Quickly, because I've got a life to lead while I'm feeling well enough to lead it...

• I've come up with a new slot to peg another group of gogglers listed out in this post and it is the Who Let the Sick Person Out? Jesus, Really, My Latte Has 95% Less Sugar-Free Vanilla Now That A Bald, Sick Person Was Allowed to Enter My Orbit People.

  Curiously enough, they never say anything; when they lay their eyes on me, they simply look like someone abruptly shoved a lemon into their mouth and forced them to suck on it.

  According to these people, I'm, evidently, committing an etiquette faux pas when I'm out and about. It seems as if you look sick, you should be keeping your bald self at home, where you don't ruin this particular group's day by reminding them cancer exists.

• I was at the grocery store yesterday, picking up some things I needed for supper. Since it was a holiday, there were only a few cashiers working, and, as there were only a few people milling about the cash registers, it seemed as if the management had scheduled appropriately to maximize the employee-customer ratio for the benefit of all involved.

  I had five items in my hands, and because I wanted to get in and get out, like most normal human beings, I entered the lane with no people in line to pay. This should be standard operating procedure, no?

  Well, that's where you'd be wrong, my devoted Cake Eater readers.

  Two lanes over, an older, mustachioed gentleman, dressed up for the holiday in a sports coat, slacks, a polo shirt and loafers, was chatting with some friends he'd spotted. This is a normal occurrence in the local Cake Eater grocery store. It's a pretty tight-knit community and it's rare to go to the store and not run across fellow customers having a chat with friends they've run into. It's nothing out of the ordinary. Yesterday, however, was the exception that proved the rule.

  I entered said empty lane, thinking nothing of it. While I was waiting for the cashier to finish up with the person in front of me, I look over and I see the gentleman wrapping up his conversation and moving toward my lane. When he was halfway there---and keep in mind, we're talking about a single check-out lane's worth of distance----he said something, loudly, to his friends that implied someone had taken his spot in line. I don't remember exactly what he said, but the meaning was clear: someone had hoarked what was rightly his and he felt he needed to make a point about it. He followed it up with, "But I should probably let her go first anyway, don't you think?" It didn't take a rocket scientist to suss out that he was referring to me.

  While I was standing there, stunned, I wondered how he could have possibly thought I'd stolen his place in a line he was patently not occupying. Before I got too far into my mental meanderings, however, he then laughed in manner that I'm sure he thought would proclaim to the world that he was a wit, because not only had he managed to school me, he'd managed to come off as a good, properly sympathetic human being for being generous to a cancer patient.

  Bastard.

  If the jerk thought I'd taken his place---which I don't possibly see how ANY REASONABLE PERSON could deduce since he wasn't, ahem, in line, but was TWO, count 'em, two lines over---then he should have said so. Don't give me a freakin' pass because you think I'm on the verge of death. Spare me your fucking benevolence, pal. I've got people who are paid cash money to give me a hard time---and, believe you me, they don't care that I'm a cancer patient; I don't need to take your garbage for free.

  Yet, if you insist on dishing it out, that's just fine. I can take it.

  But you'd better be prepared for me to give it right back to you.

  Unfortunately, however, I didn't get the chance to unload both barrels at the guy because the bastard didn't even get into his precious line! He went to the cashier next to me. Can you believe this shit? The guy didn't even give me a chance to rip him a new one. The gall of it!

While the overwhelming majority of people whom I've come across since I've gone bald have been very, very kind, it's people like this who remind you that, well, perhaps we haven't evolved as much as we'd like to think we have. These people are unbelievably self-centered. They think the world revolves around them and their wishes, and if they're nice to me, well, it's still all about them. Don't get me wrong: I'm not looking for any favors or special treatment; I just want to be treated like I would be if I had hair.
Most people go out of their way to make sure this is the end result of their efforts. I've been behind the counter before---I know how hard it is to ignore what's right in front of you to make sure you offer an unusual customer the same customer service experience everyone else gets. My former employers actually trained us to do this. This training, when it became patently clear it was the correct way to go, bled into everyday life. I assumed most people knew this. I was wrong, I guess, to make that assumption. That my wrapped up, chemo'ed head can and does bring out the worst in some people, is something quite interesting, eh, my devoted Cake Eater readers?

There's insight to be had everywhere you look. You just need to observe to find it.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:46 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Countess Rugen, I presume?

Posted by: Kathy at 10:38 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 EWWWW! I do believe that if I were cursed with the same affliction I would avoid sandals at all costs!

Posted by: Janette at May 23, 2007 02:03 PM (5R+zg)

2 Those comments made me dumber.

Posted by: Sigivald at May 24, 2007 05:22 PM (4JnZM)

3 poor woman!

