Please note: this piece contains strong language.
I’ve always had thick, straight-as-a-ruler hair. So thick that, when a school outbreak of lice led to an “up-do” mandate, I had to have it all cut off. Mine was so heavy, “up” was never more than fleetingly possible. 'It’ll grow back, you’ll see,' Mum said.
Later, after years of peroxide and punk-colours made it straw-like, it had to be cut off again. This time I kept it short.
At my chemo and radio sessions, several other patients admired my “cancer haircut". I told Jim, my hairdresser, that he’d been giving me a cancer-cut for thirty years. We laughed until it hurt.
I was saved from baldness and wigs by this genetic hair-gift. It thinned; shedding alarming handfuls in the shower, but then just grew back curly.
'What the fuck am I supposed to do now, Jim? I have no clue what to do with curly hair. Just cut it shorter so I can cope.' It was a simple solution, obvious, and wholly ineffective. It just frizzed tighter, like a Brillo pad.
But I’m getting ahead here. Long before the curls, there came the tumour.
I knew before the endoscopy that whatever was wrong was not going to be benign. But I was calm on the day Nurse Vanessa arranged me on the bed like an artist’s model. 'Try to relax,' she said gently. 'I’ll be right here the whole time and you’ll feel my hand on your shoulder.' I did.
I focused on her hand as the tube was inserted and they inflated my stomach. I just caught a glimpse of the dark brown nipple on the screen before a huge, gulping burp erupted with a gush of liquid from my mouth. 'You’re doing really well, nearly over now.' The warm hand gently squeezed my shoulder as the reality that I had cancer spread through me like a transfusion.
At that moment, I mentally took myself by the hand, with optimism and the hope that I could take care of myself. I learnt also to accept the hands of strangers, and hope that they would also take care. By the time all the scans, endoscopies and biopsies were done, and the tumour was accurately measured, imaged and typed, I’d lost count of the hands. But I can still recall their names and faces.
I was calm. Accepting that it was happening and trusting myself to face it, and the medics to do their jobs. 'You are the luckiest unlucky person,' one said. 'It’s rare, but it hasn’t spread. It’s serious, but it responds well to radiotherapy. You are healthy and strong. You’ve got the best chance.'
There was some denial, of course. 'Keyhole surgery and back to work in a few weeks,' I thought. The reality check was swift and clear. The consultant said I had to know the worst that could happen in order to make an “informed choice”. It was like being forced to read the leaflet from the paracetamol packet. The one that tells you how these pills will probably cure your headache, but here are the hundred ways they might kill or maim you in the process.
I remembered, when my sister was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, I screamed and wept my rage into the cushions of her couch. The next day, at the hospital I marched to her room, my angry heels punching the floor tiles. I listened to the soft-spoken consultant that day, scanning his face for miracles.
I searched my emotions as I faced what was coming to me; strangely, I felt only hopeful.
Sonia was my radiographer. For ten minutes every day for five weeks, we laughed. We laughed about the tattoos that marked the targets for the machine, at the NHS paper towel that was supposed to preserve my naked dignity. We laughed when I had to lie under one while a beetroot-faced technician worked some magic on a broken machine. We laughed at the music on the playlist. Kate Bush told us “Don’t give up”, Rod Stewart gave us “If you want my body and you think I’m sexy” and Frank Sinatra rounded off the final week with “I’ve got you under my skin”.
Chemotherapy was once a week. Danielle was my favourite chemo-nurse. She’d hook me up, re-set and silence my machine when it complained, and mouth 'Are you OK?' with a smile every time she passed my bay. She was tall and solid and relaxed in her own skin. She told me, 'You have good veins.' As she inserted the cannula with painless ease she added, 'Nurses are simple people, we like good veins and regular bowel movements!'
There followed a couple of months of respite before the surgery. I saw three of the five consultant surgeons before I was assigned one all to myself. 'It’s like Blind Date,' I joked with number three. 'Yes,' he smiled, 'except we get to choose who operates on you.'
Pain was what I feared the most. But as I floated to the surface in the HDU, there was none. A round, brown face came into focus. Marie took my hand, wet my lips and softly asked questions until I started to make some kind of sense. 'You’re OK my lovely, it’s all over and everything went well. I will take care of you.' She squeezed my hand and I squeezed back.
Three months later, I am back in Jim’s salon chair, looking at this “me” who looks different to the “me” I was before. It’s not the weight loss, or the lines on my face that trace the tiny pockets of fear I allowed myself. It’s the curly hair.
'Maybe I just need to accept it?' I suggest to Jim. 'I’ve no idea what to do with it, but I can learn. And it won’t last, it’ll straighten eventually. So, maybe I just have curly hair for a bit?'
Jim laughs and picks up his scissors. 'You just need the right cut and care and it’ll be fine.'
If you've been affected by this piece, please see our support page(this link will open in a new window) for help and advice.