If you've ever experienced a great tragedy, loss, major illness, or anything else for which people offer great sympathy, then you know what look I'm talking about - - that tragic face with the intense puppy dog eyes (ironic since it actually resembles the manipulation face Puss in Boots makes) that doesn't merely say, "How ARE you?? I'm worried about you!" but more accurately conveys to me, "Oh my GOD, you are dealing with a tragic, possibly life-threatening illness, and it must make your life a living HELL!"
I'm always surprised when I get that look. I don't feel deserving of that look. Heck, I feel darned lucky to be surrounded by amazing people, to be showered with love and well wishes and greeting cards in my mailbox everyday (take THAT, junk mail! Now I enjoy opening my mailbox!!). But shoot, you can even HEAR that look over the phone! So usually I find myself wanting to console the look-giver, mostly because I feel like this whole thing is still just an incredibly elaborate ruse that I have constructed in order to manipulate people into showering me with attention, and it has worked so amazingly well that I feel thoroughly guilt-ridden. And I don't want my friends and family to be burdened with worry.
So here's the deal, people - I think we need to have a little lesson in gullibility.
Perhaps those who are bombarding me with cards (even from women I've never met, thanks to my amazing sorority and its magical ability to communicate without my knowledge!) and messages and gifts (oh my goodness - THREE Mickey scarves and a canvas Mickey tote from my Disney travel agent, also whom I've never met in person!) have never known a pathological liar, in which case I can't blame them for blindly believing that I'm beset with tragedy right now. I suppose I've gone to great lengths to "prove" it. Cutting my hair was the first move. Rarely am I without garish green bruises - in the crooks of my arms, on my wrist, across the right side of my chest... People who see me in person see the port line, like an angry vein pulsing across my clavicle; many have even seen the bumpy plastic alien threatening to pop right through my skin. I went so far as to have Jess to post a pic of me on Facebook as I sat in an infusion recliner! And today I'm able to reach up under my scarf and pull out tufts of hair. Heck, I'm a regular David Copperfield! Because despite the very real experience, I STILL feel as if I've concocted a major scheme that plays on people's sympathies and earns me fabulous rewards.
And for the first couple weeks, even I didn't believe my story. After all, I've heard similar radical stories that were complete falsehoods. And with everything else that has happened in my life over the last couple years, the irony of me ending up with not just one but TWO types of cancer, especially after I assured myself, my students, and everyone significant in my life that the thyroid swelling would be no big deal even if it WAS cancer, is just too darned ironic. Who could believe this was really happening?? I mean shoot -- only two years ago my home was being targeted repeatedly by a sadly disturbed woman who was not content to merely spraypaint horrendous accusations of my raunchy sexual exploits on my house and car - FIVE times - but had to continue them on a nursing home, a grocery store, and an elementary school before finally being caught on an extremely warm night as she headed down the street in a dark hoodie and ski mask. Didn't I get plenty of attention back then when half the town assumed I must have done something to her like having an affair with her husband, and especially when she apparently began telling people that I had actually had sex with her teenage son AND given him an STD? (The irony of that one was even greater than the cancer, I think, since I live a ridiculously chaste - i.e. sexually BORING - life. And even if I were totally depraved, immoral, and desperate and her kid were in his thirties, he is one of the LAST men on earth I would ever sleep with. YUCK!!)
That was way more attention than anyone needs in a lifetime, I swear. And yet here I am -- playing on the emotions of everyone in my life. Seriously - - it seems as if I'm just desperately seeking sympathy. I mean, this is really not that bad!
So I think about cancer about a thousand times a day. So what? It doesn't keep me from doing fun stuff. Like last week -- I thoroughly enjoyed the Petunia Festival. So yeah - I drank club soda all night while my friends were getting their drink on the first night we went out. That's fine. It was no big deal when the bartender tried to serve me flat club soda (which is essentially bad tasting water) and then opened up diet tonic water because he somehow thought that was an appropriate substitute. Eventually he got it right! And who cares that people kept asking, "How are you doing?" and I had to concede that ultra-heightened menstrual cramps were paining me enough to want to sit down. I still made it out until almost 1 a.m. - and I woke up withOUT a hangover! And without regret over having done or said anything inappropriate in a drunken stupor in front of the handful of former students I ran into and chatted with at length at a bar. I'd say that's about five points in FAVOR of cancer. :) Plus we laughed HARD every time I was able to say someone (though I could hardly keep a straight face), "You have to come hang out with us because this could be my last Petunia Festival!" (So I'm making jokes about death - so sue me. It IS funny.)
