Wigging out

I have been quiet here because I have taken to staring out the window silently, watching the waves lap on the shore. I think this is healing in many ways, but I notice that it’s not at all productive, and it’s not generally very connecting. But oh, it is very good for me sometimes.

Here's the wig we call Jennifer

I have had an extraordinary week, actually. First the workshop with Bill Torbert and 4 other amazing people north of Sydney. We walked on the beach and explored our deepest questions together. We ate delicious food and laughed and cried some. It was an island of delight inside this more difficult time and I am so grateful for Bill and the others for all they did to make my experience so magical.

Then the flight from Sydney to Wellington with my friend Zafer who is on his way from the workshop at the beach to the ski fields of Canada. I watched the heaviness grow a little as we neared the ground. In Sydney I’m a woman who does good work, has good friends, and happens to have cancer. In Wellington I feel like a cancer patient who probably has another life on the side. To underscore this feeling, after we landed we went directly to Leigh, the wig lady. I was getting heavier and heavier as we traveled into the hills.

Everyone had told me to go to Leigh—everyone. I figured it was because she had such a good eye and could make a wig look great. And it’s true that she does have a good eye and she knows her way around the wigs, but that was a tiny percentage of what makes Leigh special.

Looks like my real hair from the back

First, there’s the setting. Leigh’s studio is in her home, and her home is perched high above Wellington Harbour with sweeping views over the city and out to sea. She welcomed us in (Melissa met us there) and gave us cups of green tea as we sat on her balcony in the still, late-summer sun. She chatted with us and talked with passion and beauty about why she chose this work. She had a relative with cancer more than 20 years ago who struggled with the process of coming to look good again after chemo, and Leigh decided right then that she would build a business that made things easier for women. Opening her beautiful home was a piece of this. Sharing tea with us, laughing with us, explaining her background—all of these were parts of making this experience palatable. Leigh’s presence, her warmth, her gentle reassurance that chemo was a vital part of my healing process, an investment in my life, these are the reasons everyone says to go to Leigh; she is a healer.  In her hands, with her contagious laugh and her continual reframing of chemo, I could see through the darkness of these next few months and imagine the ringlets I’ll have at this time next year.

Here's the one we call Clare

And then there were the wigs themselves. This part was more daunting, more real. I tried human hair (which is 5 times more expensive), and synthetic. I tried long and very short. I tried hair that looks quite like mine and hair that looks like the hair I’ve always admired on other women. The synthetic was good enough, but which one? I was torn between a sort of more messy version of my own hair (“You can get MORE messy than your own hair?” some of you might be wondering) and the hair I’ve most admired in other women. I went back and forth between these two. The core question: Do I get one that looks like me, only a little diminished? Or do I get one that looks nothing like me and will not look anything like the way I’ll ever look again (long straight mahogany hair)? I answered this in the “why choose” way and got both. It’ll make me unpredictable and unsettling if I choose to wear the long dark one, but that one made me smile. (Michael calls the one that looks like me “Jennifer” and the other one “Clare.”)

Then, at the end, two different moments. I asked for a cap for my head when I’m not wearing a wig. Leigh said the wigs were like “French lace nickers.” They make you feel pretty but aren’t particularly comfortable or practical. The caps are like “regular comfy nickers” (although I was hoping for one in silk or microfiber that would be softer than the ones she had). Putting one on and tucking my hair into it took my breath away. Good God I look like a cancer patient. I’ve gotten used to the scars and the half-reconstructed breast (mostly) but wow, in the mirror I saw a woman with cancer looking back at me. She bore a family resemblance to me, but I have never seen someone with my eyes look so sick or so sad. It took my breath away how quickly I turned from healthy me into this unfamiliar cancer patient. Isn’t that the constant theme of this blog anyway?

This one doesn't look anything like me at all

And then out Leigh came with the free stands for my two new wigs. I expected something serviceable but these stands were small pieces of art—carefully turned and polished native kauri wood. The bottom each piece is signed. One says, “Guild of woodworkers Wellington. Best wishes Alan Robson.” It turns out that Leigh, looking for inexpensive stands some years ago, went to ask how much it would cost to have them made of wood. The head of the woodworker’s guild told Leigh that they would be happy to make stands for her wigs and that even more, they would donate them to cancer patients for free. They have been doing this for years now. My eyes fill with tears just now thinking about it, these strangers turning and sanding and polishing these stands for people with cancer they'll never meet. I am once again overcome with gratitude at the kindness of people.

Now it’s dawn on a grey Saturday morning. The seagulls catch the wind off my roof and hover motionless in the air in front of my study window. One of my favourite people is making coffee in my kitchen, and more of my favourite people are asleep all over the house, all over the village, all over the country. I came home to a bag of green tea I LOVE (green tea with cinnamon—THANK YOU BETH!) and to a series of cards so beautiful they took my breath away (thanks especially to Kate for the poem. Wow.). I now have the most well-researched and evidence-based set of vitamins and supplements to carry me through the chemo period (thanks Mom). And I have connections with beautiful people around the world. In many ways I have never felt so fortunate, and, as the chemo lurks, I have never felt so afraid. Life is a mix, but oh how happy I am to wake up to it each day.

Chemo schedule:

I get chemo 4 times: 24 March, 14 April, 5 May, and 26 May. I am told it is very variable, but I will likely be most sick the first week. It is the second week that is most dangerous, though, because it’s then that my white blood cells will all be shot and an infection that would normally disappear without my noticing it can become life threatening. The third week is the best week, and then the cycle starts again…

By mid June, I’ll be done with this cancer chapter. One foot in front of the other...