Posted by: solemio at May 28, 2007 09:35 AM (OmPxo)

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Longtime Cake Eater readers will know that I periodically come back to Mikhail Khodorkovsky's troubles because I find the situation to be emblematic of how life moves in Putin's Russia nowadays---lots of brilliant chess moves, but no payoff in seeing how the match ends because the curtains will have been pulled long before that point. Khodorkovsky's tale is long, but I'll try to hit the high points quickly: local boy makes good in new captialist system, overreaches with his oil company at a time when Mother Russia needs cash, annoying those in charge---whilst simultaneously funding opposition parties---is arrested at gunpoint on his private jet in Siberia just days before he was to merge his company with another rival, and then spends years trying to clear his name of tax evasion and fraud charges, only to fail and wind up in a Siberian prison camp. And it ain't over yet. Khodorkovsky is biding his time, working on his PhD in prison whilst trying to be a bit of a martyr for democratic causes, and Putin's prosecutors have ginned up some more charges of embezzlement and money laundering, to try and keep him in jail.

This is the stuff of a Jeffrey Archer novel. It's awesome and it's interesting. You could make this stuff up, but if you did, well, you'd be Jeffrey Archer and I think we've all learned the hard way that one of him is sufficient enough to supply novels about trashy tycoons.

Khodorkovsky isn't the hell-bound-for-democracy-saint his human rights lawyers make him out to be, but neither is he the devil Putin claims is intent on robbing all that is good and holy about Mother Russia (i.e. her natural resources). The truth lies somewhere in between and a big mystery has evolved over the past couple of days in regards to selling off the last of Yukos'---Khodorkovsky's company---properties. Rosneft, the Russian state oil company, via seizures and less than fair market priced bidding at Yukos' many fire sales, has pretty much acquired Yukos, and all its assets, lock stock and barrel. This has lead to much speculation that all the charges against dear old Mikhail were trumped up (which, to be truthful, they probably were) and that Putin was simply trying to bankrupt the company so the state could profit.

But there's a twist---because you were waiting for the twist, weren't you?-----the Yukos office building in Moscow, all twenty-two floors of what appears to be unispired concrete, went on the block on Friday, in what was to be the final nail in Yukos' coffin. Everyone assumed that Rosneft would pick it up on the cheap, like it has all the other remnants of Yukos, but, surprisingly, when all was said and done, Rosneft was outbid by an obscure company no one knows anything about.

Curious.

{...}All of Yukos' production assets and refineries now belong to the state-controlled oil company OAO Rosneft, which has dominated the liquidation auctions that began in March. Once an underachiever among Russian oil companies, Rosneft has become the biggest producer in Russia, pumping 2.1 million barrels per day - or the same as Nigeria or Iraq.

In a fitting echo of the many murky twists in Yukos' downfall, the final auction on Friday came to an unexpected end.

Lot number 13, which included Yukos' 22-story, green-and-brown Moscow headquarters, should have been a victory lap for Rosneft. The towering downtown building would have made an appropriate home for the new oil giant that emerged from Yukos' remains.

But an unknown company won the auction after a grueling 2 1/2 hours of bidding that saw the opening price nearly quintuple - an unheard of result for the auctions, all of which have appeared to be closely scripted.

After 706 back-and-forth bids from Rosneft's subsidiary Neft-Aktiv and OOO Prana, the mysterious company made the winning bid - US$3.9 billion. By the end the auctioneer, who called three breaks in the bidding, was sounding hoarse. {...}

According to an article in Saturday's FT, which has since disappeared behind the subscriber wall, the building isn't worth that much.

The last bankruptcy sale of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Yukos ended in mystery yesterday when an obscure company bought an auctioned lot, including Yukos' headquarters building, for almost $4bn, in what looked at first glance to be the most expensive property deal in recent history.

The company, Prana, bid nearly five times the starting price of Rs22bn ($852m) to head off state-controlled Rosneft in 707 rounds of bidding.

Observers were baffled by the price paid for the lot, which, at first glance, inclused only the office building, and a couple of shell companies.

Moscow property experts estimated Yukos' tower block was worth no more than $300m. "It's not new. It's not in the centre. This sum just does not fit the building, said Constantine Demetriou, head of capital markets at Jones Lang Lasalle in Moscow.

{...}Rosneft had widely been expected to snaffle the headquarters to cap its takeover of Yukos. The state-controlled oil major has faced little competition in previous bankruptcy auctions in which it has snapped up all of Yukos's remaining production units and refinieries in bidding often lasting less than ten minutes.

The break-up of Yukos over $33bn in back-tax demands has helped propel Rosneft to the position of Russia's biggest oil producer.

But yesterday's price bring the total raised from the Yukos bankruptcy sale to Rbs824bn. This substantially exceeds the company's total debts of Rbs709bn, fuelling Yukos shareholders' claims the company was bankrupted illegally to benefit the state and Rosneft.{...}

So, the questions that immediately come to mind are: who would pay so much for an office block that's not worth anywhere nearly as much as it was bought for, and why would they do it? Was there perhaps something more valuable included in the lot? Could very well be:

{...}Alexander Temerko, Yukos' former vice president, said he had information that trading entities included in yesterdays' lot held more than $4.5bn in cash from oil sales by Yukos' two remaining production units.{...}

{all my emphasis}

So, what the fuck, my devoted Cake Eater readers, eh? Can one not have some serious fun trying to imagine what, precisely, is going on behind the scenes here? After plotting for months from his Siberian prison cell, did Mikhail Khodorkovsky manage to hold onto some of his assets, because only he truly knew their value, via an outside buyer? Which, if true, would make him a playa' again---big time. How did Rosneft manage to miscalculate so egregiously? Did they have any clue what they were up against? Or were they simply outplayed?

