The Face of Cancer

Hi,
Because my mom died of breast cancer (we think-- my oncologist thinks it was actually pancreatic cancer, but I am digressing), I have always noticed women who look like they are dealing with it--the women wearing scarves and hats with hairless necks and thinning eyebrows. I wonder what there story is. Do they have the gene? Did their mom have it too? Is it a first diagnosis or did it metastisize? I sometimes wanted to go up to them, talk to them, get their story as if those scarves and hats weren't an effort to hide the disease but a Hello I have Breast Cancer sticker on their chest. Now that I have it, I am happy I never approached these poor women because I don't go around the world feeling like I look like I have cancer. Maybe it's because I got rid of the only mirror in my house when I was pregnant and the one mirror left is the bathroom mirror that I barely glance in to anymore. Maybe it's because these little knit caps, of which I own six or seven, have begun to feel like my hair. Maybe it's because my day to day appearance is so unimportant compared to taking care of the most beautiful little morsel in the world. I don't know. But yesterday, I was proven wrong.
While at Comforts with my Thursday chemo saviors Amber and Sarah--out enjoying the first Thursday that I should have been at chemo but am now free free free, a woman approached me. She was this little old wiry lady with a short little pixie haircut all full of life. She grabbed my arm while I was in the huge crowd surrounding the deli case and said, 'You're on chemotherapy right? I just could tell, the signs. The hat, the thinning eyebrows and eyelashes and I just wanted to say it's been twenty-seven years and and I am here after a year of chemo, twenty-seven years later and I am here'. So, while deciding between an albacore tuna sandwich and a chinese chicken salad I am faced with my own question of mortality. Ok, so she made it twenty-seven years. That's great. Congratulations and I hope I get that many years, but wait. Did she have breast cancer? Colon cancer? Brain cancer? Why was she on a year of chemo? I had eight weeks. Should I have a year of chemo? I'll take a year if it buys me twenty-seven more. But then she squeezed my arm and was off and I was left sort of blank faced and stunned and turned and hid in the corner by the shelves of fancy olive oils and mustards while my friend Amber just sort of smiled at me as if to say, 'Ok. That's over with and it was Ok so don't dwell on it'. And really, it was Ok and frankly a sweet gesture on this woman's part. She's just like me, hyperaware of the breast cancer ladies out there. She picked me out of the crowd, no problem, just like I could spot a woman with a distinctly tied scarf on her head from down the street and knew, she had breast cancer. Then the lady was back, edging her way through the lunch time crowd to warn me about the 'chemo curl' which is when your hair grows back all curly. She wanted to tell me not to get used to it, that it goes back to being straight. So I had to tell her that I already had curly hair and she said how jealous she was (hello! I am jealous of twenty-seven years) and was off again--that little survivor.
Love,
Rosalie