Fun with Wigs

Here is Gigi with her old hair.





Here is Gigi with her new wig.




Here is David with no hair.




Here is David with Gigi's new wig.




Here is Emma with Gigi's new wig.





Here is David with his old wig.

High School Reunion #2

I had my fifth treatment last Friday. Sylvia, my good friend from Colorado, flew in for the treatment. Like my other friends from last week, Sylvia and I also grew up together. We spent the day before the treatment going to lunch and a movie. It was a windy day here in Austin last Thursday and my wig flew off twice! ….once outside of Central Market and the other outside of Trudy’s. Both times, I sprang into action and caught the wig in the air before it fell to the ground. A couple walking near me at Central Market saw the flying wig and kept staring at me. Of course, Sylvia and I laughed and laughed both times. I am so glad Sylvia was with me! By myself, I would have been SO embarrassed, but with Sylvia, losing my wig was just one more crazy event in our 27-year friendship. Sylvia makes me laugh. I make Sylvia laugh. When we get going, our bellies hurt.

Like airline travel, I like my infusion treatments to be uneventful. Unfortunately,my treatment last Friday was a little different. I shook up the nursing staff and broke the peaceful silence of the infusion room when I started vomiting. I was sleeping with Rituxan on a slow drip into my port when all of a sudden, I woke up with a cough which quickly became loud retching. I immediately had several nurses buzzing around me. One quickly gave me a sick bag. Another gave me a wet towel. Even another patient’s chemo sitter tried to help. All the nurses shook their heads wondering why I got sick. I was on two different anti-nausea medications at the time. I think I shook up the other patients too. Every patient in that room dreads getting sick. During treatment, chemo patients are given several powerful anti-nausea drugs. Yet, there I was defying the drugs and reminding everyone that they might be next.


After my blood pressure and pulse returned to normal, they turned the IV machine on again and resumed “pushing” (as the nurses say) the Rituxan into me.


Here I am with Sylvia during treatment #5. I wear the same clothes for every treatment. It’s my little ritual. I wear my dad’s blue sweater and my Aunt Mary’s winter coat as a blanket. (My dad died in 1991 from brain cancer and my Aunt Mary died from bile duct cancer in 1996.) I feel like my dad and aunt are hugging me when I wear their clothes.


The patient and chemo sitter next to me also wore chemo outfits. These ladies were both wearing white Victoria’s Secret jackets with pink skull and crossbones images ironed on. They also wore big, black skull and crossbones rings. They held up their hands and showed me the cancer fighting power of their rings. The ladies told me they always wear special outfits to the infusion room. Once they wore matching tiaras. Another time it was bunny ears. Their clothing ritual is bit more whimsical, but I think just as meaningful as mine.

Thank you!

Wow. Thanks for all of the continued support from everyone. I REALLY welcome the posts, emails, prayers, calls, cards, thoughts, gifts, voice mail messages, books, food, hats/scarves, shopping runs, lunches, hugs, flowers, visits and love. I really have never had this type of attention in my life. I have been really moved by all the support. THANK YOU!

As I have written, this cancer has been a real life-altering event. One of the realizations is how many wonderful, dear, loyal friends we have. Perhaps, the magic of the Internet has helped create such a great support network. Just days into my diagnosis, our friends Saundra and Steve set up a local Yahoo group. People wanting to bring food simply put their names down on a calendar on the Yahoo group. Since my first chemo treatment on Nov 7, we have had about 30 meals brought to our house!! I know, amazing!

In addition, this blog as created a virtual community of supporters beyond the Austin area. What did we do before the Internet? How did we keep everyone updated? I guess we just called everyone or had others call with progress reports?

Blogging has been therapeutic for me. Instead of thinking about the nasty cancer cells in my body, I am always thinking of blogging topics and writing drafts in my head. Who would have thought that a cancer diagnosis would provide fuel for creative energy? Sure, private journal writing can provide emotional release, but there is something about public interactivity that makes the blogging experience so powerful.

