On Beauty

Lilith (Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1867)

In Ways of Seeing, John Berger argues that "the relationship between what we see and what we know is never settled."  Berger was referring to visual art -- specifically, oil painting -- but let me regardless take that completely out of context and apply it to a woman's self image during chemotherapy. I have heard and repeated to myself such things as "cancer cannot take away your beauty" many times ... I have been tempted to write it on my bathroom mirror in bright, red lipstick. I want to believe it. But most times, it is hard to think that it is true.

My vanity could not endure the gradual loss of my eyelashes. They're still there -- albeit, unostentatious wisps of their former selves -- but I think that the thinning of my once long, dark lashes has hit me the hardest. Alright: I'm vain. I should be more upset about pain, nausea, and loss of appetite -- fear of the future, but I am most mourning my eyelashes. I have always hated my Slavic nose, always thought I had problem hair, wished I had a less boyish figure ... but I have always been narcissistic about those eyelashes. I inherited them from my dad; they were fabulously long, dark, and thick, and I would like to boast that I have never once bought mascara. I will miss them, oh how I will miss them. I'm not a religious girl, but I'd like to say a prayer for them. I will compose haikus for them. Wherever they are.

It's rather difficult to feel "beautiful," much less "feminine," through chemotherapy. Sure; nothing can take away one's inner beauty -- I'd agree with that -- but it's almost impossible to admire the image in the mirror when you hardly recognise it. I avoid mirrors at all costs. I have not been clothes shopping in ages. And it's hard now for me to care much about acting -- an at times superficial industry so dependent upon appearance. Of course, there is spring. It's appropriate that I am going through most of this during winter months. Once the snow has melted and the crocuses have started to peek out, hopefully, I'll start to bloom again too ... cheesy as that sounds to me.

On an unrelated note, the magical sea horse needles have helped quite a bit. I am almost two weeks out of treatment, and so far, no infections, though I did have two terrible days of some pretty bad bone pain. My oncologist hinted yesterday that I might possibly be able to get away with just two more rounds of chemo instead of the planned three. Could it be true? Just one fewer round makes such a difference to me. Fingers crossed that I can hold onto what is left of my precious eyelashes until then. Damn you, chemo! You can take away my beauty, but not my eyelashes!

The First Virtue in a Soldier ...

... Is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue.

-- Napoleon Bonaparte

...

Yeah, whatever. What did he know?

...

I am ...

So tired; 

I weigh the pros and cons of getting up to go pee.

I would like my red blood cells back, please.

C'est Difficile, la C. Difficile

So. Somehow, I contracted c. difficile. And all I have to say is that it was tres difficile.

"We haven't had a case of c. diff on this floor in a very long time," said the specialist from the Infectious Diseases Department who came to see me.

It kind of made me feel a bit like the dirty whore of the 18th Floor ... sullying the erstwhile clean and infectious disease-free hallways. I was immediately put in isolation, my parents dressed in gowns and latex gloves. My old room had to be scrubbed clean from top to bottom, and the two roommates I'd had had to be notified and tested. I'm a dirty harlot.

Man. Talk about being put in the corner. I felt like no one wanted to be my friend and I had some sort of contagious disease. Well, I guess I did.

How on earth did I get this? I thought that only elderly people in regional hospitals that had bad sanitation records got this. C. diff almost always only occurs among the immuno-compromised (which is why it is normally a hospital outbreak), and apparently, the culprit can be too many antibiotics. I had been put on four oral antibiotics, plus I'd had a few bags of intravenous antibiotics in the two weeks prior to my treatment, so my guess is that is what happened.

Argh! How many more weird things can I get? I hear that polio is making a comeback; maybe I will get that next. Can you think of any other quirky afflictions I might acquire? This is what happens when your body falls apart on you. Chemotherapy is a bad, bad poison. The silver lining is that they cancelled my chemo for that day, so I got away with three days of chemo instead of four. Ha. Suckers. Fooled them.

In other news, I got my second shot of magical sea horses today. (I don't even want to get into the drama at the pharmacy and the fiery hoops and magical loopholes that my parents, doctors, and social worker had to go through to get me those ten astronomically expensive needles.) So far, my bones are not screaming. Fingers crossed.

I feel a bit like a limp rag doll, so many things hurt, I'm down to 92 lbs., or perhaps less now after my stint as an infectious disease strumpet ... but I am watching My So-Called Life on DVD, and getting all nostalgic for 1994. I'm missing my grunge phase (all those high-waisted vintage jeans and over-sized flannel shirts ... where did I put them?). Feeling like I need more Lemonheads and Juliana Hatfield in my life. Re-mourning Nirvana. Remembering what it was like to like the not-so-smart, smoker guys who often skipped class, just because they were hot. 'Tis magical.

