Another Orbit

Serious health problems throw your life into an other orbit, and as to be expected when travelling in a different galaxy, things can be a little out of the ordinary.

Here's how the last few days have played out:

Thursday
I was scheduled to volunteer at a luncheon on Thursday. Among this group, one or two of the women knew about my breast cancer, but it wasn't common knowledge when I arrived. By the end of the luncheon, however, my health issues were no longer on the down low. During the two hours that passed, I was generously offered the loan of a wig that one of the women had used during her own chemo cycles (also breast cancer) three years earlier. I was also included in a sadness-abating group hug, and, before leaving, I was forcefully prayed over by a woman I only know in passing.

I've volunteered at this luncheon for years, and this group is a loosely knit collection of people. We are not what one would call a "sisterhood" that is prone to hugging and prayer. But breast cancer has a way of stirring up strong emotions and reactions. Maybe it's because so many women are being affected that every case feels close to home.

Friday
I had some time to kill before one of Nick's soccer games, so I found a corner Starbucks. No surprise, there. But next door to the Starbucks was a large beauty supply store, which I actually entered. Yes, coffee in hand, I wandered the aisles, and 15 minutes later, I emerged with a small bag containing eye pencils, cosmetics that I don't normally use. But I'm in a brave new world, and I want to be prepared for contingencies, in this case, eyebrow loss. Unlike those girls who tweeze their eyebrows into oblivion, I need mine. They add emphasis to what I'm saying, kind of like punctuation. Heck, sometimes I use my eyebrows in place of language. So should my brows disappear due to chemical fallout, I want to be ready with the appropriate pencil.

Saturday
I went to see my hairdresser, Jay. He was a little shaken a few weeks earlier, when I dropped my breast cancer news on him. At the time, though, I warned him that I was going to need his steady hands on the comb and scissors, if chemo was in my future. Now I found myself in Jay's chair for a pre-chemo, pre-emptive strike. We agreed that he would leave me with two inches of hair length all around. (I probably should have buzzed it all off, but one has to go incrementally.) I admit that I was apprehensive about this haircut; I had not been planning a bold new look. But what might have been a bad afternoon turned into a jolly old time, because Jay and I laughed and joked while he snipped. And in an ironic twist, the new haircut looked good, fresh and light. Too bad it's only going to last a couple of weeks.

Sunday
The phone rang about 10 a.m., and it was Dahlia, the woman who helped us with childcare in the late 1980s when Joe was a new baby. She calls me faithfully every January because she wants to stop by for a visit. Dahlia, now 87, had her own bout with breast cancer more than 20 years ago and a recurrence in 2002. She arrived at my house a few hours after she phoned, bearing gifts -- a fluffy bathrobe for me and a sweater for Dennis. The most intriguing giftbox, however, was for my boys. Their box contained the following: A large crucified Christ, the kind that appears in Catholic school classrooms, which measured at least 15" long and 8" wide, and a plastic cooking device for preparing microwaved eggs. It took me a minute, but then I saw Dahlia's logic. In her view, teen-age boys need two things -- spiritual reminders to keep them on the right path (the plastic Jesus) and plenty of protein (the egg-cooker). Tending body and soul, if you will.

Dahlia is a bit of touchstone for me, because she is one of those rare people who makes no judgments and accepts each minute as it comes. She is also a survivor in many ways -- as a widow, as an immigrant, and as a breast cancer patient. So I'm always grateful each January to see that she has made it through another year. This time, I took it as an especially good sign that she showed up exactly when she did.

Anyway, the last few days have been sprinkled with odd little moments, snippets of anticipation and preparation for the treatment ahead, mixed with flashes of humor. I'm starting to feel like a space traveler who will suit up and fly through plutonium. So in the spirit of Luke Skywalker, Hans Solo, and the rest of Star Wars gang, "May the force be with me."