The story is not over. My last chemo treatment is on Feb 22. I am not sure at what point I move from cancer patient to cancer survivor. I do know that I will continue to blog all about it. More to come….


My "Happy Complete Remission" bouquet of flowers from David.

PET Scan Results!

I had my 5th chemo treatment yesterday. I also got to meet with my oncologist to discuss my treatment plan and the PET scan results. As soon as the doctor walked in the door, he said, “The PET scan results look great.” He didn’t even wait to sit down to deliver the news. He just started talking the second the door opened. He usually does not do this. When he got to his chair, he continued, “The tumor is completely gone. There is no cancer left in your liver!

David, being a probability type of guy, wanted to nail down a confidence level that all the cancer was gone, not just in the liver. So, David asked what was the doc’s confidence level of complete remission? 95%, 97%, 99%? The doc said as close to a 100% confidence level as he could possible get.

I wanted to cry when I heard the news. I thought crying would be appropriate at this point, but I just couldn’t. I have been feeling so good, that I knew I was better about a month ago. For me, the PET scan just confirmed what I was feeling both physically and emotionally.

The protocol for my therapy is to have two treatments past complete remission. The doc was hoping for complete remission at this point. So we continued with yesterday’s treatment and the treatment on Feb 22 will proceed as planned.

The very, very big question is the maintenance plan. There is no definitive protocol as research results are always changing. There is a 60% chance that the lymphoma will return within the next five years. We plan on getting a second opinion regarding maintenance from MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

We celebrated last night with the amazing Saundra’s matzah ball soup, challah, and several high calorie desserts.

I thank everyone for the positive thoughts, prayers, well wishes, and karmic energy that was sent my way. Nothing like a little western medicine, a good attitude and lots of positive support to cure a cancer.

Best Wishes from the PET Scanner

Big milestones in a cancer patient’s journey are the pre and post CT and PET scans. The pretests are used to help assess the cancer stage. The posttests evaluate the effectiveness of cancer therapy. My pretreatment CT scan and PET scans showed that cancer cells were present throughout my lymphatic system including the large mass in my liver. Because cancer cells were present above and below my diaphragm, I was classified as Stage 3 out of a possible 4. There is no stage 5.

My particular chemo treatment protocol calls for a follow-up CT scan after treatment #2 and a follow-up PET scan after treatment #4. After only two treatments, my post CT scan showed that the tumor had gone down significantly.

So, I had my post PET scan on Wednesday. This is how the nurse explained the test to me. PET stands for positron emission tomography. With a PET scan, radiated sugar water (FDG) is injected into the vein. Cancer cells love sugar, so the sugar molecules attach themselves wherever cancer cells are located in the body. Because the sugar water is tagged with radiation, the PET machine can pick up all the “uptake” locations in the body where the cancer cells connect with the sugar.

Here is the PET scan experience…you can’t eat any carbs or sugars starting at noon the day before the exam. Also, no food 6 hours before the test and no strenuous exercise 24 hours prior to the exam. When you come in, you are given a white “shake” that kind of tastes like bananas (barium). They check the blood sugars in your blood and weigh you.

Then they escort you to your private “uptake/relaxation room.” This room has a radiation warning sign on the door. Here they inject the radioactive sugar water into you via an IV catheter. The nurse carries the sugar water injection into the room in a little radiation proof metal box. She also wears a ring monitor on her finger to measure how much radiation she is exposed to throughout the day. Then you are told to relax in the lazy boy chair. No talking on the phone, no reading, no listening to music. Nothing. Just keep warm and relax. I forgot about the “total relaxation” part from the first PET. I brought a whole stack of books that I wanted to read.

After about an hour in the relaxation room (which is the time for the body to metabolize or “uptake” the sugar water), they tell you that “you are ready for your pictures” and you move to the PET scanner room. At this point, you are asked to lie on your back on a little platform that slides you into the PET machine, a doughnut looking thing. You are in the tube for about 25 minutes. Last time they asked me for my radio station preference. This time they just kept the country music radio station on.

Just before I got into the big doughnut machine, I asked the technician to take my picture. The young woman was a little confused and surprised by my request. I admitted to her that wanting a picture was kind of weird, but that I was documenting every step of my cancer journey. She agreed. I posed. She snapped.

So here I stand next to the PET scan machine, like a smiling tourist standing next to a well-known attraction. Unlike a tourist, I didn’t plan to take this trip nor am I very happy to be traveling down this road. People that have taken this journey might recognize this landmark. The good thing is that this trip has turned into a life-altering experience. I just want a few pictures of the roadside attractions to help me remember the highlights.

I expect to get the results of the PET scan today, just before I go into treatment #5.

High School Reunion #1

I have been feeling very well---both physically and emotionally this past week. I have had no chemo side effects. I actually have had lots of energy and I am very optimistic and happy about my life and my future. I am slowly starting to see this cancer diagnosis as a blessing. I know this sounds very confusing. Yet, I don’t think it is unusual for a life threatening disease to give one a renewed lease on life. I now call my cancer diagnosis a “mid-life course correction.”

I was fortunate this weekend to have the company of Andrea and Claudia, two friends from high school. Andrea flew in from Colorado. Claudia drove down from Dallas. All of us grew up in Otis, Colorado, a small farming community on the northeastern plains of Colorado. Claudia and I started Kindergarten together. Andrea joined us in 4th grade. All three of us graduated from Otis High School. In high school, Claudia and I ran around with a group of kids who thought that we not only knew all the answers, but that we actually wrote the questions too. In college, Andrea and I were wide-eyed freshmen roommates together at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Later, Andrea was my "Best Woman" in my wedding. Throughout the years we have kept in loose contact. The last time I saw Andrea and Claudia was when I reluctantly turned 40. Both Andrea and Claudia made a trip to Austin to help me “celebrate.” And now we see each other again at another milestone, at the point when all three of us, or at least Andrea and I are at a “mid-life course correction.”

We spent most of the weekend catching up with each other’s lives. Then we reminisced about the funny and sad times from the past. No need to introduce friends, family, or situations from the past to each other. We know each other’s past. We ARE each other’s past….and future.

With only 1 hour before Andrea needed to catch her flight, I decided to get my video camera out and interview my friends for the record. (I interview people for a living, so capturing the image, voice, mannerisms, and thoughts of my friends at this particular moment in our lives seemed appropriate.) I interviewed Andrea and Claudia together. I stayed safely behind the camera but asked the questions and made comments. I wanted to capture how we interacted as a group.

So, after getting the baseline facts from my friends (“Where do you live? What do you do? Tell me about your family?” etc), I started in on the good stuff….
“Where do you see your life in the next 5 years?” “What are your goals and ambitions?” etc. At some point, Andrea grabbed the camera and started asking ME questions. This never happens! I always hide behind the camera or video. But just as with this blog, I was front and center revealing my life for the record.

So, for the record, I am happy that it looks like I can continue to be a mother, wife and daughter for a whole lot longer. I am also optimistic about the opportunity to fulfill professional and creative goals. And I am truly blessed to have so many great friends. These are just a few of the realizations that have come out of my “mid-life course correction.”


Andrea on the left. Claudia in the middle. And me on the right.

My next backwards life

Here is a little funny that was sent to me by my good friend, Marye. I think it must be floating around the Internet. This just cracked me up. Enjoy......



I WANT TO LIVE MY NEXT LIFE BACKWARDS!

You start out dead and get that out of the way right off the bat.

Then, you wake up in a nursing home feeling better every day.

When you are kicked out of the home for being too healthy, you spend several years enjoying your retirement and collecting benefit checks.

When you start work, you get a gold watch on your first day.

You work 40 years or so, getting younger every day until pretty soon you're too young to work.

So then, you go to high school: play sports, date, drink, and party.

As you get even younger, you become a kid again.

You go to elementary school, play, and have no responsibilities.

