Episode 3: Chemo Class

This is the third entry in a multi-part series. Read the first entry here and the second entry here.

I'm the youngest patient at chemo class by at least 30 years. This isn't fair, I think, and I'm both ashamed of the thought and surprised it hasn't come sooner.

Much to our disappointment, the class is pretty remedial. Cancer is rapidly dividing cells. Chemo is…

Rapidly dividing cells. Nothing personal.

There's this married couple and they're the kind of old married couple you want to be, playful and affectionate. When the slide about chemo and sex comes up he clears his throat and loudly asks, "Excuse me? Can I go to the bathroom now? I don't need to know about this." What a joker. (Don't get pregnant, don't get anyone pregnant. Use the barrier method, especially the first few days after treatment.)

Kim's taking notes and I am too, halfheartedly. Mostly I'm scribbling this is fucking surreal over and over again. Now we're at the part about the side effects of chemo. I see Fatigue at the top of the slide and it finally hits me that I'm not going to be feeling like me for awhile. I start to cry but I don't want anyone else to see so I do my best to choke it back down. These people have their own problems, you know?

A lot of the class is about how to take care of yourself between treatments and avoid infection. This is how you wash your hands. Don't take aspirin. Avoid raw meat and fish. Kim and I look at each other and mouth "Oysters?" simultaneously. The time is now.

On the way out, Kim says "That was surreal."

"Your hair looks so long!" I say to Caley over video chat.

"That's actually why I'm calling! I made us appointments to get our hair done on Friday."

But I'm about to lose all of my hair.

"Yeah, exactly!"

Good point.

But first: the bone scan. I don't tell anyone just how nervous I am. Other than a dull ache in my right ribs and the perpetual stab of existential despair, I feel pretty good. The thing about getting bad news, I've noticed, is that you start to prepare yourself for more bad news.

I know I'm going to have to get over it, but I really, really hate needles. Paula does her best to distract me, like I'm a little kid. I look away as the nurse injects me with a radioactive substance called a tracer. The tracer will take about three hours to travel through my bloodstream to my bones before they can do the test. In between, I get an easy CT scan and Paula takes me to get a pot card. Sorry, I mean medical marijuana card.

The bone scan takes about 20 minutes. I lie down perfectly still and a machine slowly travels the length of my body, hovering just above me. The technician takes the results to the doctor and he orders one more image. Of my ribs.

My doctor's office calls the next morning to say the bone scan looks good. Relief. Short-lived. Next they tell me that they found another cancerous node near my collar bone, which upgrades me to Stage IIIc. So this is how it's going to be, huh?

On the way to the salon, Caley and Allison ask what I'm going to do with my hair. The truth is that what I most want is just to look like myself for a little bit longer. But when we get there I say, do whatever you want. Oh and maybe I'd like to be redhead.

Maybe this way it will feel like less of a betrayal when it falls out.

Sunday morning I wake up crying. You can only distract yourself so long. At some point, you have to sit still with it. No one can do that part for you. Chemo starts tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Here I am as a redhead: