I'm back!

I’ve been in a frenzy these last few days. In the last few months, David has been taking care of all the “must do” household duties. Everything else in our household has just slipped. A few days ago, I woke up feeling great with fire in my belly to get things done. With prayers from all the major world religions, in addition to lots of good healing thoughts coming my way, I just think, just think, I might be back to my old self again---pain free with the normal energy of a 40 something. I feel very fortunate.

So, I just mailed Emma’s birthday gift thank you notes (her birthday was Nov 7); I watered our almost dead plant; I recycled my junk mail; I returned the pantry to order; and I removed all the clutter from flat surfaces. These are the type of things that are not that important, yet drive me crazy when they are not done. It is actually therapeutic to restore order to my home.

I have a renewed feeling of motivation in my life. Beyond restoring order, I feel energized to fulfill all the “I wish I would haves” in my life that I was forced to contemplate just a few months ago when life seemed so fragile.

Gigi Cancer Quiz

Hello All. After a bit of a blogging break, I am back at the keyboard….
I thought I would only be able to eat smoothies for Christmas because of mouth sores, but I have been spared all the pain in my mouth and throat this treatment round. And thanks to the steroids, I ate my mother’s Christmas dinner with the appetite of a truck driver.



I am now turning over the keyboard to David. As some of you know, David loves games and puzzles. David has made up a special “Gigi Cancer Quiz” for this posting. Enjoy.





1. Which of the following about Gigi's high school years is FALSE?
a. She played clarinet and saxophone in band.
b. She spent part of a summer at a writing camp.
c. She was on the volleyball team.
d. She was prom queen.

2. Gigi needs to go to the ER if her temperature is at least
a. 100.5
b. 101.5
c. 102.5
d. 103.5

3. Which type of dance class has Gigi NOT taken?
a. belly dance
b. flamenco
c. hip hop
d. jazz
e. salsa

4. Chemotherapy was developed
a. by British chemists in Africa.
b. for the last Czar of Russia.
c. from Chinese herbs.
d. from poisonous mustard gas in World War 1.

5. Gigi's
a. grandfather was a philosophy professor in Mexico City.
b. great-uncle was mayor of Mexico City.
c. cousin was Miss Mexico.
d. all of the above.

6. Lymphoma is cancer of the lymph glands. The lymph glands
a. produce lymph.
b. produce white blood cells.
c. trap infectious agents.
d. all of the above.

7. The number of oncologists who advised us, directly or indirectly:
a. 1
b. 2
c. 3
d. 4

8. We were married by a(n)
a. Catholic priest
b. Protestant minister
c. Rabbi
d. Ethical Culture officiant
e. Justice of the Peace

9. The number of different nausea medications Gigi took this treatment round:
a. 0
b. 1
c. 2
d. 3

10. Which of the following is NOT something Emma says often:
a. "I'm as hungry as a hog."
b. "I'm never cold."
c. "Mama's my little cheeky baby."
d. "What can I do now?"
e. "What's on TV?"

Answers: 1b, 2a, 3c, 4d, 5d, 6d, 7d, 8d, 9d, 10e

At the halfway mark

I am happy to report that with the completion of this third treatment, I am at the halfway mark in my therapy. I have three more treatments to go. The oncologist told us that the tumor is going down at an ideal rate. In his words, my body is responding “beautifully.” In addition, he said my blood clot at the end of my port was tiny. The infusion treatment went well. My port worked. Everything went as expected. As usual, because of the drugs, I slept through most of the infusion. Until….


…one of my lazy boy chemo neighbors decided to turn the TV on. Thank goodness I had my “TV B Gone” with me. This remote control was a gift from David and Sally, good friends from Boston. After reading one of my earlier posts about being “thankful nobody requested the TVs to be put on,” David and Sally quickly mobilized into action and sent me a “TV B Gone” so I would be ready just in case. So, when the TV came on, I quickly zapped it off and told my chemo neighbor that I was trying to quietly fight for my life here. Silence was key.

Actually, only part of this story is true. I did get a “TV B Gone” remote from David and Sally (which made me laugh and laugh), but I didn't use it in the infusion room. It seemed a bit surreal to watch TV ads for kool-aid, laundry detergent, and orange juice while life saving chemicals coursed through my veins. As I slipped back into my drug induced sleep, I got confused which fluids were the mundane and which ones were the profound.

Third treatment tomorrow

I go in for my third chemo treatment tomorrow morning. (I have a total of 6 scheduled). I have come to dread these things. My good friend, Shari, will be my chemo sitter this time. They tell me the chemo side effects are cumulative, so each time I will feel worse and worse. I hope my port works even with the blood clot. More later…

My last lecture

Over this past weekend, I submitted the final grades for the graduate class I was teaching this semester. In the middle of the term, I had to leave the class because of my illness. Several of my colleagues at Texas State (Sandy Rao, Bruce Smith and Lori Bergen) jumped in and helped with the remaining lectures and grading. I am truly grateful for their help.

I love teaching this class. It is called Seminar in Advertising and Public Relations Issues. The class meets once a week for 3 hours. And like a graduate seminar should be, the class only had 10 students in it. I teach the class using lecture, cases and student presentations. Each week we discuss a different theme in advertising or public relations. For example, when we discussed Advertising Creativity, I first presented a lecture on historical trends in advertising creativity. Then we discussed a case involving a problem related to an agency’s creative work. Finally, a student gave a presentation on a current issue related to advertising creativity: the popularity of user generated ads. As small graduate seminars go, I felt I really connected with the students.

When I was creating my syllabus in August, I cancelled class on October 25 so that the students would have time to attend lectures/talks during our annual Mass Communication Week. I was planning on spending all week at school attending sessions and visiting with colleagues. Little did I anticipate that on the evening of October 25, I would be spending the night at a La Quinta Motel in Dallas. The next day, the liver surgeon at Baylor Medical Center came out of my laparoscopic biopsy procedure and told David that the mass in my liver was cancer.

The following week, I did manage to attend one last lecture. I was in pain and moving very slowly, but I managed to fake good health for a few hours. The class went as planned. I had a wonderful guest speaker (a former grad student of mine who is now a successful public relations professional). Next, students presented and discussed the public relations case. The class closed with a good student presentation on the influence of think tanks and foundations on media content.

During the whole class, I was dreading making my announcement about my illness. I had to tell the students, because I thought this would be my last class. At this point, no one knew about my cancer except close family. Because so few people knew about my illness, it almost seemed like it didn’t exist. As I was sitting in the back of the room watching the students present, I thought how perfectly normal everything seemed. If I didn’t make an announcement, perhaps my cancer might just go away. The more people who knew about my cancer, the more it became real. What if I just never told anyone. Could I get away with that?

At the end of the class, I slowly made my way up the front of the seminar table and began my announcement with a failed attempt at cancer humor. Given that we were discussing public relations, I told the class I was pulling a “Tony Snow” on them. I didn’t get any laughs, only confused looks. I explained that just as the White House Press Secretary had to leave his position because of cancer, I was going to leave the class because I also had cancer. I heard gasps in the room. Confused faces turned to sad faces. As I went on explaining my situation, my voice started to crack. I could see some of the students holding back tears. I just paused and took a breath until I regained my composure.

I told the students that other faculty would probably be taking over the class. I discussed the logistics of the rest of the semester. Everyone was quiet. I wished them good luck with the rest of the semester. Nobody moved. I finally had to just say that the class was over. What I should have done was stand up and hug each of them as they walked out the door. At that moment, institutional titles no longer separated us. I was no longer Dr. Taylor. They were no longer graduate students. We were just people in a room all struggling with a devastating piece of news that had just become reality.



Old Main, home of the Texas State University School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

How is Emma doing?

The next question I am often asked is “How is Emma?” Emma has probably been the hardiest of us all. She clearly sees that I have been sick. We have never mentioned the word “cancer,” but she knows about the “bad spot in my tummy,” my treatments and my port. We once let her peek into the transfusion room (kids under 14 are not allowed into the room). When I am feeling really bad and can’t tuck her into bed, she tucks me into bed. This is really very sweet.

We haven’t seen any noticeable behavioral changes in her as a result of my illness. She continues to be a happy, social little girl. When we tell her that I will be better after my last treatment, she says, “Of course mama will get better!” She likes to sing to herself. She also likes to do song and dance routines in front of the mirror. Everything she puts her hands on has the potential to come alive with a personality and a story line. This morning the red magnets were making friends with the blue magnets. Last night she put all her stuffed animals to bed in sets of two. Each little baby stuffed animal went to sleep in the arms of either their mommy or daddy stuffed animal.