(Thanks, Kate)

After Great Pain, The Magical Sea Horses Come

Lately, I keep thinking about this otherwise-untitled Emily Dickinson poem, which begins: "After great pain, a formal feeling comes --" but I keep mistakenly remembering it as "After great illness, a formal feeling comes -- " because I guess I can't help but try to relate it to my present situation and mental state. She was most likely referring to emotional pain, but perhaps Emily did mean to allude to physical pain; she was rather sickly herself, and eventually succumbed to kidney failure in her fifties. Everyone she loved seem to up and die on her. Most of her poetry is about death.

The poem continues like this:

The Nerves sit, ceremonious like Tombs -- 

The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore, 

And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round --

Of Ground, or Air, or Ought -- 

A Wooden way

Regardless grown,

A Quartz contentment, like a stone -- 

This is the Hour of Lead -- 

Remembered, if outlived,

As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow -- 

First -- Chill -- then Stupor -- then the letting go --

Regardless of whether Dickinson was writing about unrequited love, the death of a parent, or the pain of seclusion, the speaker has endured a recent trauma that registers high on the Richter scale; she is shaken, cracked, broken, and and no longer walks through life with the same body. The tone is funereal, and recalls caskets and headstones; her nerves are like "Tombs," her heart is "stiff," her feet are "mechanical."

Somber stuff ... and why did I get so dark all of a sudden? ... But sometimes I wonder if Dickinson was secretly going through a few rounds of chemotherapy when she wrote this poem. I feel so divorced from my body. I feel like this body is not mine. It is weak and tired. It catches infection after infection. It is fragile. It doesn't feel very feminine anymore. It can't go on the subway, or to the movies, or sit on a plane. It doesn't want to go for a run or even a long walk. It naps as often as a two-year-old. It currently cannot stomach vegetables. It needs so many damn pills all the time. But I am unable to break down or cry about it anymore. I feel very "formal." As though I am watching this happen to someone else.

My body truly fell apart on Christmas Day. A few hours after dinner, I started to feel relatively awful. Then it just all went downhill from there. Three infections, a horrible case of thrush, a fever, subsequent stay in the Emergency Room and blood transfusion later, I was sitting in my oncologist's exam room, awaiting the OK for my next round to start.

"We can't go on this way," Dr. Nicemanwiththemeandrugs said, and so I knew that my white blood cell count was too low for four more days of toxic chemicals. "Two things: Number one, you can't start today. Number Two: we have to do something about this."

That "something" we are going to do is called "Neupogen," and apparently it is a very, very expensive drug that is not available to everyone, and only given to patients in extenuating circumstances. My oncologist has to write a letter of request to the Ministry of Health and I have to fill out a Trillum application in order to get this drug. It is so expensive that it prompted my dear friend Joan to ask, "Why the eff is it so expensive? Is it made out of magical sea horses or something?!"

And the answer to that is yes.

Neupogen is a magical sea horse needle that I will have to give myself for ten days after each round of chemotherapy. It is used to treat "neutropenia," which is basically the hematological disorder also known as "low neutrophils," a type of white blood cell which fights bacterial infection. Chemotherapy does a number on the bone marrow; it slays away the white blood cells, along with the red blood cells and the platelets. If you don't have white blood cells, your body is unable to fight off infection. In extreme cases, such as the ones emergency room doctors sometimes use as examples in order to scare patients who just want to go home into staying in the hospital longer, this can result in death. That is a very crappy situation. Enter magical sea horse needle. Neupogen stimulates the rapid production of the white blood cells. Hopefully, this will mean fewer infections and a lot less of the hellishness for me. Hopefully also, it will mean more eating. I miss eating. I am so sick of doctors getting on my case to do more eating. Earthy is counting my calories, and it makes me feel like it's 1992 (seriously, who has counted calories since the Nineties?), and kind of also makes me feel like I am in trouble all the time. We argue about how many calories my applesauce has. I want to eat! I hate Boost! It's disgusting, and it only comes in three flavours!

Could Neupogen be the answer to my hopes and dreams of getting through this alive? I have heard that one of the possible side effects of this magical needle is "horrible bone pain," (Oh, fantastic! When can I get it?) but my fingers are crossed for bone pain-less magical sea horse wonderfulness.

I hope so. Next week, you might find me lighting candles and playing "Let's Get it On," and waiting for my white blood cells to procreate.

No more ceremonious tomb-like nerves, no!