Shingles, Delay in Treatment, ER

I am sitting in a place I hoped never to be again: the Urgent Care of Sloan-Kettering. I have thought about coming to the ER for more than a month (and even did end up at urgent care on vacation in October). I have even have had a little to-go bag packed for the past few days, something the triage nurse laughed with me about.

My symptoms come and go, but the numbness has gotten a lot worse, and I’m always in pain. It’s just a little bit of pain, and it’s not in the same place for long. I also get lightheaded and feel strange, but since it comes and goes, I haven’t known what to do. This past week I have felt increasingly terrible, to the point where I am afraid to move too much, because using my muscles makes them really twitchy and painful. I have stopped working out for now and feel like just a shadow of the person I was even a week ago. At work today, I felt really lightheaded and strange, with a buzzy feeling in my head. I had MRIs slated for Friday and Monday but I really feel alarmed since the numbness and pain has moved to my head.

I think I will probably be here for awhile. I always try to be grateful if I am in the best shape in the ER/Urgent Care. I’d rather be in this situation than being rushed in. I think they are going to do the MRI here. I am equally afraid it will show something or show nothing. I don’t want this to be serious, but I also want to know what this is, as I have been so miserable.

On the long cab ride up here, I watched the streets slip past (very slowly, aware of the meter) and tried to enjoy the luxury of a rare cab ride through the city and remember all the nice things. I passed the pub where Dylan Thomas drank himself to death (not a particularly nice memory, nor mine) but it’s also the place where me and another friend surprised my best friend, in town from Dublin, with U2 tickets when she came to visit me a few summers ago. I went past my friends’ workplace where we did lunchtime yoga and had lunch at her work cafeteria with a view of the river. I passed the Webster Hall area, where I have seen so many bands and just recently got to see a Q&A with A Tribe Called Quest. I also thought about how the driver should have taken a different route. But life has been good to me, and I need to remember that.

I was supposed to start chemo on Monday and took my initial doses that day and Tuesday morning, but I had developed a rash on Sunday that turned out to be shingles. My chemo is delayed for a few weeks until I get over the shingles. That was a bit of a disappointment as I was all geared up to do the chemo and now it will be at least a few more weeks. I had hoped these symptoms might be alleviated once I started the chemo.

I hope I leave here today with some answers.

Hospital Life

Months ago, I told myself I would post every day while I was in the hospital, but I quickly realized that wouldn’t happen. I’ve been busy getting radiation, starting chemo and trying to wrap up some work items. At least this first week in the hospital has gone by quickly. As I mentioned, it’s strange to have a cut-off date when you know you’ll start to feel side effects, so I feel as if the window is closing to update the blog, have visitors and get other things done. My deadline approaches, so here’s a post on my hospital life this past week.

Radiation. On Friday, I wrapped up my week of TLI (total lymphoid irradiation), completing 20 total sessions of radiation. Last week, the lymph nodes in my neck were swollen and sore, but that’s expected. I’m told the glands don’t like the radiation. Later on, I will probably experience a sunburn type of skin reaction, as well as mouth sores and a sore throat that makes it difficult to swallow.

The worst part of the radiation, for me, were the measurements they took the Fridays before they started the radiation. It required staying still, in the body cast they’d created for you, for a long time. In both cases the time ran over the usual 45 minutes to about an hour the first time and an hour and 15 minutes the second time. I’m pretty good at being still for long periods of time, but I had to not move for about 15 minutes to half an hour longer than my comfort zone. And once you’re past minute one of that zone and have the fidgets, it seems like an eternity. Still, it wasn’t too bad. (And when they’re radiating your insides, I understand their need for precision.)

During outpatient radiation, I would trade my shirt for a gown, then lay down in my mold, while they adjusted my position on the table, darken my tattoos with a marker and make some additional marks. Then they would radiate the two portions where there had been residual cancer in my chest and belly. The machine would flip around and radiate the front, then the back. (It reminded me of the scene in Logan’s Run, where Farrah Fawcett is offering to give Michael York a facelift but someone messes with the lasers. As I’ve noted before, this film that I saw multiple times during my childhood really influenced my ideas of the future.)

My outpatient treatments were six hours apart, so I was never sure if I should go back home to Brooklyn or wander around looking for WiFi with my elderly (in tech years) computer that needs to be plugged in to get much a charge these days. I also ended up being on the train during rush hour. Usually, this wouldn’t be a problem for me, but I’ve been a hermit for a few months. And in stark contrast of how unfailingly nice everyone is at the hospital, I was ill-prepared for the cruelties of New York City at rush hour. I expect I’ll have to re-enter society slowly once I’m recovering from my stem cell transplant.

Inpatient radiation was much the same, though the set up for the TLI would take a bit longer, and I was wheeled down from my hospital room. I also sometimes had student trainees the last few days of treatment, not that this added much to the time. I was told they don’t get to see many TLI treatments so I’m glad my radiation was a treat for somebody.

On the first day, I was told I could pick a music preference or channel, but I blanked. I couldn’t think of anything appropriate, so I didn’t give them any suggestions and spent some time listening to classic rock, the Billy Joel channel and adult contemporary pop music, but it provided food for thought as I was radiated.

I gained a new appreciation for Adele. “We Didn’t Start the Fire” really doesn’t stand up to the test of time. Coldplay is still boring. I also heard a lot of John Mayer songs, and I don’t get why people like his music. I tried to spend one session trying to name all the starlets he’s dated, but the radiation treatments don’t last that long. I also tried to think of radiation songs, but I could think only of Blondie’s “Fade Away and Radiate.”

Food. My throat hasn’t started to hurt yet, I’m still free of mouth sores and my appetite is still OK. I’m on a Zofran drip, though I can tell there’s a slight rebellion going on in my digestive tract. As I’ve noted before, it’s a strange feeling of knowing the mechanics are a little off but not being able to feel the effects. It’s like seeing your tire blow out and feeling only a slight wobble but still being able to continue driving your car with no problems.

I’ve been trying to enjoy chewing at eating as long as possible, before I can’t eat. I managed to eat all my desired specials this week: Nutella crepes, Mexican bean soup, a Sloppy Joe, Asian vegetable soup, shrimp in garlic sauce and breakfast pizza. I also look forward to the afternoon tea service more than I should, because the tea arrives with a little pastry—a walnut muffin, a mini red velvet cookie with white chocolate chips, some of the best scones I’ve had in awhile.

The indigestion from the radiation and chemo has thankfully been my worst side effect so far, and I’ve been getting extra medication for that. I had the hiccups in the middle of the night, but they didn’t last long. I’ve been trying to stick to a soft diet of soups and cereals, but have been waylaid my some of the daily specials. Today I had a hot dog, but I have a plan of eating small breakfasts and dinners and a substantial lunch so I can digest during the day.

I hate seeing food go to waste to the point where I’m weird about it. With so many of the trays arriving with condiment packets—salt, pepper, sugar, honey—it was only natural that I would start condiment hoarding, in case I needed to dip into my stores at a later date. I had them visible on a shelf, but I realized my boyfriend would frown at them and throw them away while I am plugged into the wall and unable to stop him. I’m considering putting them in my room safe.

Oh, I’ve also been eating candy, though that’s probably going to come to an end soon. I am now in possession of two Easter basket of goodies, and another friend brought me a giant Reese’s egg. And someone else thought to combine the cat theme and the candy theme with Katzenzungen, German chocolates with pictures of cats on the box.

I also got a picnic-type basket filled with packaged cookies and cakes. There was a tense moment when the nurse wasn’t sure if the desserts were approved for me to eat or not, so I briefly considered eating as many as I could while she was gone checking. But they were not confiscated.

Exercise. If there’s one thing that’s been drilled into my head over and over again during my preparation for this stem cell transplant, it’s the importance of staying active. Or, at the very least, not staying completely prone in bed.