There was only one time that suggested Emma knows exactly what is going on. Before the chemo treatments started when I was hunched over in pain and short of breath, I told Emma I was very sick, but I would get better. As she softly caressed my face, she said I was beautiful and like in the fairy tales, beautiful things are always taken away. I quickly told her this was not true! But I realized why fairy tales, with their tragic storylines have endured through time. They help all of us, especially children, understand the tragedies of life.

Emma often makes “Get Well” cards for me. Here are a few of her pieces. These cards break my heart. I usually cry when she gives them to me. She has learned that crying can mean happy and that I think crying is a very good thing.

Interview with David

In reviewing the previous post, I realized I described WHAT David was doing, but not really HOW he is doing. I figure the best way to answer this question is to ask David directly. The following is the transcript from my interview with David for this blog entry.






GIGI: People always ask me how you have been doing? … So, David, how have you been doing?

DAVID: Doing OK.

GIGI: (laughing) You’ve gotta give me a little more here.

DAVID: Well the beginning was tough. It was shocking. It was very upsetting. And I felt myself “steeling” against it. What I mean is hardening myself against it. And then the news started getting somewhat better, and since then it has only gotten better. So I have been doing OK. You get used to the state of having cancer, your wife having cancer. You adjust to it. Although I wouldn’t have thought I would have adjusted to it already, but I guess I have adjusted. Now that you are feeling well, I am doing OK. It does seem temporary, so I feel this will work. I feel like in a couple of months this will be gone. Maybe in three months it will be gone and we will be back to normal. I feel like we can get through it.

GIGI: What do you think of my bald head?

DAVID: Bald is beautiful. (Gigi laughs.)

GIGI: When did you start losing your hair?

DAVID: In college I remember my mom telling me I was losing my hair and I didn’t believe her. I guess I was in denial for a long while. So I lost my hair mid way through college, perhaps.

GIGI: As a veteran, uh “baldy,” do you have any tips for me?

DAVID: If it’s cold, wear a hat.

GIGI: What about sunscreen?

DAVID: Put sunscreen on.

GIGI: What do you think of my wig?

DAVID: I like it. You look good.

GIGI: Really? Thanks.

GIGI: How has my cancer changed your life?

DAVID: Well it certainly changed. I have to worry about what might happen a little bit. But I have been denying that anything might go wrong. I have had to do more work around the house, caring for Emma and consequently less work at school. Makes you not worry about the small things.

GIGI: How do you like being interviewed?

DAVID: I don’t care for it much.

GIGI: How is your scrabble game holding up?

DAVID: Pretty good.

GIGI: You have been missing some Monday scrabble game nights.

DAVID: Oh yes, I have only gone once since this whole thing started. But I play on the computer. I will go more while you are feeling better.

GIGI: So, I want to thank you for everything you are doing around the house.

DAVID: Thank you for noticing.

How is David doing?

When I talk to people, one of the questions people always ask is, “How’s David doing?” This is an important question. If you were to ask David directly how he was doing, he would say, “Uh, um, uh, I’m doing OK.” And that would be all you would get. Now if you ask ME, how he is doing, you would get an earful, in this case you’re going to get a screen full.

First, a little background…at our wedding reception in San Francisco in 2000, David’s brother, Daniel, gave a very funny toast and made a somewhat vague (or maybe not so vague) reference to David being lazy. I caught the exchange of knowing glances between David’s mother and grandmother. Now seven years into this, I would be in on that exchange of glances.

But things have changed around here. David fixes dinner. David puts the dishes in the dishwasher. He puts the dishes away. He scrubs the pans. He goes shopping. He washes the sheets. When he is done cooking and cleaning, he deals with the medical bills. He gets Emma to bed and off to school. He arranges weekend activities. In between all his chores, he stops by the couch to ask me if he can do anything for me. He has been doing all of this while maintaining regular teaching and research responsibilities at UT.

Before I got sick, David would look up from his book and thank me for everything I did. I would stare blankly back at him and thank him for noticing. Now HE is the one thanking me for just noticing.

I have felt better recently, so now I am jumping in and helping around the house. I was once the caregiver for my sick Dad and Aunt some years back, so I know how burnout can eat at the best intentions.

In addition, David has been like a patient advocate for me. He goes to all my doctor appointments. He helps me remember what the doctor says and asks really good questions. When he is around, I feel safe and cared for.

Here’s to David and all the other caregivers out there who do everything possible for their loved one—whether it is noticed or not.