It's good fun to imagine what went down, no? Because, God only knows, we're never likely to know what actually happened.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:04 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I had my second treatment on Friday.

Bleh.

I was required to check in at the oncologist's office at 9:20 a.m. Before I left at, roughly, three p.m. I endured a doctor's visit, one blood draw for labs (which all turned out pretty damn good, considering), and three separate attempts to hook me up to an IV, which would deliver the chemo. First try went bad after an hour, when the needle started banging up against a nerve, which in turn made my left hand and wrist hurt. They tried to back it out, to see if they could pull it away from the nerve but it didn't work. So the nurse then tried to stick me again, on the underside of my left forearm and that didn't work either---and I now have a big bruise to prove it. Finally, she called it quits (standard operating procedure meant to ensure the least amount of embarrassment and feelings of failure on both sides of the needle) and had another nurse come over and install an IV in my right hand instead. Which, of course, hurt as much as the first one, but I wasn't going to complain, simply because I wanted to get the hell out of there. The treatment room is fine and comfortable; my chemo buddies are fun to hang out with and we have nice chats, but there are other things I'd prefer to do with my day, if you get my meaning.

What I find interesting about all of this is that it takes a few days for the worst of the side effects to show up. You'd expect, considering all the toxic drugs that they're pumping into your system via a vein, you'd be sick immediately. Nope. While you don't necessarily feel great for the first two days, you can still function. The real joy shows up on day three and four. Which is where we're at now. Bone pain is my main wonder and worry right now. In my fibia, tibia, femur, hips, pubic bone, wrists---and wonder of wonders---the bottom rib on my right hand side. It's not as bad this time around as it was last because of a wonder drug named---ahem---Claritin. Go freakin' figure how this over the counter antihistamine works better than all the advil in the world, but it does. The only problem with it is that, well, you have to take twice as much as the box recommends you take (which is only intended for allergy use, mind you) to get the relief. Dr. Academic suggested this treatment when I met with him on Friday and I about bopped him on his pointy little academic head for not mentioning it sooner, particularly when he KNEW I was having problems with it last time. He is SUCH an academic, in fact, that on the white board in the examining room, he pulled up a diagram to get to the board, cleared off the board with an eraser and then wrote out the name "Claritin" in red dry erase marker, to emphasize the point. (What can I say? The man's got a flair for the dramatic, teachable moment.) What killed me, however, is that he spelled it wrong. Sigh. Alas, he's a busy man, and can't be expected to keep up with the least little bit of pain experienced by all of his patients going through chemo. Because, as I've learned from chatting with a few of them in the treatment room, he's got a lot of patients going through chemo (he's only in the office two days a week and he schedules them for when he can be there to oversee things, so a goodly portion of the treatment room is filled with his patients) and most of them are A LOT worse off than me. Stage II and Stage III women, who will be battling this disease with everything they've got----and, given the statistics, will most likely lose---while I'm just receiving a "prevention" round. I feel guilty calling the nurse every time I've got questions, lest I be distracting from someone who really needs the time and information the woman can part with. It's sad, but I really think that, partly, Dr. Academic enjoys being able to treat me because he thinks he can cure me. We get along, and he's not afraid to chat with me for extended periods of time and to have a laugh. I'm not so sure he's the same with his other patients.

Alas, I'm just being whiny. I survived it last time. I'll survive it this time around, too. Dr. Academic said I was taking it very, very well and that I should just keep doing what I'm doing to cope. I'll be over the worst of it by Wednesday, when all of the chemicals will have flushed out from my system, and then I'll spend the rest of the week recovering from it. By next Monday I should be as good as new, but it sucks having to wait that long. On the other hand, it's like being able to schedule having the flu. Quite odd.

In the meanwhile, I'm going to list off some interesting, and perhaps amusing, facts that I've garnered over the past few weeks.

• If you ever have to go to an oncologist's office, where they actually treat people with chemo, and you have to go to the bathroom, realize that when you flushed the toilet, you didn't break it simply because it ran for a very long period of time. They have to have toilets that flush loads of water simply because of all the chemicals people expel---otherwise the bowls would be eaten up.
• Every time I have a treatment, I am consistently the youngest person in the room. I sometimes have trouble with the way people look at me, because the majority of people are elderly, and they shake their heads in dismay at me. The general consensus, I've learned, is that I'm too young to be there and they feel sorry for me.

  The only consolation I can take from this is that because they're elderly, they avoid the swank recliners that my friend JoAnn and I snag each time, because they can't get out of them. We're younger and we can, however. So, we get the really sweet, plush and comfortable recliners in which we receive our treatments, while the elders stick to the recliners they can maneuver out of with ease. Honestly, our recliners are better than Laz-e-Boys because they have trays on each side on which you can keep within easy reach all the crap you've brought with you to keep yourself busy for the five hours you'll be there.

  If they weren't coated in vinyl, they'd be even better.

