"I cannot live, I can't breathe Unless you do this with me." --Angels and Airwaves, "The Adventure" I've been reluctant to write an update on how Gayle's doing, partly because I have learned that (much to my surprise) people are actually reading these posts and that's kind of embarrassing, and partly because the latest development is unexpectedly hard for me to process. The poison they're pumping into Gayle's body has claimed her hair. Massive handfuls of her already-shortened red hair choked up our bathroom's drain. She has hidden what remains beneath a cancer wrap, both to keep the shedding from getting everywhere and to keep her head warm. On 25 January--three months and five days after she first got her diagnosis--we shaved it all off. In an act of solidarity, our thirteen year old also had me shave his red hair, turning our family from two-fifths Weasley to just a bunch of mouse-brown blokes and a couple of monkish aspirants. We're trying to take it in stride--Gayle is adept at this sort of thing, no doubt deriving from her typical generosity and optimism--and we're trying to let things not feel too heavy. After all, it's just hair, right? Except… A day or two before Gayle's second round, the hair loss began, so it wasn't as though it was a complete surprise. Nevertheless, it was something that we continued to hope wouldn't happen. Among all of the other trials of having chemotherapy, we're perpetually crossing our fingers for a better outcome than the typical experience. And since we've been disappointed on much of these experiences (Gayle's response to the toxins isn't the worst that it could be, it's still much harder on her than we had desired), there was a clinging glimmer of optimism that, at the very least, her gorgeous red hair might be spared. In anticipation for this possibility, Gayle had her hair professionally cut and styled, then sent away her hair to a custom wig-maker so that, in a few months, we'll have a wig made out of (mostly) her own hair. She can use it in the future to make a wig for her Queen Elizabeth I cosplay, thus obviating the need to sleep on curlers the night before the Renaissance Faire. Definitely a lemonade-from-lemons choice, in my view. Her new hairstyle--which she only kept for about three weeks--was chic and spunky. Gayle didn't really see herself maintaining the look in later years when her hair grows back, and I quietly agreed with her. In the manner of beaten honesty, I was kind of relieved that she wanted to grow her hair back to whatever length she had before. Among the many uncomfortable and undesired lessons that having my wife pass through defeating breast cancer is the one that showed me that things look differently when one is going through the difficulty rather than watching someone else do it. From the outside, worrying about what happens to her hair seems trite and trivial, particularly for a lot of guys (or, at least, those who aren't terribly concerned about being--or becoming--bald). And some women don't care too much about the Great Chop, knowing that it's immaterial to survival and that it will grow back. But it's diminishing of a person to dismiss a large, visible component of who they are with a sniff and a wave, saying, "It's only hair." Yes, it is only hair, and it is also an actual, physical part of the person. And while I'm only speaking for myself specifically, I know that this was not an easy choice for Gayle to make. I know, because the day before she decided to buzz her head, she needed me to be next to her after she'd shampooed her hair. She needed some support for when she removed the towel that was hiding how extensive the loss was. I know that this matters to her, because she lamented that now she looked like the Cryptkeeper from the old Tales from the Crypt TV show (I'm assuming she wasn't referencing the comics on which the show was based). I've known Gayle for the majority of her life. We met when we were juniors in high school, back in 1999. When we started dating, I felt like I was Peter Parker being told that he'd just hit the jackpot with a real-life Mary Jane Watson. Gayle's red hair means a lot to me, and not just as a matter of attraction. Gayle isn't her hair any more than she's her smile, but it's still a component of who she is. And the cancer has already removed parts of her--literally, in the form of the lump that was extracted, but metaphorically, too, in the form of her career, her hobbies and passions, and even her parenting/partnering. Cancer, as one of my friends said when I first announced the diagnosis, sucks the air from the room. It is an avaricious, vicious, vacuous entity that drains in life and pays back pain and heartache and death. What happens when I see Gayle now is, of course, my beautiful wife…but I'm also seeing a trauma. Her short hair, her baldness--it isn't about the aesthetics of her beauty being maimed that hurts my heart and makes me glance away. It's the visibility of the scars being carved in her body and soul that cut the air out of my lungs. In seeing her scalp's skin I am shown what cancer wanted to do to her--to scythe her, to take her away. Much like the exclamation mark on my oldest son's chest that tells me to remember what he went through--what we went through--to keep him here, Gayle's baldness shouts at me how real the pain is for her, how constant the nausea, how endless the exhaustion, how frustrating the fog. It reminds me with the casual glances that my own complacency with coping is not something that we share. And when I'm off at work or focused on something else, I'm not "dealing with chemotherapy". It shows me that she has a burden that I cannot carry for her, no matter how hard a truth that is to recognize. So it's just hair--or baldness--right? Right. Except that it means more to me than that. And seeing her eyes diamond with tears because she has lost that part of herself is not something I ever wish to see again. I included the lyrics from "The Adventure" by Angels and Airwaves as my bumper for this essay because, outside of hymns, I don't think I've cried at a song as often as I have with this one. Tonight, while strumming the simple chord progression on my guitar and caterwauling (I dare not call what I do singing) my way through the song, I was hit by this phrase. I burst into tears and fumbled along for a dozen or so measures, unable to sing or even really open my mouth until the moment passed. It felt like it was the mantra that is going to get us through this trial. It sums up my own truth--I can't live, I can't breathe without Gayle--but I think it also shows that we can live and continue on our own adventure, provided we do it together. And that's the hope. That these visceral reminders of what she's going through on her own--the days lying abed, the baldness, the constant balance between medicines and foods and rest--will move from this omni-present and into a dim past. As Dave Matthews sings in "#40": Tables turned again and you my friend That's what I'm trying to get to--those days when we can sit and laugh at the hard times that we got through because we're with each other.
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July 2021
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