when all of the hair was gone, how bad would I look?

“You look cute,” Chris said.

“Cute is an overstatement, but thank you.”

“You have a great face. You can totally pull this off.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Kelly said.

“Thanks, you guys. I’m okay. Thanks.”

For the next several days, small hairs dropped everywhere I went. I shed worse than Seamus ever did. Within a week I had only a few wispy baby-like hairs on the top of my head and around my ears. I did not ever get the shiny bald look that many get, but I was certainly bald. After a few more days, the baldness was almost a relief. I was too tired to have to mess with styling hair anyway.

• • •

I did not wake as early for my second chemo session, but without hair or the ability to enjoy the taste of coffee anymore, I was able to get ready quickly. I wore the Sienna Chablis blond wig, but I put a soft cotton newspaper-boy cap on over it, which I felt made it look less wig-like. I looked and felt fine, I thought. Once again I hugged Seamus for luck and took a picture with him, and then Chris and I loaded up the car with our “picnic” lunch, books, and Seamus, along with all of his required paraphernalia for the day.

We dropped Seamus off at Destiny’s house.

As we parked at the oncology center, I said to Chris, “I think I’ll be okay if you don’t want to stay with me the whole time. I have a feeling I’ll sleep. Now I understand why all the other patients seemed to be sleeping last time.”

“Okay, if that’s the case I might run out and do some errands.”

“You should.”

For the first half hour of my infusion, Chris stayed and chatted with me and with Elizabeth, back again for what we learned was her mother’s last treatment.

“I think I’m going to read, so you can go now if you want,” I said.

“You sure?” Chris said.

“Yeah. This is boring, and you have things to do. If you’re back for us to have lunch that will be fine.”

Once Chris was gone, I leaned back in my chair and opened my book.

Fifteen minutes later Elizabeth said to me, “Do you feel okay?”

“Yes. Why?”

“You’re kind of red.”

“I am?”

The woman in the chair next to me turned and looked. “Yes, you are. You’re very red.”

Just then my face began to sting. Then my hands tingled and quickly numbed. And then I was hot—very hot. A bolt of pain shot through my lower back just as I was ready to ask for help. Instead all that came out of my mouth was a gasp. The nurse across the room raced over.

She flipped the switch on my IV pole and stopped the infusion. “How do you feel?”

“Hot. And my back is killing me. I should have taken the sedative you offered.”

“I’m giving you Benadryl and Decadron intravenously; you should feel better quickly.” She changed out the bags of fluid on my IV pole and turned the pump on again.

In minutes the pain in my back subsided. And, the ladies around me were quick to comment, I’d gone back to normal coloring. The nurse then hooked up a saline solution to flush out my system. Once that finished, the chemo was started again, with a slower drip. I lasted fifteen minutes before the tingling hot flush returned. The nurse had to repeat the intravenous flushing process one more time.

By the time Chris returned for lunch, I was no further along in getting the actual chemo than I had been when he’d left.

“You missed all the excitement.”

“I did? What happened?”

I told him, while Elizabeth added color commentary (mostly red).

“Geez. I shouldn’t have left,” he said.

“It’s okay. You couldn’t have known. And I’m fine now.”

“Have I mentioned how much I hate chemo? I’m not leaving again.”

“Okay, well, settle in then. The nurse says that now they’ll do the infusion much more slowly to avoid any reaction. And next time, they’ll keep my steroid dosage up. So that should be fun.”

Chris dropped heavily into the chair beside me. “I thought it was going to be another white blood cell crash.”

I reached over and held his hand with my free right hand. I had thought the same thing.

Once again, we watched as each of the other patients that day finished treatment and headed home. We said good-bye and good luck to Elizabeth and her mother, who received her “diploma” for completing treatment. The doctors and nurses and we fellow (envious) patients all applauded her as the staff gave her a “graduation” ceremony.

Chris and I were the last to leave, along with our nurse, at nearly six that evening.

“The steroids are working,” I said as soon as Chris and I were in the car. “You know how I know?”

“You have a sudden urge to bat? Or you’re angry and wanting to fight?”

“Pizza. I want pizza.”

“We can do that. I certainly don’t feel like cooking. We’ll get a pizza, get our dog, and get home.”

“Sounds good.”

The next day we’d have to return to the oncology center for a shot that would prevent the white blood cell crash from happening again. The shot itself had a long list of possible side effects, including “severe bone pain” in 30 percent of patients, but that evening we had a quiet time at home before us.

Seamus, however, had other plans. He must have had steroid sympathy the way he howled for the pizza.

AAAAAARRROOOOOOOOO!! Pizza! I Love Pizza!! Pizza is my most favorite. AAAAAARRROOOOOOOOO!!! Pizza! It’s like toast with sausage!! Pizza!!! Give me fookin’ pizzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarooooooooooooohhh!!

I handed Seamus my pizza crust. Chris shook his head.

“You can’t imagine how much sympathy I have for this dog right now,” I said.

We only lasted twenty minutes after devouring the pizza before all three of us fell asleep on the couch.

• • •

• • •

The shot to prevent the white blood cell crash required its own round of side-effect-fighting pill-popping. I was given another cocktail recipe of sorts. It was a “cocktail” of Claritin, Benadryl, and Tylenol, with a Gatorade chaser. Seamus had been given Tagamet and Zantac. Until then, I had no idea there were so many over-the-counter drugs used in combating cancer.