• Don't ever sit around and wait for an oncology nurse to call you back. Go on with your day and let it hit voice mail if you have to. Otherwise you could be spending all of what would be a normal, and potentially wonderful, day waiting for them to call.

  In a relatively funny aside, I had a question for the nurse this morning, so I called and left a message and was told that so-and-so would be calling me back because Dr. Academic's designated nurse is on vacation this week. The first words out of his mouth were, "Wow, working for Dr. Academic is a life-altering experience." Honestly, I'm glad for you, buddy, but I was more concerned about the amount of claritin I was taking to deal with the bone pain. Can we try and stay on point here, eh?

• Dr. Academic is turning out to be something of a fascination to me. He's an interesting guy and I find the whole process of how I came to be in his care, as one of the top gynecologic oncologists in the country, interesting. Pure luck of the draw. He is, undoubtedly, something of a hotshot. If you google him, well, loads of very important stuff comes up. Lots of publications. Lots of press releases---that sort of thing. He's a pretty accomplished guy. He's constantly on the lists the local magazines put out that say he's the guy you want if you need this particular kind of doctor. In an odd coincidence, one of my former employees from the Bou now works at his office, albeit for another oncologist, and she's a breast cancer survivor. She told me offhand one day that I couldn't have a better doctor, because hers defers to him. Hers is at Mayo.

  And treated King Hussein of Jordan when he was fighting his cancer.

  Take from that what you will.

  Also, according to the hippie RN neighbor, who knows of him from her hospital, when he was single, Dr. Academic apparently "got around," too.

  Heh. I totally believe it, too.

• I think all the Benadryl they push into me to prevent an allergic reaction while I'm receiving my treatments is actually helping me beat the husband at travel scrabble. Don't ask me why, but because the drugs make me woozy, I don't think I'm concentrating enough and I seem to do better that way. Go figure. Alas, he'll have his advantage back by next time, because they're cutting the amount they give me by half at that point.
• I had "genetic counseling" this past week.

  The trouble with all this ovarian cancer stuff is my age. It's rare for someone my age to have ovarian cancer. It's generally reserved for women over the age of fifty. So, the doctors have generally puzzled about how I might have gotten it and they haven't a clue. They seem to think that I might be positive for a genetic mutation of the BRCA 1 or BRCA2 chromosomes. According to Wikipedia:

  {...}These mutations can be changes in one or a small number of DNA base pairs (the building blocks of DNA). In some cases, large segments of DNA are rearranged. A mutated BRCA1 gene usually makes a protein that does not function properly because it is abnormally short. Researchers believe that the defective BRCA1 protein is unable to help fix mutations that occur in other genes. These defects accumulate and may allow cells to grow and divide uncontrollably to form a tumor.{...}

  So, I had to undergo genetic counseling, which is where a nurse sits you down, takes your family history, explains all of this to you, sets you up for a blood draw and then takes a big sample of blood to ship off to a DNA testing facility that is solely dedicated to testing people for this genetic mutation. If it turns out I'm positive for it, well, that's where the ovarian cancer came from, and that answers that question---because, as of right now, they have NO idea how I got it. Also, this means because there is a breast-ovarian cancer link, I will have a fifty-fifty shot of having breast cancer by the time I'm fifty.

  Good times, no?

  It gets better. If it turns out that I'm positive, well, then all my siblings have to get tested for it, because there's a fifteen percent chance that my sisters will contract ovarian cancer simply because I've had it and all my brothers have to get tested, too, because there's an increased risk of prostate cancer for them, as well as male breast cancer.

  Are you finally getting the idea of the numbers game we're playing here? Nothing's for sure, but there's an increased risk of this that or the other every time you turn around. And they always have a percentage attached to it. Not like it matters, though, because you get the feeling that if there's any chance of more cancer, no matter how unlikely in reality, they'll jump RIGHT on it.

  The nurse, after hearing what little I knew of my family history, didn't think I'd come back positive for it. We're not Ashkenazi Jews---at least not in the past two generations, we're not, beyond that I have no idea--and that's the group in the general population in which it's most common. She lumped me in the 9% risk group. Dr. Academic, however, laughed when I told him this and then snorted. He seems to think I'll come back positive for it.

  Don't quite know what to think about all of this. For me, right now, it simply means increased surveillance, which is a good thing. Every six months I'll switch off between mammograms and MRI's to see if anything's developed and with the increased screening, if anything arises, they'll be able to catch it quickly. For my siblings, however, I don't know that they'll be too pleased with me. It's one thing for your baby sister to get cancer; it's another thing entirely to find out you might be in a risky group as a result, and that she's the one who tipped you off.

  I hate being the messenger.

• Mr. H was in San Francisco last week. He generally does a lot of shopping when he's out there and he decided to visit one of my favorite stores when he was there. In case you were wondering, well, it's Louis Vuitton on Union Square. They have a huge flagship there and it's just a lot of fun to look at the windows, loaded with every leather good they have available on display. He told me in an email that he'd goggled there for a while, but I didn't think anything of it until yesterday, when we met up for our usual cup of coffee and he got out of the car with a big brown bag attached to his arm. After declaring he wanted to see my big, bad, bald self, I obliged him and then he handed me the bag.

