Bald is the new sexy

Can anyone ever fully brace themselves for what a cancer center does to you? What I mean by cancer center is what is in all actuality a long wide hallway with reclining chairs on either side. Each chair has it’s own tv with vhs player, it’s own computer for the use of the nurses and they are all separated by the institutional pastel cloth panels. Whoever thought that those horrible pastels were relaxing or soothing needs their heads examined. Just saying.

At each of these sterilized stations is a patient, all of them receiving some form of chemo for some form of cancer. A whole line of the elderly, bald and jovial, talking back and forth with one another. Later on I realized, facing cancer as the person with it you must automatically feel a kinship to the fellow bald person next to you. My Mom was the youngest at the meat market yesterday, not a fact that I didn’t immediately notice either. And she was the only one with hair, must have been an odd sight there for several people told her she could tke her wig off comfortably, that no one there would stare.

The baldness I keep mentioning because I was not prepared to see so many people, so many cancer patients, and so much baldness. Once I got over the initial shock (and yes, I know this is SO wrong) I had the urge to rub their heads. Not in a “lets see if a genie comes out!” way, but I also noticed my Mom was the only one there with a visitor, I wanted to rub it in the “someone cares” kinda way. I managed to restrain myself, telling Mom to sit still and behave, to think of the medicines going into her not as something that was going to make her ill and yes bald, but as something similar to a Pac Man game, the longer she’s hooked up, the more lives Pac Man has to go in and eat the cancer. The nurse though I was nuts but Mom did eventually see the wisdom of the Pac Man and settled down.

And she wants to shave her head.

She needs to control some aspect of this, I’m aware and I suppose that’s one small gesture letting her know she’s still in some control of her life. I’m behind her all the way, but instead of shaving my head with her I’m splurging on a few new wigs for her (holy criminey batman those are spendy!!) and doing it for her.

I’m hoping they have a mohawk wig, if for no other reason then to make her try it on and get pics.

We are trying to find the fun in this.

Hello…

I go by another name, MamaMichelsBabies, on another blog site on another blog who’s origins are far from the emotional wreckage that will pervade this particular blog. This isn’t about my children, it won’t have a happy ending, it’s not even to really record the last few months my mother will inhabit this planet but it’s about my sanity. It’s about having what I deem a safe place to rant and weep and somehow come out of the other side of this with my mind intact.

Usually I let any comments go, and most posts will be open to comments but for this particular place, this safe haven for me, comments made in bad taste or that have a hurtful intent behind them will be deleted. My grammar, spelling and my post contents won’t be edited and if you don’t like what your reading there is an entire blog world out there for you to check out.

7 days ago the word cancer invaded my world once again. This disease has been beaten back, it’s submission to the poisons used to killed it eventual and slow, but it submitted nonetheless. This time it decided to fight with us, my Mom my sister and I, with a vengeance. This time it won’t be backed into a corner and made quiet, for cancer the third time is a charm and we will be losing one of the worlds greatest women in less then a year.

It’s all very cut and dry, it’s all so permanent already and yet it’s all so foggy in my head.

And my heart.

This journey I’m facing will be one I never wanted to walk, it feels as though my Mom were a death row inmate making the final walk knowing she’s innocent and walking with her is me, the guard taking her down that walk knowing she’s innocent as well… knowing there isn’t a damn thing to do about it. It’s a raging submission for me… a daughter losing her mother, grandchildren losing their Nana, two sisters losing the common tie, a spouse losing his love. It’s Greek tragedy in a way… only we aren’t Greek.

Anyway, welcome to my journey. There’s Kleenex around here somewhere.