As a result of these new drugs, I didn’t have nearly as much energy as I had on day three of the first round, and I was disappointed with that. I kept searching for the slightest silver lining. (I had gained, not lost, weight.) I napped, I watched TV with Chris for a bit, and then I zonked out. Since I was taking the steroid medication and drinking a lot of fluids, I had to get up and head to the restroom a couple of times a night. When I got out of bed in the middle of the night, my limbs were heavy. I felt like somebody was pushing me back down. It wasn’t painful as much as awkward and frightening, as though cement was hardening in my veins. How was I going to lug all four limbs to the restroom?

I rocked my limbs into something resembling momentum and flung myself down the hallway to the restroom. I took a Tylenol while I was at it and then fell back into bed, thankful I didn’t cause the bed to crash down to the bottom floor. I stayed in bed most of the morning, without energy and weighing six hundred pounds.

For the first time in seventeen years, I didn’t make it to the Walk with the Animals, benefiting the Mary S. Roberts Pet Adoption Center. I asked Chris to go and to take Seamus. I felt like I would at least be represented. Chris emailed me photos from his cell phone, each one showing a familiar person waving or giving me a thumbs-up sign. He made me feel a part of the event even if I couldn’t make it physically. And Seamus received treats and petting from just about everyone there.

The cement in my veins feeling lasted for nearly a week. I recovered from that just in time to deal with my eyelashes and eyebrows falling out. I had assumed that since they did not fall out with my hair, they would be staying. They had other plans. I could make up for my loss of eyelashes with eyeliner or, perhaps, fake eyelashes. But the loss of eyebrows changes a face. I looked sad. I looked sick.

Then I woke up with a rash on my hands, which throughout the day spread over my body. I drenched my skin in calamine lotion and popped the maximum dosage of Benadryl, but nothing seemed to help. I scratched. I bled.

When I woke the next morning, the rash had worsened and my body was covered in deep-red welts from where I’d torn at my skin in my sleep. Chris phoned the doctor’s office and after several calls back and forth was told by the nurse that I should take Benadryl and Tylenol and to keep checking my temperature. Here we go again, we both thought. And again the doctor was not available. We’d never heard from her during the white blood cell crash, and it did not appear she would be available for this.

The Benadryl kept me sleeping most of the day. But when I slept, I had nightmares usually involving a car spinning or sliding out of control or with me in the backseat and no driver up front. Analysis of the dream was not difficult—everything was spinning out of my control. At night there were no dreams because there was no sleep. Instead, I played what I called Misery Slots. I had three things going wrong intermittently all through the night, any one of which was enough to keep me wide awake. First there was the hives—which periodically would flare up and keep me tearing at my skin. Then there was the hot flashes—chemo had sent me into early menopause, so hot flashes, night sweats, all those lovely lady things, occurred. And then there was the indigestion—the common name for the elephant stepping on the middle of my chest. Every so often I felt as though a tennis ball had lodged in my esophagus and all I needed to do was swallow it. My father had told me about drinking a mixture of baking soda and water and usually that relieved the indigestion better than the over-the-counter drugs. But not always.

Hives. Hot flashes. Indigestion. These were the reels at my Misery Slots. Sometimes one of these things would occur, sometimes two, and if I hit the misery jackpot, all three were up together and the bells would ring, the siren would go off, and…there was no jackpot payoff. Except total misery.

I could not sleep. One particularly terrible night, I gave up and swung my tree trunk limbs out of bed, careful not to wake Chris.

In the guest bathroom at the end of the hall, I ran an oatmeal bath to try to reduce the red, bumpy welts covering my body. I undressed and climbed into the lukewarm water, letting it surround me as I tried to find a comfortable position. Oh, how I missed the spacious hot tub with seats shaped for comfort and water surrounding me up to my neck. But the hot tub, like raspberries, spicy foods, and pedicures, was off-limits during chemo. The tremendous, deep, long bathtub in my old rented condo would have been a beautiful respite, but that was in the past. I made do with the shallow, short tub available and the lukewarm water I was allowed. I waited for relief. Any relief.

I closed my eyes and tried not to look at what had become of my body—what had become of me. I was a bloated, hairless little girl suffering from early menopause and hives. I was tired. And I was sick. I could no longer pretend otherwise. Too soon the water cooled.

I rose slowly, using the wall to balance myself and my heavy limbs, and stepped out of the tub. In two steps I came face-to-face with a monster in the mirror. There she was: bald, no eyelashes, no eyebrows over her eyes but heavy gray bags under them, red welts all over her body (made much more vibrant by the warm water), darker red scratches ravaging her skin, a two-inch scar across her right breast, and a full-body steroid bloat.

I was hideous. Hideous.

I was Chemo-stein.

In preparing for chemo I’d thought about the hair loss, of course, and concentrated on the fact that it would grow back. I thought about losing my eyelashes and decided eye shadow and liner would work miracles. I knew of the bloating weight gain the steroids could cause but told myself that was better than nausea and again it was temporary; after all, Seamus had gained 20 percent of his body weight and just as quickly was back in fighting shape. Menopause would come, sure, but it was going to do that sooner or later anyway, and before it happened I was no more aware than anyone else of the true meaning of hot flashes and how you burn from the inside out, so that hadn’t bothered me either. Somehow I had overlooked skin rashes as a side effect and never, never had I given thought to what these side effects would all be like together. Not until that moment, face to mirrored face.