  He bought me a scarf at Louis Vuitton. An honest to God Louis Vuitton scarf is wrapped around my head right now and even though I'm not feeling very glam, it helps having designer head gear on. I know I'm not a slob now, despite the fact I'm wearing an old tee shirt and a pair of shorts. I have at least one piece of designer gear on---and that makes me, ahem, eclectic.

  Heh.

  And it's even the perfect consistency of cotton. Not too thick, it's on the light side of things, it's breathable, with a bit of elastcity in the cotton. It wraps around my head perfectly and it doesn't slip. Fab-u! Love it, love it, love it.

  Anyone else who would like to contribute to the cause of keeping Kathy's head covered, can email me and I'll direct you to the other ones I'd like to have.

  Heh. Like that's going to happen.

  A girl can dream, though, can't she?

• And speaking of headgear, I needed a big straw hat to keep my skin covered while I'm going through the chemo. It makes you very sensitive to the sun, and so while you run around with 45 SPF on, a hat is necessary, too, because if you get sunburned while you're on chemo, it'll take you about four days to heal up from it, because your compromised immune system can't handle it. That's what happened to me, anyways, so the husband went out and bought me a big, floppy, light straw cowboy hat, with shells and assorted beads threaded onto leather strings acting as a hatband. It's very pretty and I get lots of compliments on it.

  The only problem with the hat is that I have to wear a scarf underneath it to keep from looking like I'm a little kid who's put on their Dad's hat. With the scarf, I can keep it in place, but it's floppy. It's not made out of the same stuff of which they make Stetsons, so it has a tendency to flip flop around in the wind. I don't really care about that, it's just that, well, with my bald head and the set of glasses I wear, well---sigh---when I wear the hat, I bear a slight resemblance to Kenny Chesney. The fact that he also wears bandanas to cover up his bald head, under his hat, doesn't help matters any, either.

  Sigh.

Ok, that should be enough for now. Go on and enjoy your day. I'm going to go nap after I switch out loads of laundry.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:14 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 Thinking of you. . . {{{ hugs }}} Love, M

Posted by: Margi at May 15, 2007 10:16 AM (E6wcJ)

2 The Claritin thing is a hot tip! I'm going to talk to my resident alchemists and see if they've ever heard of it! And, hey, I don't know how many treatments you've got to go, or if you'd think it worthwhile, but you might want to think about a Portacath if your IV's keep blowing -- my first treatment blew out 3 veins in my hand, thankfully before they started the Adrimycin. I worked one day til noon, went down to surgery and had it put in with very light anesthesia and was back at work the following morning. Worked like a charm, no more hand sticks, and I was even a bridesmaid in a lowcut dress while wearing it. =] Was really a Godsend! Highly recommend it.

Posted by: Marianne at May 19, 2007 03:54 AM (1b3wj)

3 Thinking of you, sweetie [HUGS]

Posted by: Ith at May 21, 2007 01:21 PM (T2ixI)

4 Hi! A friend on my Livejournal list, Ithirial, told me about your blog and sent me over. It feels so good to read about another person's experience with this disease. I'm fighting breast cancer, and the chemo is driving me nuts. Makes me so sick. Ugh. I, too, am usually the youngest person in the chemo room (at 29), and I get the same headshakes. But that's okay. I hope you don't mind me peeking in. It just feels better to see someone else going through this, too.

Posted by: Dragonsinger at May 29, 2007 06:50 AM (jI8YL)

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So, it's been Side-Effect City at the Cake Eater Pad lately.

Since my first chemo treatment, almost three weeks ago, I've experienced everything from joint pain and swelling to bone and muscle pain to nausea to fatigue to a complete and utter five-day loss of appetite. It's been an adventure---and I use that as a euphemism, in case you weren't familiar with my particular brand of sarcasm---waking up every morning and wondering what it's going to be today. Because it will be something new and usual. You're assured of it. Fortunately, however, the side-effects are temporary, and most of the ickiness is over with by the fifth day, when most of the drugs are out of your system. Then you have to deal with recovering from the chemo, because it demands you take a few days off to recover from it. It's sort of like when you know you're done with the flu, but you're weak and ineffectual as a human being because your body needs time to recover. That lasted for four days in my case. Then I felt fine. My energy surged to pre-chemo levels this past Monday and I've felt like a rock star ever since. Last week I did all of the laundry by myself for the first time since my surgery, at the end of February. I managed to get the house cleaned up, except for the vacuuming, which the husband graciously agreed to do, because I'm still afraid I'll rip my innards to shreds if I push the floor sucker around the Cake Eater pad. I'm thinking about my spring planting and am starting to plan that out. I even manged to rip George Tenet a new one. I'm feeling pretty good right about now, and I really like it. I want it to stay that way, too. I like feeling good, because when you spend, literally, months not feeling good, or even normal, well, you treasure the time you feel well. It's cliched beyond all belief, but it's the truth. Everything feels better now. It really does. Food smells and tastes better. My evening glass of wine is a joy to imbibe. Spring is springing and I'm enjoying it even more this year than in years past. It's a rebirth not only for Mother Nature, but for myself as well. Life feels pretty damn good right now. Because I'm feeling good. Yet, my attitude might change by the end of the week. Barring any complications in the meantime, I have my next treatment scheduled for this Friday.