In a few years, you become a baby and everyone runs themselves ragged keeping you happy.

You spend your last 9 months floating peacefully in luxury, spa-like

Conditions: central heating, room service on tap.

Until finally...You finish off as an orgasm.

I rest my case.

Emma's Get Well Art

I have been able to sleep a little better. Food tastes like metal and the end of my fingers tingle. I get tired, but naps help. That's it. That's the update on how I am doing. Details about chemo side effects just do not make for good blogging material. Let me share something more interesting......Emma's art. Here are a few of her recent pieces.

Here is Emma's New Year's Day card to me.


Here is the other side of the above New Year's Day card. She drew me with hair. She said this was a picture of me when I am all better.






Emma drew this picture on the evening of my 4th treament when she spent the night with her "Huita" -- Emma's version of "abuelita" which is grandmother in Spanish.





Emma also made this card at Huita's house. For now, even cards for Daddy are about me.

Stupid Wig Tricks

Here are some tricks I can do with my wig.

I can alarm everyone around me by shifting my scull 1 or 2 inches back and forth away from my face. I can get the same reaction when I lift my wig off my head. I do this a lot in public. I know I shouldn’t. I should try keep up the appearance that the hair is real, but I fuss with the wig because my head is hot and sweaty. I need a little air up there. I am totally into comfort now, so I really don’t care. David and Emma would rather I don’t do these tricks in public.

Sometimes my wig shifts off my head when I don’t want it to. When it is windy, I have to put my hand on my head to make sure the wig doesn’t blow off, just like a hat. One time David took a turn too quickly in the car and my wig slipped off. This either tells you something about David’s driving or the how precariously my wig sits on my head.

I often lose my wig in the house just like I lose my keys and shoes. This is because as soon as I walk in the door, I rip the wig off. I might put the wig on the dining room table, the couch, the bookcase. Anywhere - just not on my head. I know I should carefully place the wig on its stand. But I don’t like my wig. I don’t treat it nicely.

One time I started out the evening with the wig on. I kept my wig on in the restaurant, but I didn’t want to sit through a movie with a hot, itchy head. So, I went into the bathroom, pulled the wig off, stuffed it into my purse and slipped a black ski cap on. I felt like a spy the way I changed my look so quickly in a bathroom stall. This was great because for some time I have actually wanted to be a spy, more specifically an undercover intelligence officer with a covert identity working in a foreign country. I think I could really do this because I can pass for a variety of nationalities, I speak Spanish and I am a good listener. With a collection of various passports and wigs, I know I could pull it off.

Greetings from 2:35 AM

I am on my fifth and last day of steroids. I am taking Prednisone, which represents the “P” in my R-CHOP chemo cocktail for my non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Apparently chemo treatment is more successful when paired with steroids. Side effects include insomnia, increased appetite and irritability. So, the last couple of days I have hardly slept, I eat constantly, and I have been a bit on edge. Nice.

It is so quiet in the middle of the night. I have been here before… feeding Emma as a nursing mom; prepping lectures and grading as an assistant professor; and now rattling around the house in the middle of the night as a cancer patient. The difference now is that this sleeplessness is drug induced, so I don’t crash in the day. I just keep on going, and going and going.

4th Round Down

I had my 4th chemo treatment on Friday. I was actually dreading it a bit. I get rather anxious and nauseous the day before each treatment. My body is now conditioned to feel sick just thinking about the infusion room. The actual infusion was uneventful. David and my mom were my chemo sitters.

I had a slow weekend. I am on quite a few anti-nausea medications, so I haven’t been all that sick, but I have been tired. The good news is that I only have two more treatments: Feb. 1 and Feb. 22. In a flash, this will all be over.



Not all of the medicines go through the IV machine. Adriamycin, also know as the “red” medicine, is pushed into the port by the nurse. This is the drug that makes the hair fall out. It is a vesicant, meaning that it can cause tissue damage and blistering if it escapes the vein. The toxicity of this medicine is why adriamycin is carefully given by a nurse. I love the red color.

