Annie On Drip

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football girlToday I reached the halfway point of my chemo treatment. Hallelujah! Can’t say I look forward to these tailgatin’ toxic cocktail hours, but if it gets me one step closer to the finish line, “Put Me In, Coach!”

I’m a six-course chemo bagger. It starts with a drip of hydration, then steroids, followed by a euphoric “buzz” bag of Benadryl, (easily my fave!) chased by the heavy hitters Taxol and Carboplatin, and capped off with a roto-rooter flush.

If you ask me about the side effects of any of these drips and drugs, I haven’t a clue. I’m one of those people who don’t want to know. It was like that with childbirth. All I knew before entering the delivery room was that for centuries women somehow squeezed out bundles of joy without classes or books, and I was going to join the long line. Just like chemo. So when a friend asked me yesterday, “How are the steroid side effects?”

“Steroid side effects?” I weakly said, conjuring a vision of sprouting shriveled hairless he-man balls.

“Yeah,” she said, “Aren’t you hungry? Like REALLY hungry?” And then it occurred to me…all those recent trips I’d been making to the fridge. I open the door, stare longingly at the oddest things…pickles, prunes, dry pasta, a handful of capers…then impulsively inhale them all…and anything in their way!

I wake in the morning and my first thought is never “OMG, another day of this nightmare!” On the contrary, I feel perfectly normal. It’s only when I take my dog for a walk and see people turn away, or flash a sympathetic smile before jogging on…that I remember. Lately I’ve run into folks I used to converse with as our dogs relieved themselves on someone’s succulants. Now they pretend we’ve never met. They still recognize my dog for his prolific leg hike and steady stream, but suddenly I’ve become invisible. It’s as if I’ve come up with a really good Halloween costume.

This is just another way of saying…I’m still getting used to baldness. I thought it would be a lot easier. I’m not talking about the mental side of hair loss… but the “holy shit my head is ugly” physical side. I suppose I should cut my ol’ noggin some slack since it hasn’t seen sunlight in well over five decades, but does it have to be SO white and bright? And what about this pronounced blue blood vessel? My profile looks like a MapQuest route planner…one minute that unsightly vein appears to be traveling south on the 405, and then it jackknifes abruptly where 110 meets the 91 east.

I definitely have a new respect for hot bald men. Take it from me…having a perfect shiny baldhead should be an Olympic sport, or at the very least, a Best in Show for people like me…arterially challenged.

Before the diagnosis, the world felt messy…swirling out of control. I was just a speck of humanity grumbling at the TV set, finding fault in laws and legislation I was helpless to change. With cancer, I now find that although I may never convince Washington to see it my way…I can make a difference. When I feel invisible, I repeat, “At this moment I am fine”… and that’s all any of us really have. Besides, on this page, I am not invisible. I am still me.

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