I don't know.
Does / did anyone read it.
Well yes they did, not sure anymore.
Today I was wandering around the aisles of Target looking for yet another binder in the endless gathering up of the uncountable school supplies of my little big kids. I saw a few ratty fat binders on the end of one aisle, oddly adjacent to some minty vaguely Christmassy chocolate. But where is the selection? I asked an invisible woman (you know - one of those, like me, sort of 50-ish, mostly average sized, rather pale, pretty forgettable females. As in "Huh, yeah officer I guess I saw someone - not sure what she looked like, I didn't really notice" kind of people) where the actual binders were and she said blah blah over blah blah there or something. I didn't listen but said my part: "ok thanks!" and wandered off.
But...my subconscious, my mind's eye, had seen her. And this inner mind stopped me in my tracks. She had had on a scarf, and seemed to have no hair. So I literally walked backwards back to her, and broke the social bubble around her by saying "Excuse me, but I see you have a scarf on and I was wondering if you were going through chemotherapy?"
This was very rude or forward of me BUT I HAD TO DO IT. Because I saw her in that instant and knew that nobody saw her.
When I was going througn chemotherapy I constantly read that one in eight women in the United States was diagnosed with breast cancer. I wandered and drove all over Austin bald, in my hats and scarves, but literally never saw another person like me out there at HEB at Central Market at Whole Foods at the library at the post office at the Arboretum at school at Walgreens at Old Navy at Thundercloud Subs in a parking lot in a crowd in a line in a store in a field. I wondered: where are all the women with no hair? Maybe they were wearing extremely great wigs. Maybe they were staying inside. I think they were staying inside. Why were they staying inside?
So I approached Eza. She smiled and said yes I am doing chemo, and so I patted her arm and told her I had too and now I feel very fine. I said look at me my hair. I asked her all about her and she expressed how happy she was that I'd asked. We talked for a long time like cousins that find they like each other upon meeting first time at a wedding. She works full time, nauseated, at Target, bald and pale. By the way, she says that Target treats her very well, and has been accommodating. I asked her she had help at home. She said her two sons were nice. She smiled a lot. She didn't want to let me go.
Update on me:
1. I am ok.
2. On an estrogen blocking pill that's not bothering me. Aromasin. That's all that's left of breast cancer treatment - a tiny daily pill for years. I guess I don't have breast cancer any more. There was no official finish line or parade, but I think this is true.
3. Kids back at school.
4. I will be teaching two classes in the fall at St. Edwards. I will be working Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays and have a class at 9 o'clock, and a class at noon. I am very much looking forward to it although I do not like the textbook I have been assigned and I'm trying to devise a sneaky way to throw it out the window.
5. Come by for happy hour any night at 6 PM.
6. I do not identify with breast cancer. I forget all the time that I had it. I read about women with breast cancer and feel badly for them and think how lucky I am not to have ever had it. Then I remember.
7. I had a wonderful dinner last night with Debbie, a good friend who was diagnosed with breast cancer around the time I was. She's a few weeks behind me in treatment and her hair is adorable, kind of like a flattened out crewcut. We talked and talked and talked, and we both feel lucky to be where we are right now.
I'm still having fun, or actually I'm having more fun again, with my girls and their girls and our Mike.