David and Emma during our trip to Mexico last summer.







Here is a picture from David’s senior year high school yearbook (1983). David is standing next to a cool guy. (Uh, David would be the one with the jacket zippered up to his chin.) If David looks confident here, it is not because he got to stand next to the cool guy. It is because he was the math team Co-Captain.

“The tumor has gone down, but…”

My doctor’s nurse called today with the results of the CT scan I had on Monday. She told me that indeed the tumor has gone down. When she told me the good news, I could hear hesitation in her voice. I was waiting for the “but.” I got what I anticipated when she added, “but they found a blood clot at the end of your port.” The nurse said they could not make the clot go away, rather just prevent it from getting bigger. So, I am on blood thinning medication now. She told me the potential problem is that the port wouldn’t work anymore because of the clot. In addition, the clot could break away and cause worse problems. She said the clot is small and the doctor is not worried about it - just something to monitor. Clotting at the end of ports is common, according to the nurse. This is where trust in your doctor comes in. I have decided to trust and not to worry too much.

This is a picture of a port.

A Cancer Free Day

It seems as if the fatigue has left my body. For the past several days, I have felt amazingly normal. No fatigue, no mouth sores, no nausea. Just normal. Yesterday, I attended a luncheon meeting of the Austin Advertising Fed. I was very interested in hearing the guest speaker talk about a new trend in the business (Connection Planning). I wore my wig. Nobody at the luncheon knew I had cancer. I met some lovely people at my table. One guy was an illustrator from Waco. Another guy was a sales rep for a local film production company. Perhaps I thought these guys were lovelier than they really were because I was having such a great time NOT talking about cancer.

Then I got it in my head that I wanted Emma to have the memory of our entire house smelling like Chanukah. So, I decided to fix latkes. I had no idea what I was doing. As usual when I attempt to do this sort of thing, we had to call David’s mom in New York for emergency cooking backup. My latkes were not sticking together in the pan. By the third batch – “a little more egg and a little more matzo meal” – at least they LOOKED like latkes.

As I was putting Emma to bed last night, she gently touched my arm and said, “Momma, I don’t want to be mean or anything, but your latkes are not as good as the kind Shira’s mom makes.”

“Oh, Emma,” I said. “I am well aware of this.” So, with that, I had a relatively normal day.

It was just a few days ago that I was debilitated on the couch, so I was acutely aware of how different it felt to be pain free and energetic. I need to keep this awareness up. Why is it that we forget how good it feels to be healthy until we don’t have good health?

My Profile

I am amazed that there have been over 100 clicks on the “profile” section of my blog. OK. I admit. I have clicked on my profile a number of times just to see what information I could add to this section. Then I keep going back to see how many more clicks I have in this section. I sort of like not having a profile, of being anonymous in this very public forum. Yet, I assume most of the people who are reading this blog already know who I am. But since there are over 100 clicks on my profile, I will go ahead and write a profile. This is the extended profile version since this blogging service only allows 1200 characters in the official profile section.

Here in the US, if people want to know you are, they ask, “What do you do?” I often ask this myself of others. When people ask me what I do, I am conscious of my response, knowing that much will be inferred by my profession. I actually like finding out about people by asking “Where are you from?” since I believe you can tell a lot about a person by their geographic roots.

I grew up on the eastern plains of Colorado in a small town (Otis) much closer in miles and culture to the Kansas/Nebraska border than to Denver. After undergrad at University of Colorado at Boulder (Marketing) and four years in Portland, Oregon working in academic publishing, I moved to Austin, Texas to attend grad school at the University of Texas (Advertising). Two graduate degrees later, I am still here in Austin.

I’ve lived in Texas now 17 years (minus several years away in the Bay Area and Boston), but Texas has been a part of my family all my life. My dad was a Texan and a high school science teacher. He grew up in a small town outside of Austin. All of my family attended either UT-Austin or what is now Texas State University. As a kid when we would drive from Colorado down to Austin, my dad would sigh when we hit the Texas state line. “Geege, we’re home. We’re in Texas now.” I would roll my eyes from the back seat of the car and ask him just what WAS it about Texas. He would say, “It’s the roads. Can you see how wide and well maintained they are?” I now know his response was a very Texan thing to say. At the time, I did have to admit, the roads were bigger and better than those we were on in Colorado, Kansas or Oklahoma. Mind you, we weren’t traveling down Interstate 35. We were on Texas 83 down the Texas Panhandle through epic small towns like Shamrock, Childress, and Paducah where you can mark the transition from the Rocky Mountain West into Texas by whether you get hash browns or grits next to your eggs. I am not a Texan, but I “get” Texas.

