So, you know that feeling you get, the sick to your stomach, can't do anything about it but move forward feeling? That's how I spent yesterday. A close friend was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, not too bad, but it has spread to one lymph node. We've spent the last two weeks discussing doctors and treatment options, how to handle well meaning friends who are flocking to her side certain she needs broth, while in reality she is as healthy as me. Except she isn't.
Plans are made , chemo first, then surgery, then we'll see. Prognosis is good. She's going to lose her hair, she's going to get sick, really sick.
Will you go with me for chemo, she asks. Instantly I reply yes, how could I not. We have been friends for years, I get her, she gets me. I am not panicked by medical stuff, I have far too much experience with that as the mom of a medically challenged child. She knows this, she picked me on purpose. I'll go with her and hold her hand only if she needs it, I'll ask intelligent questions of the staff, I'll know what to pack, what to do, how to ask for help.
We head out early in the morning, a long drive ahead of us. Our first stop is the wig shop. I have never been in a wig shop, never contemplated such a trip. As we walk into the hospital, headed for the wig shop I wish I had taken a few minutes to do some research, to ask some questions, to prepare myself. We round the corner and there we are. She stops just inches inside the shop.
I pause behind her and wait for her to move. She doesn't. I am uncertain. What must it feel like to be in her position? She feels fine, really fine, and yet this cancer, this horrible disease, is spreading inside her. How does one contemplate themselves going bald? How does one contemplate what to choose? It isn't really about hair, it's about identity.
She begins to move into the shop, cautiously at first, and then with a sigh, a sense of resignation. Resignation to the reality that is her life. We move about, looking at wigs perched on styrofoam heads lined on shelves. She looks at me, with a glimmer of panic. "How does this work," she says. I am unsure what to suggest, I feel woefully inadequate, totally unprepared.
I look at the shelves and say I don't know. I grab one that looks similar to her hairstyle. We look at it, we touch it, we put it back. We move about the room, pointing, touching, putting back. Slowly a pattern emerges. I am looking at wigs that remind me of her today, she is looking at wigs that will be her after treatment, when her hair is short, in the growing back stage. I realize she is right. We can't hold on to now, we have to look at where we will be when she is done. I am hanging on, she is letting go.
We chat with the shop's owner, a woman who has guided many women through this stage. She is kind, she is soft spoken and encouraging. She guides us in some wig selections and leads my friend off to the side of the shop to try them on. As I stand there and listen to her offer gentle instructions, I am overcome by emotion. Turning away, the tears roll silently. I let them.
Soon she is ready to show off her new "do". I like it, looks better than I was expecting. She is pleased and yet not sure. She tries on more and then she puts on the "one". You know that feeling when you found your wedding dress? It was THE ONE! When she slipped that wig on and turned to me for approval. I beam. She looked so good! I told her so, the wig shop lady told her so. She turned and looked at herself again, happiness spreading across her face. She realized she did look good. "This is good," she says. "Really good."
Again, I am overcome by my emotions and turn away. We leave the shop, wig in hand. "That was so surreal," she says. Yes, it was, it most certainly was.
She is hanging on...to hope. So am I...