Blogging and the "D" word

I have been reading other people’s cancer blogs. (A simple Google search will get you there.) I started doing this because I was curious how others address cancer in terms of style and content, but now I am hooked on several blogs. There are actually several blogging moms like myself. I don’t know these women, but I feel an affinity with them. We are all going through similar things. I know, I know. I really should just join a cancer support group here in Austin instead of lurking on other people’s blogs.

Yesterday I found myself on one woman’s cancer blog. I was devastated to learn that she died just a few days ago. Her last entry simply said, “good bye.” I was so, so sad to read her words. I did not know this woman, yet the words seem to put me at her bedside in those final moments. These blogs are so intensely intimate in such a public way. They are compelling because they are stories about real people in real time. Should I be allowed to know so much about other’s people’s lives, even deaths?

As luck (or fate) would have it, while I was reading the blog, I was also listening to Fresh Air with Terry Gross show on NPR. Terry's guest was talking about her latest book regarding death during the Civil War. (WARNING: major name-dropping coming up.) The guest was Drew Gilpin Faust, the president of Harvard. A few years ago, I actually nibbled crackers and chatted briefly with Drew at a Radcliffe social event. At the time, Drew was the Dean of Radcliffe and David was a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard. Drew has no clue who I am, but I have followed her in the press like a groupie as she moved from Radcliffe Dean to the president of Harvard.

Towards the end of the interview on NPR, Terry asked Drew if her research on death during the Civil War influenced how she viewed death now. Terry mentioned that Drew is a breast and thyroid cancer survivor. Drew said that death was ever present in the mid 1800’s and this closeness to death was viewed as a way to make life more meaningful. Now, she said, we pretend death does not exist. We don’t like to talk or think about it. Drew said, however, “that when you are forced to think about death, life comes into a very sharp focus.” In this sense, Drew said she now thinks about death in a very 19th century way: thinking about death can enrich a life, rather that detract from it.

Needless to say, yesterday was a sad, reflective day for me. I was reminded of the deadly reality of cancer, yet its power to bring renewed meaning to life.

Guest Blogger: Shari

My good friend Shari was my chemo sitter during my last chemo treatment before Christmas. I invited her to write a guest post on my blog regarding the experience. As Shari and I once discussed, blogging reveals a whole new side to our personalities---our “writerly” side. Shari told me she enjoyed reading about my experiences through my written words. Likewise, I enjoy getting a peek inside the head and hearts of my blogging friends (Chris, Tandy, Genice, Dara, Luke/Joy). When I read the words of my friends, I feel like I have discovered a hidden talent. Who knew any of us could write!

I believe this blogging phenomenon has allowed amateur memoir writers like myself to get the satisfaction of publishing by just clicking a button. It is rather heady to be on the production end of content, even if hardly anyone reads our stuff. In addition, while writing is still a very important workplace skill (I use “writing” loosely to include bulleted phrases in PowerPoint decks), blogs have created a nice venue for the return of the old-fashioned essay.


So now, please welcome the “writerly” side of my friend Shari with her essay on chemo sitting…

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I met Gigi about 16 years ago when I was invited to join a group of graduate student women attending a book signing by Gloria Steinem on the Drag (a raucous and very empowering evening). Our mutual friend Margaret moved away and Gigi and I started salsa dancing. Over the years we’ve done a lot together and I’ve helped her with a garage sale and a couple of moves, but I never imagined accompanying her to a chemo treatment.

On Friday, December 21st I sat with Gigi as she received her chemo treatment. As Gigi has described previously, the infusion room is very sunny with nice furnishings and surroundings. But the poles with machines on them regulating the intake of the hanging bags of liquid certainly indicate the purpose of the room, as does the lack of hair on the heads of those tethered to the poles.

Gigi dozed after the Benadryl went in, but talked while eating lunch and when her naps were interrupted by the nurse doing something new. David, who brought Gigi that morning, had kindly left the New York Times for me to read leisurely when Gigi slept. For four and a half hours, varying liquids dripped into her port, mostly through the machine, but in two cases they were administered by the very nice nurse. It was quiet, calm, and uneventful.

