There is a tiny hair salon in the alley between my apartment complex and the large thoroughfare. It's a rundown, one-woman operation, which seems to have lost track of time since the early 1980s. Apparently the salon has a rather limited clientele. Even when there is someone inside, it's hard to tell if she is a customer, for that person would be sitting on the couch chatting with the owner/stylist lady, not on a high chair in front of the mirror. Somehow the business doesn't go under, and I'm happy for the lady. I went into that place twice--November last year, and two days ago.
I had started chemotherapy in late October. The nurse from the oncology department who came to explain possible side effects said that hair would begin to fall off in about two weeks after the first chemo infusion. Mine was the cocktail of Docetaxel and Epirubicin, both of which would cause severe hair loss, so there was no avoiding it. The nurse said that shaving it off would make it less difficult. I nodded, but it's hard to imagine what it is going to be like before it happens. Until about a week into it, it looked like it was going to be slow, gradual, and therefore manageable, even though there were more and more strands of hair on the pillow and on the floor. The second week I had to stay in the hospital in quarantine, for my white blood cell level plummeted close to zero. Little windows of lucid hours between feverish hazes and drug-induced sleep were spent in horrified revulsion against the "sterilized" hospital food. No time to worry about hair. After the second week, though, it was becoming impossible to shampoo in the shower. Then, it didn't even need touching. Strands of hair slowly rained down on the table, on the plate, as I was eating. Wearing a cap to keep the hair in place only hurt my scalp.
The stylist I usually go to, however, wouldn't do it. She just kept crying. We had become friends over the five years, and it was sweet of her to be so emotional for me. This was inconvenient, though. Where should I go, then? Should I do it myself? But I'm not Samantha and my life isn't Sex and the City. Talking to another hair stylist about this at a different shop wasn't an attractive option. Being stared at by other customers in an unfamiliar place was even less so. If my chemo-fatigued self hadn't been so tired and weak that day, it would have taken hell of a lot more inner turmoil to convince myself that anything would be OK with a complete stranger, that they really didn't care. My immune system had just been terrorized and I couldn't wander around any longer. When I went into that rundown place, the owner lady was by herself, watching TV.
As I was leaving, last November, she told me to come say hi when my treatment was over. I don't know why I said I would, but I did. I never forgot that. Since the end of the radiation therapy in late May, I kept thinking about it. I walked past that place often enough, but didn't know whether I wanted to go see her or not. I did and didn't. If she hadn't forgotten, perhaps she'd think I was dead or something. Yes, the tiny hair salon owner has nothing better to do than think about the sullen sickly woman whose hair was falling out, right? The world doesn't revolve around me, I know. But I kept thinking that she did me a big favor when I really needed one. More importantly, it wasn't what she did. It was how she did it. She understood what I needed without my having to explain at length. While doing my hair, she talked about things with me like she would with any other customer. No fuss, and just the right amount of discretion. She encouraged me to get through the treatment well only when I stood up to leave. I had been so freaked out about everything that it was such a relief to have the head shaving finally done that day. In addition, having a bald head didn't seem to matter much when an almost normal conversation with a stranger was still doable. No tears that day, which in itself was quite an accomplishment too.
Two days ago, I finally went to see her with a small gift. She remembered me when I reminded her of my visit last year. Then she said: Was it breast cancer. Was the radiation over. Was I well now. Marvelling at how full my hair was again, she told me not to dye it, for it's no good. Two minutes into the conversation, I was bawling like a child, tears streaming down a year overdue. Such an emotional outburst I hadn't had in over a decade, let alone in front of a stranger--well, two strangers. I hadn't seen when I walked in but there was another woman sitting on the couch. I didn't care. That owner lady handed a Kleenex to me and wiped her eyes too. In that rundown hair place, with the matronly owner lady, I don't know what came over me.
On my way to the eye glasses shop--the place is right next to the campus--I found myself watching for familiar faces I might run into at the busy intersection. Since my diagnosis over a year ago, the few times I came to campus to pick up mail or books from my office, I came late in the evening lest I should run into colleagues. Mostly I did not want to be seen with the hairless, steroid-induced moonface, or to have to explain anything to the ones not yet in the know. When the moonface is long gone and the hair is long back, however, the dread of running into random acquaintances lingers. Most people are generous and kind; and you think you are somewhat used to that "oh I'm so sorry" conversation. But actually you never know where that interaction might spiral down to, and you're a bit afraid of what you might learn from all that--about yourself, and about the other person. Serious illnesses like cancer will put you in situations where you get to see things that you wouldn't normally see in other people. It's either that, or with a new, unprecedented degree of self-centeredness you develop this uncanny ability to be offended and find fault with others.