Ok, yeah - so Ellie was a bit upset yesterday when we had to turn around on our hike because I scratched my leg and was bleeding. Certainly this was just a minor inconvenience. I felt horrible, though, because I should have planned ahead and brought antibiotic cream with me, but I haven't yet learned what I need to anticipate in order to avoid illness and infection. Once I saw that blood, however, all I could think was, "If germs get in there, I could contract a blood infection that my body can't fight, and I could die....." And yeah, that's extreme, but you never know. In order to fight cancer, you have to kill GOOD cells, too, and I have no idea what my white cell count looks like today. I do, however, get excited every time I sneeze, assuming that my immunity is back up and rebelling against allergens. ;) And the bottom line is that I was running through the woods yesterday and splashing through a creek and feeling just as alive as I've ever felt. So how can cancer be that bad?
Cancer has allowed me to schedule a free massage and free Reiki session in the next couple weeks.
Cancer earned me a gift card to a spa, where I enjoyed a truly heavenly facial the other day, AND was thus introduced to new skincare products that have at last balanced my oily skin such that my makeup still looks fresh at the end of the day!!
Cancer has connected me with phenomenal people I never knew before I had cancer, and it has brought me closer to both those with whom I was only distantly acquainted and those close friends with whom I haven't maintained sufficient contact, thanks to our insanely busy schedules.
I should think that this last benefit is what makes cancer a true gift - something for which I am actually grateful. What makes cancer ridiculously fun, though is today's phenomenon: the losing of my hair.
I must admit this did cause me a bit of worry the other day as I indulged in that facial. Though having a facial in the middle of the summer rather than in the midst of the school year did allow me to free my mind sufficiently to focus acutely on Caroline's magic fingers as they massaged my face, my back, my shoulders, my neck, my scalp, my arms, and even my feet, I was slightly distracted when my scalp massage included Caroline literally pulling at my hair (an incredible sensation -- I highly recommend it for those of you whose hair is NOT falling out in chunks when tugged upon) and I began to imagine her horror if it suddenly began coming out in her hands. I also realized, with great chagrin, that if (when) I return for a facial, I will be unable to enjoy this sensation next time, as I will be BALD. Would that be weird for her? I wondered. Would it throw her off her game? Maybe creep her out to have to massage my bristly head? Ah, well -- I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. She didn't seem thrown by the alien protruding from my chest, so I'm guessing she can handle baldness.
But overall this concept is truly FUN. For one thing, I get to play with wigs and scarves and hats, the most fun of these being the wigs, surely. Who the heck gets to try out a new identity every other day?? THIS GIRL!! And who else gets to reach up under her scarf and say, "Look!!" as she pulls out multiple strands of hair? HA! I could pull out HALF of my hair and still have a full head. If only the idea of leaving a trail of hair everywhere I go didn't ick me out so much... But the absolute BEST part? Not only are my legs and armpits still totally smooth today after shaving yesterday (and typically experiencing five o'clock shadow within a couple hours), but I shall not have to worry about waxing "down there" for SEVERAL MONTHS! (And that is one jungle that desperately needs to be razed.)
Overall, cancer has been a blessing. (Did I mention that being on steroids is AWESOME for me? I felt awake!!! I got things done!! I can't wait to be on them again!!!) In every way except maybe two - - or three or four, I suppose - - cancer has brought GREAT things to my life. If I can keep them up - maintain my new closeness with so many amazing women, remember to laugh all the time, and keep my bikini area smooth as a baby's bottom - then cancer just might be the BEST thing that has ever happened to me. Aside from my kids, of course. They make life pretty darned awesome ALL the time - even when I'm healthy. ;)
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