As Gigi slept, I couldn’t help looking around the room at the half dozen or so other people receiving treatment and I was struck and saddened by their youth. Other than a couple of elderly patients, they seemed so young and included a young man who looked like he was high school or college-aged with his parents on either side of him and a young woman sitting next to Gigi, probably in her late 20s or early 30s. Her young husband was with her. I am so curious about their stories – what, why, how?? I felt a bit voyeuristic, watching them calmly sit for hours absorbing their drugs, a stranger witnessing a moment in probably the most challenging time of their lives.

Surely I’m not the only one contemplating my mortality as Gigi battles this cancer. Admittedly, I feel pretty selfish thinking about myself at all, but I feel myself wanting to be sure that life isn’t taken for granted by those of us who don’t have cancer. I walked to Quizno’s next door to get a turkey sandwich for Gigi about halfway through the treatment. I wanted a salad but was told that they were out of lettuce, sorry. My first irrational thought: “Out of lettuce? There are people getting chemo treatments next door and you have run out of lettuce? What if one of them wanted a salad?” No connection, I know, between cancer and lettuce, but I guess the chaos that is the universe seems kind of scary. Cancer is much worse than not getting a salad, but what can you count on? No lettuce today, cancer tomorrow. Of course, Gigi didn’t want a salad, so I didn’t actually say anything.

On Thursday, the day before the treatment, Gigi and I went to a movie, but she was nauseous and we were leaving. She was worried about being sick in the car, so I went to the candy counter and asked for a bag to take with us. But no, even if you have cancer and are throwing up, you can’t get a popcorn bag unless you pay for a bag of popcorn! After an incredulous comment from me, the young woman behind the counter called the manager, but then I remembered I had grocery bags in the car, so we left. Does that employee know how lucky she is not to need the damn bag? That’s how Gigi’s cancer has me thinking.

I have felt helpless to change the course of Gigi’s cancer and am grateful that Western medicine has made great strides in doing just that. In fact, Gigi received such good news right before her treatment began that I was thankful that all of those chemicals were coursing through her body. I was happy to sit with her in the infusion room and read the paper and help push the pole when she needed to head to the restroom, adjust the chair when she stood up or sat down, get her lunch, drive her home. I felt useful, which mitigated somewhat the feeling of powerlessness over the cells in her body that had gone awry.

To be bald

This is what it is like to be bald. My head is always cold. I always wear either my wig, a scarf, ski cap or hat even when I am inside. When I forget to cover my head in the house, I can feel the air flow around my scalp when I walk. Odd. I cover my head when I am outside to keep me warm and to avoid the stares. I am fortunate that I am going through chemo in the winter here in Texas. I think it would be uncomfortable to always cover my head in Austin’s summer heat.

The skin on my head is soft and tender, not hard like David’s bald head. Also, my scalp is white, not flesh tone like David’s. I think the whiteness of my head is part of the reason I look so ghoulish without my hair.

I still have little wisps of hair around my face that I use to foil people when I wear hats. With my hat or wig off, these wisps of hair stick out from my head like they have static electricity. Nice, huh?

I recently put away all my hair things (brushes, combs, headbands, barrettes, etc.) and replaced them with my collection of head coverings. I used to admire women with small waists and flat tummies. Now I turn to look at women with lots of hair. Love big hair.

I still wash my head with my special designer shampoo just out of habit, but I no longer get to feel the satisfaction of big lather on my hands and head. I am sure I could get away with washing my scalp with just a bar of soap. Just like David, it now takes me less than 10 minutes to get ready to go out because I don’t need to fuss with hair. I never really have “bad hair” days--just “no hair” days for me now.