An older colleague wrote me a long email on hearing about my diagnosis. As a person who had had breast cancer some years before, she was most sympathetic and I was grateful. But her repeated insistence upon visiting me at home was quite out of line. We weren't that close, and having guests like her over was out of the question in my condition then. Chemotherapy puts your general social life on hold. You try to carry on with a normal routine but there are many days when you just can't see people, period. Of all people she should have known that. I begrudged the time and energy I had to spend in politely diverting her offers to visit me. Then she wanted to give me the hats from her own chemo. In general, I'm in favor of recycling. But her hats? Truth be told, I didn't want to inherit the relics of her cancer. I could make my case with the obsessive compulsive disorder plea, but I guess I never did like her. When I told her that I already had more than enough hats and that she shouldn't go out of her way, she said she'd send them via someone else. She just wouldn't let it go. A few weeks later, another email. The hats couldn't be dry-cleaned for there was no parking space in front of the dry cleaner's she had to go to. She was going to send them as they were, and told me to wash them or have them dry-cleaned before use. Too tired to be polite, I finally said outright that I didn't want them. She gave up that idea then, but ended up sending me a book about anti-cancer food. The only problem is that the book is in Japanese and I don't know Japanese. The book came with her message that my sister could translate it for me. She could, indeed. But in all honesty I cannot imagine any cancer patient willing to slave one's sibling to translate a common sensical book about healthful foodstuff. That book is now rotting away in the cupboard. All the same, long minutes on one of those sick, white blood cell alert days had to be spent in writing her a thank you note for that precious, thoughtful gift.
One day in December, I received an email from a professor I know from a feminist scholars association--in the same discipline but another university. In the email she said she had heard I was sick. Surprisingly, though, it wasn't one of those "get well soon" notes. Without even asking me how I was holding up, she asked for a copy of my essay on Walter Benjamin, PDF file preferred. It was necessary for her research. It would have been understandable if she had had no idea what I was going through. But she did state that she had heard. Yet she was asking me to make photocopies and put them in the post or sit up in front of the computer and sort through my files for her convenience. Why did she not go to the library or use web databases? Was she being considerate and treating me as if I wasn't sick? I never got to ask, for I didn't bother to write back.
A few weeks ago, on my way to the garbage recycle spot in my apartment complex, I ran into a professor in another department. She'd moved to the same complex and was disposing of her recycle materials. We had had coffee or lunch a couple of times a couple years back. Then she wanted to hang out more but I extricated myself from her invitations with some sense of guilt. Her complaint about not having friends at work made me wary, although I didn't care enough to figure out why. I preferred to think that she was just boring or something. And I hadn't seen her for a couple of years until that day. In front of the recycle spot, the first thing she asked me when I mentioned my illness was, "It isn't terminal, is it?" I was baffled that someone of her age and education was capable of uttering something so inadequate. She was smiling, too. The extent to which that question baffled me is matched only by the extent to which her parting words disturbed me: "Be careful. They say it recurs, you know." When careless curiosity about what stage my case was can be easily upsetting, it's hard to say what to make of such remarks. I never could tell whether she was malicious or colossally clueless. On the other hand, I could see why she would complain about having no friends. My lingering sense of guilt about blowing her off couldn't have dissippated any faster. Now I am extra careful on the garbage recycle day so I wouldn't run into her and her inadequacy.
And when I went to the faculty meeting for the first time in over a year two weeks ago, they were glad to see me well again. But one colleague seemed noticeably displeased with my appearance. The visible discomfort in his face invited a lot of questions on my side. Maybe I was just another possible obstacle to having his way, or maybe he was unhappy to suddenly find his all-important self in company that required some form of acknowledgment. I don't know. I can come up with a thousand theories, but in the end it boils down to him not knowing how to properly address others as the occasion calls for. There are people who honestly don't know what to say to me--but these cases are all different. Some can't find the right words for what they feel; some are too afraid to hurt my feelings with quick words. But there are awkward silences and wrong words caused by serious social ineptness or a simple lack of sympathy. Being on the receiving end of these latter cases is never pleasant even when you're not afflicted with a life-threatening illness. One might think, having cancer does not entitle one to special treatment from all quarters. But I object. Who would want to live in a world where everyone thinks even a cancer patient shouldn't get a little special consideration? I'm not talking about wanting to get away with murder, am I? His reluctant inquiry after my health was the worst of the kind, delivered five minutes after I sat down next to him, the only empty spot. While I was answering him, he even stopped listening to me mid-sentence, and began talking to someone else. He didn't know how to, or didn't care to, put up a passible performance of politeness. I realized that, in our supposedly collegial interaction of the past seven years, if there was anything he valued in me, it was my service to him. I can't say I didn't know it, but it was as if that ugly truth I never wanted to acknowledge even to myself suddenly came to light then and there.