But that's in the future.

There's just one thing, though. Just one side-effect of the chemo that's still happening. Think you can guess what it is, my devoted Cake Eater readers? You can? Ok, good. Give it your best shot! YES. That's right. It's {insert drumroll here} hair loss!

Woo-freakin'-hoo, people!

It started, roughly, a little over a week ago, when I noticed I didn't have to shave the 1,023 square inches that comprise the surface area of my legs every day. It was every other day. Same with the armpits. Then, last Monday, twelve days out from my first treatment, my hair started coming out. Now, my devoted Cake Eater readers, when I have hair, I have a serious head of hair. It's thick. It's curly. It's long. And, for the most part, it's a pain in the ass. I whine as much about it as I possibly can. Because I can. I have a tempestuous relationship with my hair. I always have. It's Petruchio and I'm Kate. It's a love-hate relationship if there ever was one. Yet, it is also, quite seriously, my best feature. It makes or breaks my appearance. If it's out of control and frizzed out, creating what the husband calls "The Halo Effect," where all the broken ends rise towards the heavens, creating a halo of frizz that can be seen when I'm backlit, well, I look like hell. If, however, it's under control---easily achieved in January, when there's little to no humidity---I look pretty damn good. It is my crowing glory---to use an trite phrase to drive the point home.

I knew this was coming. My hair was going to fall out and I was going to be bald. Hair loss is a side-effect of both the carboplatin and the taxol I receive in my treatments. It was going to happen. I knew it was. I just wish it hadn't started to fall out when I felt so good. But, perhaps, there's a reason for that. Perhaps it's a built-in period of time to reestablish your good will towards life so you can deal with the fact that your hair has lost its will to be attached to your scalp, and any privacy you might have had regarding your diagnosis is shot to hell. Now, suddenly, everyone and their mother knows you have cancer. Or, in my case, had cancer. Because people know now. There's no getting around it. You look different than everyone else, so they notice the incongruity you represent---you're the one thing that's not like the other---and they look at you. They look hard. I have to say, my devoted Cake Eater readers, the accompanying reactions are interesting. Because if they're looking at me, well, I'm looking just as hard at them.

That said, I'm not bald just yet. That'll happen tonight because my head has suddenly turned into Charlie Brown's Christmas tree, and is shedding at every opportunity. If only it made that neat tinkling sound every time it shed, I'd have it made. I had to cut it short the other day because the hair loss was too unruly, too out-of-control. Go figure that my out-of-control hair would be out-of-control when it started to fall out.

They tell you that the best way to minimize the trauma of hair loss is to take it down to the scalp when it starts falling out. Otherwise, you just have to wait for it to do it's business. And it's a messy business. Particularly when your hair is long, because it comes out root to tip---and if your hair is over a foot long, well, my devoted Cake Eater readers, it looks like Chewbacca's been spending some time in your bathroom. Dr. Fuzzy Sweater told me to cut it short beforehand, so that it didn't create as much of a mess when it did fall out. I blatantly ignored this piece of advice. Fuck that, I thought. I'd had so much taken away from me, in such a short period of time, and I hadn't been ready for it. When my hair went, I decided, it was going to go on my terms---not anyone else's. I know it may seem a little whacko, but so much of what happens to you as a cancer patient is determined by other people---your doctors, your nurses, their schedulers, the lab technicians, and even the side-effects of the drugs you're on control you, as well. Cancer is like riding a roller coaster at an amusement park: you show up for the ride, but everyone else is in control---and all you can do, or are required to do, is hang on for dear life and scream at the appropriate times. So, when you can exert control over something, well, you grab the bull by the horns and you go for a ride.

So I did. It involved a barbershop, a pair of clippers and a willing barber. While I personally think the Marines would be happy with my hair as it is right now, the husband tells me it's not high and tight enough. What the hell, I wonder, would qualify? My hair is now less than an inch long in most places. This means, in the scheme of things, that I left, roughly, eleven or twelve inches of very thick, brown and blonde, curly, color-treated hair on the floor of the husband's barber's shop last Thursday. Don, bless him, had agreed to be my back-up a week before. The husband had offered to shear me. He has a set of clippers and I'm sure he would have done a fine job. I, however, wanted him to have a back-up in case he felt uncomfortable with the idea of it as the time came closer. When it came down to it, he felt Don would do a better job, so we got a last minute appointment, walked down to his shop and sat down for a shearing.

It was bizarre to be clipped, I have to say. I know that my devoted male Cake Eater readers probably deal with the buzzing every two weeks or so, but it was my first time and man, did, it feel weird. This vibrating thing was running along my scalp, cutting my hair as quickly as it's ever been cut, and long locks of hair it had taken me years to grow were falling to the floor as quickly as Don could move the clippers. The thought crossed my mind that someone had to invent this thing. How on earth did they come up with the idea that this vibrating thing would be the best way to cut hair? The most efficient way to cut hair? How did they think this up? I had no idea then, and I still haven't a clue. But, before I knew it, all the hair was gone. Don hadn't taken me down to the scalp. I hadn't mentioned that to him, so that was fine, because everyone in the shop was telling me how cute I looked with my hair this short. I didn't know what to say because I didn't have my glasses on. When I saw myself, I gasped a little bit, surprised at just how short it was.