My mother, Elsa, moved to Austin a month before Emma was born. She lives three minutes from us in the same neighborhood. She is a retired Spanish and French high school teacher, but has been teaching several classes every semester at Austin Community College for over 5 years. She is originally from Mexico City. As a young woman, she lived in Paris and studied at the Sorbonne for 5 years. After almost 50 years in the US, she is quite “Americanized” except for the fact that she is always impeccably dressed in pearls, heals and a suit—vestiges of her class standing she left behind in Mexico.

Several years ago, I left my job as an assistant professor in the Advertising sequence at Texas State University, but I didn’t leave my career. I now balance my professional life in three ways:

1) I am a freelance qualitative consumer researcher. I help companies answer marketing questions by doing things like conducting focus groups, interviewing people, watching people shop, and shopping with people. I then translate the “learnings” (love advertising jargon) from the research into marketing or advertising strategy. This work is familiar for me as I used to work as a consumer researcher (account planner) in an ad agency. In addition, I am the type of person who asks lots of questions when I meet people, so my work is almost a natural extension of what I just normally do.

2) I am also an adjunct faculty member at Texas State. (A little) teaching remains a very creative and rewarding experience.

3) I continue to collaborate on academic projects with colleagues. My area of research is the intersection between media planning (where and when ads are placed) and account planning (understanding the consumer).

I am married to David, a computer science professor at the University of Texas. David is a theoretician. His area is randomness and computation. Don’t ask him to help you with your computer. But do ask him how to extract randomness out of some slightly random numbers. David is originally from Brooklyn. He went to high school in Manhattan and studied in Boston and Berkeley before moving to Austin. We have a very girly, 6 year old daughter named Emma.

For fun, David and I like to eat out and go to movies. We often talk about how we should start dancing again. We spend the rest of the time trying to keep the clutter off the kitchen table, arranging play dates for Emma and kvetching over the state of domestic and international affairs.

On October 26, 2007, at 44 years of age, I was diagnosed with cancer. Specifically, I have stage 3 (there are 4 stages) non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (intermediate grade, large B-cell). I had a large tumor (10 x 18 cm) in my liver and cancer was found throughout my lymphatic system.

CT Scan Today

Last Friday at a doc appointment, my oncologist was very pleased with the way my body is responding to the chemo. He felt around my stomach and reported that the tumor in my liver is now down 30-40%! My doctor was happy. David was happy. I was happy, but all I wanted to do was crawl down on the floor and go to sleep. While my body is doing a great job of killing the cancer cells, I am feeling the effects of chemo. The biggest consistent side effect seems to be fatigue. It is an effort just to move from the bed to the couch as I sleep a good part of the day. Sometimes I feel like I can’t even hold my weight when I stand. It is a fatigue like I have never felt before, almost drug induced (I guess this fatigue IS drug induced). So, while I am getting better in the long run, I feel very weak and tired on a daily basis. Like we told Emma, I would be a little sick before I got completely better.

Today I have a CT scan to see exactly how far the tumor has gone down. I will have the results later this week.

My Cranial Prosthesis

Out of all the various styles and colors of wigs, I picked this synthetic wig from the “Noriko Collection.” The wig is called the "Ryan” and the color is toasted brown. It was made in Thailand. The wig is perky bob that reminds me of a hairstyle that a morning newscaster would wear…so not me. (I just miss my old "no particular style" hair.) I feel like I am wearing a mop on my head when I have the wig on. I look at pictures of me in the wig and I wonder, “Who is this person?” I will wear this wig when I don’t want to be cancer identified. For example, I wore the wig for the first time when I went to Emma’s school yesterday to volunteer in the library. One of Emma’s little friends didn’t recognize me and asked Emma if I was the babysitter. Emma whispered back that I was wearing a wig because my hair had fallen out.

Little known fact: Wigs that are purchased because of chemotherapy are covered in part by some health insurances. In the insurance business, a wig is called a “cranial prosthesis.”




Here I am with my wig on next to my stylist friend, Bonnie. In the world of chemo wigs, Bonnie is well known as the "blue hair lady" that many chemo patients in Austin go to when they need wig help.

