Caesura//Nesting

With my surgery behind and the chemo ahead, I am experiencing a caesura in my life during which “metrical time is not counted.” For someone as active and task-saturated as I usually am, this represents a huge opportunity for socializing and navel gazing. My navel, punctuated with dozens of bruises from my daily blood thinner injections, isn’t currently my best feature; arguably, it never was.

I’ve been plenty busy during this time, don’t get me wrong. Not working has allowed time for healing, yes, but also unstructured time for reading, writing and compulsive thinking about the future. I’m not proud to share that I’ve been obsessing about losing my hair. But I’ve also spent a lot of time celebrating the generous outreach from my friends and family and colleagues with messages of optimistic fortitude and offers of help, visits of food and companionship. This week the two (compulsive thinking about my hair and friends) converged during a conversation with a friend in New York whom I’d called to wish happy birthday; she shared that her daughter had recently been through chemo and had been able to keep the majority of her hair by using a cooling cap. And did I want to try using it? She would be willing to share the cap with me, and her mom FedExed it to me, arriving on Tuesday.

The cap fit! Heroic music swells

My endangered follicles and I had a subsequent conversation with the cap’s previous denizen, and she shared what I recorded in my composition book as “Chemo Hacks.” Off I went to Amazon, where I purchased the recommended shampoo, some soft hair bands, a special brush, silk pillowcases (actually, I got an entire King set of silk sheets for $35. What in god’s name have I been waiting for?) and a few more beanies to wear home with my wet hair after the treatment.

I also reached out to the medical facility to find out if their machine was compatible with this fitting for the Paxman cap.

“We don’t have any machines.”

Oh.

Heroic music stops abruptly with the sound of record needle skipping off the vinyl

The outreach about renting the machine from the company was “We don’t rent to patients, only facilities,” so knowing the likelihood of getting the facility to have a machine in house by 9/27, I jettisoned the idea of hair salvation.

Back to hair one.

I spent last Saturday helping my friend shop for a new couch, lunching on delicious food from Joan’s on Third in his new apartment, buying an array of cute hats, booking an appointment with a tattoo artist to render a wreath of butterflies on my head, opening a charitable trust, and planning my Air B&B Chemo Asst. Plan (ABBCAP – catchy, eh?) Yes, I see how one my behavior might be construed as manic or maniacal. When I texted my friend and listed my accomplishments, following with “and how was your Saturday?” there was that awkward silence (caesura, if you will) prior to her response, “You’ve been very productive!” alerting me to the fact that I’d indeed gone around some acceptable bend.

Let’s just say I’m nesting.

Production Managers attempt to plan for all outcomes. We 1) assess what is needed to succeed (or not fail), 2) corral people and resources, 3) imagine and try to thwart worst cast scenarios, and 4) look for the gifts. This last is courtesy of my PQ Training.

Here are some of my plans:

The Air B&B Chemo Assistant Plan – ABBCAP (by invitation only)

• Arrive 5PM Tuesday the night before. Yes, I have an extra parking space.
• Dinner out at your choice of DTLA restaurant – my treat
• Sleepover party – sorry you don’t get silk sheets
• Coffee/Tea and a croissant or yogurt and fruit for brekky
• Drive to treatment center to arrive by 7:00AM for labs. 😳
• 5 hours of infusion time: watching movies, sharing your last vacation pictures (remember I’m a captive audience), playing Ransom Notes (a terrible game, by the way – don’t succumb to the ads on FB), or just shooting the shit.
• Drive me home and drop me off.

Sounds festive, doesn’t it?

The Tattoo

• My medical team has let me know that a tattoo on my freshly bald pate may be particularly sensitive as well as subject to infection so probably not a good idea.
• My hair will grow back soon after the chemo stops, rendering any top work invisible. That means the ROI on a lot of ink is not great. While the idea of it appeals to me poetically, the timing may not be right.
• I’ll take the meeting with him on October 8th and we’ll find less vulnerable real estate.

Here are some of the Literal Gifts:

• Another mystery puzzle arrived on Monday, causing me to reach out to two primary suspects who each accused me of badgering them to actually send me a puzzle. I promise that was not my intent! But if one of you did send me the succulent puzzle, please fess up in the comments.
• Two pounds of See’s chocolates from my dear friends the Gleasons. After eating 8 of them in two days, I’ve had to hide them in the chest of drawers under my TV. They were adversely affecting my afore-mentioned navel gazing. But we know they’re there.
• Another Lego Flower project, sent by my former neighbor and her husband and their dog. I love the other one, an orchid, which sits in my entry foyer and requires zero maintenance, which for me and orchids is a good thing.

Other Gifts:

• I’ve lost all social inhibition (is that a good thing, you are no doubt asking?) and am making plans to see theatre and eat out with friends with reckless abandon. At least this weekend. Tonight we’re going out to dinner at the roof-top restaurant on the Wayfarer Hotel (which I’ve been salivating over because I can see it from my own balcony) followed by a performance of The Travelers by Luis Alfaro at LATC. Last night, I attended a show at The Getty Villa with some dear friends and former colleagues. ‘Nuff said.
• My son’s visiting next week while his hockey teams are in Anaheim.
• My friend Susan is coming for a visit in early October; I’m grateful to have someone who’s seen all phases of my hair life be here to help me shop for a possible wig (which chemo-savvy friends have told me I’m unlikely to wear).
• We’ve planned a trip for Thanksgiving out of town with my granddaughters. Very exciting!
• Bob has said he’ll visit me for Christmas which will be fantastic (following my fifth chemo on 12/20).
• Tina may come in January for my last drip.

All of these past and future events are markers of the way forward through the treatments. And yes, some days, I open my eyes and want to pull the covers back over my head. And so I allow myself that grace because that’s what a caesura is all about.