Work is a strange place where it's best to keep most people at a reasonable distance and most personal feelings and thoughts under the surface. Sure, a few friends who will watch your back are essential; but I'd rather not think too much or too deeply about the rest of them, unless it's absolutely necessary, and not show too much of myself. I would have liked to stick to that particular way of maintaining a friendly yet functional relationship with colleagues. But since last fall, some things couldn't be helped, and it's too bad. Certain details about my body became casual knowledge to many people at work and beyond. I don't like it. And I can't say I like certain things I've come to see about some of those people. Not to mention the (lack of) depth of my own character. It was more (and worse) than I needed or cared to know. This is part of the unexpected and unwelcome fruit of going through a crisis. Sure, it's not like everyone has to tiptoe around me 24/7, and I often resented being treated too much like an invalid. I admit that my frequent inability to handle the strange emotional kinks made me super bitchy. You try to objectify things, reminding yourself that this was a situation as difficult for others to handle as it was for yourself. Still, inexplicable incidents make you wonder what it is with academics, including yourself.
Dr. Lee calls me in the morning with the biopsy result from a week ago. The second my phone rings, I instinctively know it's her. My heart sinks. She's supposed to call me at 5 pm--why is she calling so early unless it's urgent? I begin to analyze her tone, but her hello is so finely balanced that I cannot immediately tell what that voice is about to deliver. I think I can read from her voice what sort of verdict I am in for. This of course is total bullshit. Seasoned doctors like her wouldn't necessarily show it in the ways that patients imagine they can read. But doctors are people too, and they will find it easier to give good news, surely. And am I not an expert analyst of any text and context? I can go on rationalizing and de-rationalizing, as if this endless rumination mattered more than the actual results and what they entail. It's pitiful but I can't help it. I get so wired up about these medical conversations; I'll pick apart littlest clues over and over--for any detail that might mean something, any hint that might shorten the suspense. But it's Dr. Lee that makes everything good by getting to the point without ceremony. The new lumps proved to be nothing to worry about: they're just hardened fatty tissues, as she had assumed, and they're going to melt away in time. She called as soon as she got the result because she knew I was anxiously waiting. So much for my interpretive skills. Everything depends on the doctor, and thank goodness I have this awsome woman who is kind and considerate in addition to being extremely professional.
It's been almost three weeks since I found these new lumps. It's a long enough time to spend in fear and uncertainty. Fear, however, is so exhausting that it is unsustainable, I learned. Somewhere in the middle of those three weeks, I stopped being actively scared, even though I was still worried and afraid. Instead, inertia set in. And it wasn't easy to fight it out. Even though my anxiety had lessened since seeing Dr. Lee last week, waiting for the biopsy result was still a drag. You can never be sure, for, as Dr. Lee says, "there are quiet a lot of exceptions." That off chance weighed me down; despite what I was consciously thinking, my body and my unconscious still lagged behind, and it was getting increasingly difficult to get out of bed. I'm relieved to be out of the tunnel now. It's disheartening to imagine how many more of these suspenses I'll have to live through in the future. But for now, I am happy to be healthy and happy to be enjoying this sense of relief.
As I was waiting for the biopsy result, I kept making a list of things that I would do once I'm off the hook. There was no reason why I shouldn't have done those things before the result was in, and I know it isn't always healthy to be thinking in those terms. But when you just can't help asking "what if" and putting your life on hold in face of the very concrete fear of recurrence, perhaps it is better to turn it around and use that logic to reward yourself afterwards. Now that I'm all good, I will do those things. Buy a pair of kickass suede boots. Get new eye glasses. Update Terry. Get back in touch with Nawon, who left a message at the office. Write a thank you note to that nice orthopedic surgeon who helped me with the hip joint stretching for weeks. Drive to Damyang and see the famous bamboo colonies and metasequois forest. Go to Tokyo. Plan that trip to the US. And go see that hair lady. I think I will now.
A beautiful hand-written card arrived in the post from a former student, wishing me a speedy and complete recovery. I picked it up when I went to my office a few days ago. She is a sweet girl, now a school teacher in NYC. I had always liked her as a student, and she kept in touch. I saw her in the summer of 2010 in NYC. She was delighted to go to an upscale restaurant which she then couldn't afford as a poor graduate student. It was fun hanging out with her outside the school setting, talking about boys and so on. News travels fast, and I'm sure most of the people who know me, including students, here or abroad, heard of my breast cancer somehow. But she seems to have heard it quite recently. The "thinking of you" card was still in my purse and I read it again. From the tone of the note it's clear that she is seriously scared for me. She probably wrote it and mailed it the first chance she got, fretting to get her best wishes through to me in a hurry. I relish her heartfelt concern. It is a lovely moment.