Wig Shop Photo Essay

One of the odd, fun things of this hair loss has been the experience of shopping for a wig. When I walked into the shop, I was mesmerized by the rows and rows of female heads with assorted hairstyles. The older heads are made of white Styrofoam with bright red lips. The short grey wigs are on these older heads.



The newer heads look almost life-like with long swan necks, heavy eye makeup and pouty, red lips. None of the faces on the models have a smile. They all have a distant, vacant look like real models in magazines often do.











I am attracted to these heads yet repulsed and a little scared of them at the same time. The collection of heads seems campy and fun….something that you would find in an art director’s cubicle of an ad agency. Then I start thinking of the scary movies I have seen where real looking dolls come to life. Or I see these heads like disembodied versions of the women from the mid 70’s movie, The Stepford Wives. In any case, I enjoyed taking pictures and choosing my wig from the following collection of styles. ( I am having trouble posting pictures. I could only upload these few pics.)

Not so Great

I have been a little slow on the posts because I have not felt so well in the last couple of days after the second infusion. I hate this blog to be about feeling yucky all the time, but in the spirit of reporting, I guess I need to just state the facts. I am on steroids, which has been a very odd experience. My body desperately wants to sleep, but my mind just won’t shut off. I am exhausted, but I can’t shut down. Today is the last day I need to take steroids. My mouth and throat are also very sore. It hurts to drink water. I gargle with warm salt water, which helps. I don’t have much of an appetite.

I am over my hair loss. I wear a cap every time I go out now. Fortunately, it is cold in Austin now, so I don’t look that odd.

Second Round Down

All of my hair is now sitting in a brown paper grocery bag.

Before I continue my hair saga story, let me just say this. So far, losing my hair has been the worst thing about my cancer treatment. And if having a bald head for several months is as bad as it gets, I am very lucky---lucky indeed.

So, the night before my second treatment, I couldn’t sleep. I was worried about everything: would the nurse be able to access my port; would it hurt when she stuck the needle in my port; would the Rituxan start hurting my throat like it did last time; would I have unusual side effects during the infusion. In addition I was very uncomfortable. I couldn’t rest my head down flat because my hair was all balled up into 3 or 5 matted nests. (My wig stylist friend later told me this is what happens. As the hair starts to come lose from the head, it works its way back up to the scalp and starts balling itself up.)

After only several hours of sleep, I got up in a panic about 8 AM. We needed to be at the doctor’s office at 9 AM to begin the infusion treatment. I looked at myself in the mirror and broke down in tears. I needed help with my hair. I couldn’t get a comb or brush through my hair, much less my fingers. David was desperately asking how he could help me, but there was really only person for the job and that was my mom. At this point, I tapped into that understood agreement between my mother and me -- the fact that we would do anything for each other night or day. I called my mom in tears and told her I was in desperate need for help. I needed her to come over (she lives just minutes away from us) and help me brush my hair out… I mean literally brush it out. I knew that the process of detangling my hair meant that it would all come out. I needed my mom’s help for this. She herself needed to leave by 9:00 AM to teach her class at the local community college, but by 8:20 she showed up at my house ready to help.

I had set up the bathroom with everything we would need: brush, comb, scissors, shaver, paper bag and a chair for me to sit in. When my mom first saw all the bald spots and matted clumps of hair all over my head, she gasped. I just hugged her. We started to cry, but we controlled our emotions because we had to work fast. She started to comb and brush the matted hair out and just as I anticipated, all my hair started coming out. I asked her as she was struggling with my hair if in her wildest dreams she thought she would be ever doing this. She said, “Never, especially for my own daughter.”

By the time she was done, she had filled a paper shopping bag full with my hair. I now look like those men that flip their hair over their heads to cover bald spots. My entire scalp is now like this. I only have loose strands of hair covering my bald head.

The actual infusion process went well. I slept through most of it. I was cold, but there were plenty of blankets to keep me warm. For the first time, I chatted with a fellow infusion patient. This other woman told me that it was her sister who flew in from Oregon that painstakingly and lovingly brushed her hair out. We agreed losing our hair was one of the hardest parts of chemo treatment, but it was easier letting go with the help of a loved one.


Here I am during the second infusion treatment now wearing a head covering. I am borrowing this cap from a friend who bought it in China. The cap makes me happy. It is bright and colorful.