ON THE CUSP OF 60! FAMILY

marita casartelli downes

May Day 07 Feeling

the breeze through my hair. It was the first time, the first time my hair moved. It felt sensuous, glorious. The reason I'll always be a 60's person -- Hair. Everyone keeps saying how good I look in short hair. I imagine my mother looking down from somewhere with an i-told-you-so gleam of satisfaction. But today I felt, and wanted to feel more. I miss running my fingers through my hair. I might eventually consider short hair. There is some advantage to always looking kempt. But loved my messy hair. I want to grow it once more at least. I can always go shorter.

4-27-07 What a difference...

There's always another day. Another day to open the mail and find slightly different results. Right breast, probably benign. A call to the breast doctor, no answer yet. Time to wait. Keeping the anxiety down while aware that I am powerless. It's not like a heart attack where you have to go to the hospital immediately. I have time to think. Time to enjoy the spring. Time to focus on other things.

4-24-07 We have nothing...

Roosevelt was right. Everything went smoothly. Clean mammogram. Clean sonogram. Had a nice lunch and bought a cute pick and red tulip pocket mirror at pylones to commemorate the day. The rest is a blur. I went back to work and resumed my life with a new sense of freedom. Pippa passes.

4-19-07 FEAR

It’s a big day tomorrow. I have my first annual mammogram since I was diagnosed. Suddenly, I’m panicking. I want to be prepared. My personality is to want to know where all the fire exits are, but this is has gone beyond that into the realm of neurosis. I’m spending my time figuring out how I’m going to handle bad news – who’s going to tell me, how they’ll do it, first reaction, who do I call first, which of my many doctors do I call first, do I buy myself a bottle of liquor and get drunk either alone or with friends, will I decide to run for President? I know. Waste of Time. I need to figure out how I am going to celebrate the good news. But it’s not coming. I know I have to go back to work in the afternoon. It feels overwhelming like trying to buy a toothbrush today. It’s not a simple task any more – plain and cheap, batteries, recharables, whitening scrubbers, floss imitators, dual action. I know because I tried to buy one today. Two drugstores later, I finally compromised for a $6 dual function battery powered gem that I hope will last a few months. That way it is not such a big investment and if it’s not perfect I can still afford to buy another one. So what pleasure fits the result – dinner, pizza, Broadway, opera, ballet, a boat ride around Manhattan, a simple movie and then you have to decide who to celebrate with because what’s a celebration alone? I think it’s so hard because I wanted it to over and it’s not. I need to accept that there are going to be tests and results for (hopefully) many years to come.

Mar. 2007 STRANGE ENCOUNTERS

It's been strange lately. People have been asking about my hair “Why did you cut your hair?” Originally I was taken aback. Where have you been I thought. I reminded them that 2006 was the year I had breast cancer. Finally, the last time I was able to zing, "I had a Brittany moment or rather God had a Brittany moment with me." I suppose I should be encouraged. I don’t look sick. One person said that people spend a lot of money to get a haircut like me. And one of my daughters said I was fashionable. I don’t feel fashionable. I just feel bad. I miss my hair. My radiation oncologist, Dr. Rafla said I could start dying my hair. I guess he was one of the people who thinks pink hair is natural. I’m thinking about changing the pink to blue. I want to go through a blue period. My only hesitation is that the pink and blue might turn to purple. I don’t feel purple right now.