When I started chemotherapy and suddenly had to stop teaching right after the mid-term week in October 2011, a number of students wrote me, some of them repeatedly, asking how I was and wishing me well. They didn't know what exactly was wrong with me but probably suspected something serious was going on. Professors don't usually disappear in the middle of a semester. Regardless, these students were the first ones to send me a steady stream of concerned emails and supportive messages, for they were the first ones to notice that a serious illness pulled me out of my ordinary life, even before most of my friends did. Not all of those emails came from the ones I personally knew or recognized. Some of them I couldn't place. Still they wrote me. These students I teach are smart kids--they are accordingly very sensitive and conscious about their relationship with faculty, and wouldn't usually write to a professor who they weren't sure would remember them (except to demand a letter of recommendation and complain about, or plea for, grades!). Only a few weeks into the shocking sensations of chemotherapy, I was disoriented and distressed, to say the least, and unable to write them back. I simply didn't know what to say to them. I did read those emails avidly, however--sometimes crying, sometimes smiling, and very often both. The number of their emails declined over the months, but they kept coming. I never took them for granted. Each of these student emails was a fresh surprise, which opened a pocket of delight in the dark days of last fall and winter. I was genuinely sorry that their semester was messed up: apparently they weren't getting what they had signed up for, even though I'm sure the new, substitute instructors gave them what I couldn't give. At the end of December, the substitute professors sent final grades over to me; I could see that many of my students's grades suffered because of the sudden change of hands. Astonishingly, though, not one of the hundred and twenty plus students in my two undergraduate sections sent me a complaining or questioning email about the final grade. Not one. Instead, many of them sent me warm wishes for my restored health in the new year, and quite a few graduating ones wrote me about their new jobs and thanked me for what they read with me in class. As I got somewhat used to the chemo cycle and the entailing symptoms, I began to write them back, if only a few brief lines.
In reply, I write the girl in NYC that I'm all right now. Reading her card again, I remember all the other unexpected kindnesses from my students over the past year, graduate and undergraduate. When I went to my office for the first time in months in the spring, I was surprised to find cards and even gifts waiting for me there--a pot of orchid, chocolate, coffee, books, CDs, and so on. I cannot recount them all. Not knowing my home address, students had sent me these things to my office, hoping that I would get them sooner or later. Last month, two students sent me emails, both remembering that it had been already a year since I stopped teaching. They say they are waiting to see me again on campus in March, when I will come back to campus. One of them I know, but the other I don't. The latter's email is particularly precious for that reason. Not having a child of my own, I alwalys thought that it was my job to take care of other people's children in ways that their parents couldn't and in the best way I could. I still do. These student's letters made me feel that I didn't do that terrible a job of it so far. It is an exalting and humbling feeling, which even a kickass combination of chemo-induced nausea and insomnia at its height could not kill off.
Yesterday I went to see Dr. Lee at the National Cancer Center. She is the surgeon who operated on me on February 28, 2012. I saw her only two months ago for the first followup meeting since my surgery, and everything was fine then. About 2 weeks ago, however, I found two new lumps right next to the surgery scar. This is the last thing you want, especially if you recently came out of the long hard process of getting rid your body of cancer. Seriously. The first thing I did was call the NCC to make an appointment, but the earliest I could get was November 5, which meant thirteen days of suspense--thirteen long days that I would spend in the circular torture of uncertainty, fear, hope, and despair. I had had a few scares about other symptoms since the end of the radiation treatment, which sort of familiarized me with the routine of this torturous waiting. All those scares ended up being nothing serious. Yet this was different, surely--two hard round lumps were found again in the remaining breast where malignant tumors had been removed. Imagine what I could not but imagine. I saw Dr. Lee the next day at the NCC breast cancer awareness event, and when I told her about the newly found masses, she felt them over the shirt and said that they were probably fat tissues hardening near the surgical scar. But she still wanted to look at them closely to be safe. The chance of recurrence at this point was low, but she also said that there were "quite a few exceptions," which was why she didn't want to brush them away. She told me to come see her on November 5. She could put me in an earlier spot that day, but could not get me anything before that date. A few reassuring words from her were better than nothing, but she still wanted an ultrasound and possibly a biopsy as well. A biopsy again? From that day my sleep was disrupted: I woke up at all hours and kept having...not exactly horrifying nightmares but ambiguous dreams that left unpleasant aftertaste.