And then Don made me laugh by telling me I looked just like a lesbian.

Because I do look like a lesbian now. And he's not the only one who's told me so. My brother called me the next day, after seeing the photo the husband had lightly bullied me into posing for and then emailed out, and he said the same thing. My hair is short. And it is cute, in a pixie-ish sort of way. It's soft if you run your hands down it; if you run your hands up it, well, it feels like a brush you'd pull out of your shoeshine box to polish your nicest pair of John Lobb Cordovan wingtips.

But it's still falling out.

It's just doing so in a more manageable way. I'm not clogging the drain now. Any long, brown hairs that are on the floor now are the husband's, not mine. My head gets cold, so I wear hats and do-rags when I go out---and to hide the fact that it's getting a little thin in spots. It's interesting, watching people watch me. Because, like I wrote up there, lo those many paragraphs ago, I can't hide it anymore. If you're wearing a hat or a do-rag, and your hair is as short as mine is, and your eyebrows are thinning out, like mine are, well, the chances you're a cancer patient are pretty good. (Although, I know some women who would pay really good money to have their eyebrows shaped like mine are now.) People look at you. They can't help it. They just do. What's interesting is how they respond to your cancer-ridden (or not) presence. I've devised a series of categories to place them in, because it's amazing how many of the responses are the same.

Ahem.

• First off you have the I'M NOT LOOKING AT YOU People. Theyr'e not looking at you. No, they're not. You just thought they were looking at you. They'll swear on a stack of bibles that they're not looking at you. You're wrong. Their pupils are firmly set directly in the middle of their sockets, they're looking directly ahead, and NO they did not SEE YOU. They'd swear they didn't. And if they did just for one fraction of a second, well, they didn't mean to see you. They really didn't. It was an accident and it will never happen again! EXCEPT THAT THEY JUST DID! AIEEEEEE! Oh, Holy Hell! Their eye slipped over to the corner and...they forced it by sheer will back to center. OHMYGODDIDTHEYNOTICE??? I DON'T WANT TO MAKE THEM FEEL LIKE THEY'RE IN A FREAK SHOW! I CAN'T LOOK! REALLY, I CAN'T. LOOK AT THE GROUND LOOK AT THE GROUND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JUST LOOK AT THE GROUND!!!!

  These are the people who pick up the pace and get by you really quickly.

• Second, you have the Smiley People. They're the ones who notice you, and make sure you notice them noticing you, then they break out in a big smile, to show you that you shouldn't feel awkward in their presence because---ahem---they understand.

  While their sincerity is sometimes hard to judge in an instant, I'm not knocking the Smiley People. They're the nice ones. You run into a lot of them when you take the shortcut to the oncologist's office through the hospital.

• Third, you have the No, My Mother Never Told Me It Was Rude to Stare. Why Do You Ask? People. They stare. They don't hide that they're staring at you. If you're a moving target, they will move with you to make sure their view of you stays unimpeded. Sometimes their jaws drop. Most of the time they manage to hide their Cro-Magnon Man instincts, however, and fit in with other Homo Sapiens and manage to just come off as incredibly rude.
• Fourth, and finally, we have the There, But For the Grace of God, Go I People. They're an interesting species. They notice you and they have a visceral reaction to you. It's not one that's meant to shun you or make you feel badly, it's just that you really don't matter. You're instantly out of the equation. Your covered head is simply the catalyst for them to think about how they would deal with the disease. You can see it play out on their faces. They're not sad that you have cancer; they're suddenly and abruptly sad because, one day, they might get it. And, judging by the reactions, their world will end if they do.

That it's so far. I might come up with new categories, we'll just have to see what happens. Oh, and I should mention there are plenty of people who look, but just look away, too. Then they just go about their business, like they would have before you wrapped your head up in a bandana. But they're hardly the majority. On the whole, however, it's been an excellent people watching experience.

And I'm not even bald yet. We'll have to see what happens tomorrow.

{Insert wiggling of thinning eyebrows here}

Posted by: Kathy at 05:59 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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Ok, that's just sad. And stupid.

And people wonder why I don't subscribe to the Strib.

I'm serious about that, too. I can be chatting with a neighbor or someone I met at a party, something that was mentioned in the paper comes up, and I'm clueless; they inform me of what's going on; I shrug my shoulders and say, "Well, I haven't subscribed in years." They express shock and wonder at this statement, and perhaps look down on me, like I'm an idiot, that of course I should be subscribing, otherwise how will I know what Garrison Keilor has written this week? I honestly don't give a rat's ass what the Strib has published and, in general, the People's Republic of Minnesota is a much nicer place to live when you're not aware of what a select group of idiots (coughcoughMinneapolisCityCouncilcoughcoughStateLegislatorscoughcough...) are up to. I mean, honestly: what does it matter if I pay attention anyway? Will anyone in the establishment listen to me if I complain? No. So, why bother?