Feb. 27, 2007 THOUGHTS ON MORTALITY

My last chemo treatment was Oct. 19, 2006; my last radiation treatment was Jan. 10, 2007; lump found by gyn, mammography, sonogram, initial diagnosis Mar. 24, 2006; biopsy Mar. 29, 2006: first meeting with breast surgeon, official diagnosis April 3, 2006; first lumpectomy April 14, 2006 (Good Friday!); second lumpectomy April 25, 2006; third lumpectomy May 9, 2006: June 13, 2006 bladder out (laproscopically), med port in; July 6, 2006 first chemo one of six; med port out Nov. 7, first radiation Nov 21, 2007 (34 all together). A year of dates strung together. Hopefully forgotten anniversaries. When I look back on it, it seems like so much – too much. At the time, it was just appointment after heart wrenching appointment. My breast surgeon said it would be nine months out of my life; it turned out to be more like 11 – almost a year. It’s Mar. 7th soon it will be the anniversary of the dream-nightmare. I find it hard to remember. I don’t want to. I kept thinking the whole time. How has this changed me? Everyone says you are supposed to be a different person. The little things won’t bother you anymore. What are they talking about? Little things are all that is important. My job is detail oriented so my brain works that way. The suffering is cumulative. The effects of the chemo and radiation can stay in your body for a long time. A month after the chemo I lost my eye lashes and my eyebrows. Everyone said I might escape losing them since it didn’t happen during treatment. No such luck. Then the styes started. I felt like my face was full of boils. I had one over my left eye that was a centimeter. And no one wanted to treat it while I was undergoing radiation. So I had to live with it for months until it was surgically removed and there might be scar tissue and they can’t guarantee that all my eyelashes will come back. It’s the little tortures that bother me. People don’t understand. They say I should be happy because the cancer is gone. I am, but now I’m back to the superficial worries we have in our society, wrinkles and overweight. Death – it never occurred to me that I would die of breast cancer. I figured it would be stomach cancer or more likely heart disease. So, when I was waylaid by that lump in my breast, I knew I wasn’t going to die. No one told me I at risk, even. My first cousin, Ann, had been through it and my old friend, Myra. I wasn’t worried. I hate reading books that say you will face your mortality. I didn’t. I was too busy getting better. Now, I’m beginning to look back. It reminds me of when I was seven. I was living in motel in Miami Beach (a long story). There was a canal with a cast iron railing around it. I always climbed over it and walked on the other side. I was not a well supervised child. One day this woman yelled at me. I climbed back over and suddenly realized that I was doing something dangerous. I must have scared that woman to death! That’s what breast cancer seems like to me now, a precipice that I could have fallen down, but didn’t. I didn’t worry about death every time I went to the hospital, though. I was afraid they were going to kill me. I’m generally afraid of hospitals. In fact, I don’t understand why people are afraid of airplanes. The statistics are all with a long, dragged out, painful hospital death, not with a quick, blaze of glory airplane explosion. I’ve always felt the hospitals would get me. And then there was the Andy Warhol factor. That was the worst when I had my gallbladder out. We used the same hospital. I know! He was killed by his private duty nurse, not the operation. But, I feel you can never be too superstitious around hospitals. Right after I finished my treatment, two people I know died. One was Adrian, the 28 year-old son of a friend, and the other was Sandy, a 52 year-old friend who died of a lupus related infection. I began to reel from survivor’s guilt and I’m still processing it. Why them? Why now? I was the one who got all the sympathy and they died.

Feb. 2007 ON GROWING BACK MY HAIR

Some people don’t mind being bald, like Brittany. Of course, there’s a difference when your hair starts growing back in about 10 minutes. There’s a difference when it’s months. There’s a difference when you have to feel that shiny bald head everyday and wear a scarf or a wig. Scarves in summer; wigs in winter – they’re warmer. For me, it was torture. The worst thing. As soon as I shaved my head, I wished I hadn’t. Suddenly that feeling of hair falling out didn’t seem so bad. Initially it hurt…the stubble…but then that fell out too. And I was cold. Change of character: I developed a new sympathy for bald men. I wore a cap all the time in the house. Now my hair is back to the extent that I can’t see any bald spots. It grew back, gray, black and pink. People wonder about that. How can your hair be pink, they say. I tell them it was always like that. I was born with pink hair. And then there’s the hair you don’t want. On your chin, over your lips, on your cheeks. That hair came back quickly. And the worst of it is, I had none before. I had done electrolysis years before. I had no facial hair. What is my body doing to me? Is this punishment for chemo? Everyday, I watch it. My hair growth that is. It’s so strange. Brussels, Hilary’s cat, is taking care of me.

She actually licks my scalp. Since it’s kind of itchy, I don’t mind so much, but if she does it too long, it gets wet and I have to wash it. What is the cat thinking? I told her, I would not lick her back.

7-24-2006 ON LOSING MY HAIR

On Saturday, I went with a friend to a barber and had my head shaved. It was two and half weeks since my first chemo. My doctor said my hair would fall out in three weeks, just in time for my next chemo. It started to fall out on Thursday, shedding really. I would reach up and touch my hair and a bunch would come off, just like Brussels, our cat. I hated the feeling. For whatever reason I decided to be proactive. Now I'm a little sorry. Maybe I should have gone for a buzz cut. At the time, I followed the advice of the barber. I remember sitting there in the chair looking in the mirror and feeling like a prisoner being shaved. I thought of the holocaust. The ultimate indignity, loss of hair, loss of sexuality. I look like Yoda. My friend Angela said I looked like a wise person. I don't feel wise only unexpected pain. Little porcupine-like prickles, lying on a pillow, I experience needle like jabs. What about all those shaved women? Did they feel prickles? Did they cry over their lost hair, or had they lost so much by then it didn't matter? Everyday, I remember how lucky I am. No one is bombing me. But today I feel sad and a little weepy. I loved my hair. When people say it will grow back, I just get angry. I want to say, "does that mean you want to shave your head in solidarity?" The thought that it will grow back is of absolutely no comfort to me. I still have to experience the moment of baldness. Sent by Marita Downes |(This particular entry was originally in comments in response to NPR's My Cancer Commentary: Waiting for Test Results

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