Neighborhood Tour (Part 2)

Goodness. How could I forget…..An "anonymous" poster from the previous entry reminded me that I worked at a Jack in Box on the corner of Burnet Road and North Loop during the summer between high school and college. My co-workers called me "Gigi," but I wore a nametag that said "Angie" because management said it was close enough. Now, I know why it didn't matter what was on that nametag. Customers just needed a name--any name--to call the person handing them their fries.



Here is that old Jack in the Box restaurant now turned into a used car lot.

Neighborhood Tour

As I wrote in my introductory post, at some point I would probably blog about other things beyond cancer. With my renewed energy levels holding steady, I will now share something totally unrelated…

Let me take you on a tour of my neighborhood here in Austin. If you live in Austin (or lived in Austin), you will probably recognize these landmarks. For those who have never had a chance to visit, here is a something new.

We live near Burnet Road in Central Austin. David and I think of Burnet Road as Austin’s version of San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley, meaning that this street is just an endless unattractive strip of fast food restaurants, appliance stores, car repair shops, furniture stores and other useful yet boring retailers. There are, however, pockets of whimsy and nostalgia on Burnet Road. The nostalgia comes from my memories of visiting my Aunt Mary as a kid. Burnet Road in the 1970’s was still pretty much the same endless strip of urban blah. I just didn’t call it “urban blah” back then.


FIRST THE WHIMSY.......

I have driven by this shop millions of times. This store’s exterior is an odd combination of medieval and western imagery pulled together with a garish yellow color. Not your usual combination, but now because of familiarity, this place just seems normal.







This is the kind of place that I like having around because it makes Austin different than the rest of Texas.














The power of outdoor signs! Without the light bulb man, this store would be just another specialty store. With the sign, I get excited about shopping for light bulbs.











This is an unusual picture of Amy’s Ice Cream. Usually the place is swarming with kids on the cows and grown ups at the tables, but this picture was taken on Christmas Day. Twenty odd years ago, Amy worked at Steve’s Ice Cream in Boston when she was a premed student at Tufts. Now Amy owns the retail ice cream market in Austin. She recently opened up a new location on Burnet road with a playscape. What was she thinking! Does she have kids? Does she know what parents go through every time we drive by with our kids in the backseat?



NOW FOR THE NOSTALGIA......

In most places, a “pit” might suggest a dump. Here in Texas, “pit” brings up images of succulent barbequed meat. This is the restaurant where I first got hooked on Texas BBQ. The meat is served up on paper plates with pickles, onions and white bread--yes, two simple pieces of sliced white bread. The white bread, not the paper plate, is what confused and amused me at first. (Sliced white bread at a restaurant?) Now, like everything else on Burnet, white bread with barbeque seems normal.






This restaurant served as my aunt’s backup kitchen since the 1950's when it first opened on Burnet Road. I took this pic on Christmas Day. Usually the parking lot is filled with big, late model American cars. Inside, waitresses with tall hair call you “honey” and serve up hamburgers, steaks and fabulous meringue pies. I can remember sitting at each of the booths with various family members as a kid when we would visit Austin. My dad’s last restaurant meal was here. This Frisco will soon be moving to a larger location just up the road, but it won’t be the same. The owners must think they just serve food here.





This was the Luby’s Cafeteria where my aunt and others from Austin’s WW II generation probably ate 50% of their meals. Luby’s was close to my aunt’s house and served Texas comfort food (think chicken fried steak, hushpuppies, fried okra, black-eyed peas, pecan pie, etc.) Several years ago, Luby’s closed and the Austin affiliate of Univision (a Spanish language cable channel) moved in.


I often like to think in terms of symbols and this little change in my neighborhood was a biggy: a Spanish language television station replaced a hushpuppies and fried okra type restaurant. To me, this transition was a reflection of the sweeping demographic changes taking place in the US and the emphasis on media over low-tech cafeteria lines. “Telefutura” says it all.


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Don’t want to forget the following important disclaimer! David doesn’t want everyone “out there” to think Austin is just filled with kitsch and comfort food restaurants. Sure, Austin is very beautiful with lakes, hills and nice running trails downtown. Check out what David and the City of Austin want you to know here.

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.