One of the worst parts of having cancer is this fear of recurrence and metastatsis. The mere idea of going through another round of chemotherapy sickens you, not to mention the overwhelming reality of mortality closing in on you. You literally startle with every pain, every new symptom and every unfamiliar feeling in the body. And no one will tell you that you're just being neurotic. Instead, doctors will say that you can never be too vigilant about anything unusual now and, if anything, they will want to have a closer look. I sincerely miss the days when I was just another crazy hypochondriac. The physical comings and goings that these appointments and tests entail are the least difficult part. Even a regularly scheduled followup test seems like an exceedingly tough hurdle. You feel small as you realize that you've become ridiculously dependent on the semantics of doctors' facial expressions, tonal changes, and gestures. Then, whenever you're about to do something, the inevitable question arises: "What if I did this and then got the bad news?" This question is a definite party-pooper, for nothing much retains its initial significance when measured against it. It can and will stop you from doing whatever you were going to do. You find yourself putting everything on hold, suddenly abject in front of the frosty reality of all-encompassing meaninglessness. Thus your life grinds to a halt, until the results put you in the clear for now. Even then it feels more like a reprieve than anything else. So easy to just let yourself go in the way of fear and negativity.
The first few days after discovering the new lumps were slow and difficult. Just like the days before I learned the result of my first breast biopsy. I could not think of other things, and I kept feeling those lumps as if to make sure they were still there, just like I did last fall. But every time I put my fingers there, I also hoped to find them miraculously gone, just like I did last fall. As stupid and desperate that hope was, the disappointment and despair were fresh each time I learned that they were still there. Pressed too much and too often, the lumpy area began to hurt and consequently the entire breast and arm ached, as if the mind-blowing agony wasn't enough already. By this time I forgot how glad I was that she had left my breast almost intact and unscarred. Why did Dr. Lee not remove the entire breast? I was tired from all this fear and pain and did not feel like doing anything. What was the use, when I didn't even know how long I'd live? Inaction seemed the only logical choice. Yet I couldn't just sit around fueling dark thoughts. It wasn't easy to peel myself off the bed in the morning to go swimming, walking, grocery shopping, and so on, but I did. I went out to talk about their theses with my graduate students, and I went out to dinner with friends. All these things that I did, however, kept reminding me that I was living in this body which was mortal, already damaged, possibly beyond repair, and definitely beyond my control. After a few days, though, I stopped fingering the lumps. Numerous times I had ascertained that they were there, and there was nothing to be done about them until I saw Dr. Lee. As the days of uncertainty were prolonged, resignation took over, and I thought about the lumps a little less. Perhaps my mind needed to restore quietude or something similar in some way. It wasn't optimism. It was as if my mind was trying to dissociate itself from fear by remembering that fear too was useless after all. The resilience of human mind probably enables us to cope with the worst in this way. I couldn't altogether stop asking myself "what if I did this and then got the bad news?" but I didn't let it stop me from doing things. I even started this blog as if to defy that question. So, the second week in waiting crawled by and I went to see Dr. Lee yesterday.
After the ultrasound Dr. Lee gave me the same explanation she had already given to me at the NCC event. She did order a biopsy and arranged it so that I didn't have to make another appointment for it. Although I had to wait three hours in the hospital because she squeezed me into that day's packed biopsy schedule, I was glad to have it done before the day was over. The young radiologist who did the ultrasound and took the tissues was matter-of-fact about the frequent hardening of fat tissues adjacent to the surgical scar. All things considered, it is likely that that's what the new lumps are. She didn't even seem to think that a biopsy was absolutely necessary. That's not a bad sign. Now I wait another few days before Dr. Lee calls me about the biopsy result. I am not as worried as two weeks ago, but my sleep is still disrupted. I don't like the fact that the fear of recurrence has this negative effect on my store of joie-de-vivre, which wasn't overbrimming in the first place. I can no more pretend that it isn't true than I like it, though. Maybe we in middle age should all be content with semi-joie whenever possible, as Kim says. Still I don't understand those people who persist with perennial optimism under similar circumstances. Are they stronger than me? Is it sheer will, or is it self-deception? The insidious question "what if" always hovers over my head. What if, indeed? I don't know that one could live as if that question didn't matter, or that one should. On good days I forget to remember it. Usually it takes an awful lot to plug on, countering that question with "even so!" Yet I am told to maintain a positive outlook on life, for it helps reduce the chances of recurrence. I can only smile at the lethal irony.