What's funny is that a few months back, when I wasn't blogging, I was actually called by a Strib reporter, who shall remain nameless because I can't remember his name. He left a message on my voice mail in regards to Mike Zabawa and could I please call him back? I have a brother that goes by that name and I wondered what he could have possibly done to merit attention. I call the guy back, and I find out that it's not my brother he's asking about, but rather this guy, who, allegedly, tried to wipe a Waseca family out of existence on a cold February night. I told him I didn't know him, and if I was related to him I certainly didn't know anything about it. Since he seemed disinclined to believe me, I had to explain that "Zabawa" is actually a pretty common Polish name, so, no, even though my maiden name is the same, I probably wasn't related to the guy. The reporter was also surprised that I didn't know anything about this. He seemed to assume that everyone knew all about the story and when I told him I didn't, because, ahem, I didn't subscribe to the Strib. His reply: "Shame on you." And he was half-serious, too! I told him I subscribed to the FT, and that shut him up. It just goes to show you what a ridiculous air of entitlement this newspaper---and some of its employees---gives off. It seems they just assume you should subscribe because you live here, that quality of content doesn't come into the equation. It's a ridiculously blind way to go about your business.

It's like a pot dealer not realizing that their market is eroding due to meth sales.

That said, I kind of had the feeling Lileks would get the ax, or a demotion, at some point. His column has been whacked at with the column-inch weed whacker for years, so that it's barely a shadow of what it used to be. They changed it from "The Backfence" to "The Quirk" and they moved it from the Variety page to the Metro section when they changed the name. (At least I think they did. The only time I pick up the paper lately is at the oncologist's office.) It's been coming for some time. God only knows what they're going to do to him next, but he's much too talented a writer to be forced to churn out stories about the Internet. I'm sure he'll give it his best shot, because that's just who he is, but it's a magnificent squandering of talent if I've ever seen one.

{see also: Martini Boy's Bartender and the Llamas}

Posted by: Kathy at 02:38 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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George Tenet from his 60 Minutes interview on Sunday:

{...}Tenet admits the CIA's mistakes and his own. But what makes him angry now is how the White House ignored CIA warnings, cooked the books on intelligence, and then used "slam dunk" to brand him with the failure.

"The hardest part of all of this has just been listening to this for almost three years. Listening to the vice president go on 'Meet The Press' on the fifth year of 9/11, and say, 'Well, George Tenet said, slam dunk.' As if he needed me to say slam dunk to go to war with Iraq," Tenet tells Pelley. "And they never let it go. I mean, I became campaign talk. I was a talking point. You know, 'Look at what the idiot told us, and we decided to go to war.' Well, let's not be so disingenuous. Let's stand up. This is why we did it. This is why, this is how we did it. And let's tell, let's everybody tell the truth." {...}

{my emphasis}

What is that I hear? Could that possibly be the world's smallest violin playing the saddest of all sad songs just for you, George? Could it be? I think it is. Because God only knows you've had it rough over the past three years, living the life of a fat cat government retiree with a book deal. Poor you. Gosh, it must really be hard to have to hear Dick Cheney bad mouth you on national tee vee. How do you stand it? Copious amounts of scotch? Vicodin? Hookers? What? George, how do you manage to make it through the day? America wonders.

Far be it from me, however, to point out that for all your bitching and moaning about how hard it's been to listen to Dirty Dick badmouth you, there are other people who have it worse than you do. People with a far greater sense of honor, courage and fortitude, who are living through Hell on Earth, fighting bad guys left, right and center and who, sometimes, only manage to survive by the hair of their chinny chin chins. They, too, are facing the direct consequences of your actions, yet they don't get to go on 60 Minutes and whine about how hard it's been for them the past three years. Scott Pelley sure as hell doesn't want to interview them---that is, unless they've been accused of doing something wrong Then he's all over them. But until that point? Nope. They suffer in silence. And that's the way they like it. Because they don't see it as "suffering" per se; they see it as "doing their job."

And you just made it harder for them.

Nice double whammy, asshole.

In case you're wondering whom I'm referring to George, well, it's the men and women of the United States Armed Services, who went to war because their Commander in Chief ordered them to---a Commander in Chief who based his decision to wage said war on intelligence you delivered and which turned out to be bad. Surprisingly, however, they don't mind that. They're in Iraq, and no matter how they got there, they want to finish the job they started. Yet, you take no responsibility for your part in all this. Instead, you choose to whine that you've been scapegoated by an administration who never appointed you in the first place, and who should have, by all rights, fired your sorry ass on September 12, but who not only gave you the benefit of the doubt after 9/11, and who also went to bat for you when critics bayed for your blood. This is how you repay them. This is how you repay the men and women who risk their lives everyday for this country. You whine about how hard it's been to be badmouthed on Meet the Press?

Well, far be it from me to say so, George, but perhaps there should be a little rendition in your case. As in they should throw your lard-ridden ass on the back of a C-130 (no private jets for you, George), fly you to Iraq, dump you in the middle of Baghdad (and not the Green Zone, either) and see if your perspective changes a bit.

Methinks you'll still feel sorry for yourself, but it'll be for other reasons then.

See also: Hitchens and Fausta.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:43 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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