My doctor and nurses told me that when I’m not sleeping, I should sit it in a chair. Being flat for too long increases your chance for contracting pneumonia, so they want you elevated.

The doctor told me that I should also always sleep at a 30-degree angle, at least. With the adjustable bed, this is possible to measure, but my attempts have been only partially successful. If I sleep on my side and wedge myself in with pillows, I can maintain this angle, but I’ve woken up a few times flat and scrunched up at the bottom of the bed.

Right now, it’s the easy part. It’s going to be after the transplant when it’s going to be hard to get moving and find motivation to sit in a chair.

Though I’ve said this before, I’m naturally a sedentary person and, as much as I love working out, it really takes me a lot of motivation to do so. Once I stop moving for a period of time, it’s extremely easy for me to slip back into my natural sloth-like state.

Since I’ve been here, my counts have been up and down, so I’ve been allowed to do laps in the hall for only three days since I’ve been here. I’ve heard 14 laps is a mile, so I’ve been trying to do that, but I lose count.

Yesterday on my walk, I found the designated room where visitors can eat. I peered through the window from the hall, and a man was about to take a pizza out of box. I thought it would be funny to stand at the window, with my gloved hands against the glass, wearing my medical mask, but it’s one of those things you only think about doing, because it would also be weird.

It’s not the pole filled with bags of chemo that makes it strange to walk in the hall. It’s the mask. No one can tell when you’re smiling.

I did have one session of hospital yoga, and it was nice to stretch and get moving. Obviously, we didn’t do anything to strenuous, but the instructor had me do some seated positions. For as long as I’m able, I’d like to continue with the bedside yoga program, as they call it.

Chemo. I started chemo on Saturday. I get a big bag of etoposide that the nurses change every 24 hours. It’s bubbly—I was calling it the “Champagne of chemo”—so it was causing air in the line and beeping pretty often. Every nurse has a trick to make it stop beeping, and the third nurse’s fix made it stop for good, so that’s good, considering I have another day and a half to go. Also, I found myself addressing my beeping pump and telling it to be quiet, so I named my pump Wilson after Tom Hanks’ volleyball companion in Castaway.

I’m also on cytoxan, which can damage your bladder if it sits around in there too long, so I’m on a lot of fluids as well. So far, they haven’t had to give me a diuretic and they keep saying, I’m “peeing like a champ.” It feels good to excel at something, even if it’s just because I’ve been drinking a lot of water.

So far, aside from my nagging indigestion, the chemo has been OK. The worst part is set for post-transplant, when all the side effects are supposed to hit me at once.

Chest catheter. It’s my last three weeks or so with my trusty chest catheter. It’s been so nice to give my poor, abused veins a rest.

I’ve been worried that my cats or a stranger would pull out my chest catheter somehow, but it turns out that I’m my own worst enemy. Now that I’m hooked up to my chemo, I’ve stepped on the lines a few times.

Also, though I love the convenience of electronics, the notion of charging them irrationally feels like a terrible inconvenience. And now that my computer needs to be plugged in almost all the time, it irks me. So you can imagine how I feel at having to essentially plug in myself—or at least this medication pump that I’m attached to. I’m getting used to it, but I long to be free.

Accommodations and décor. This is my first time on the bone marrow transplant floor. I have my own room, while I’m isolated from germs. There’s a chance I might get moved to another floor and a shared room when I’m starting to feel better.

My room is nice, with drawers for my stuff and a sleeper chair, in case my boyfriend wants to stay over. There’s a computer, a TV, a bed and a few chairs, as well as my own private bathroom. It’s not a bad place to call home for a month, considering the circumstances.

My view is of an adjacent wall. It’s the first thing I noticed when I walked in. It’s not as nice as my previous views of the Triborough Bridge, but I’m not sure if I want to put in for a room transfer just for the view on the other side of the building. I have a patch of sky, if I look up. I keep waffling back and forth, but I think I’m just going to stay put.

I arrived only with my clothes, computer and Kindle, as well as my cat blanket, a cat toiletry bag and a cat totem—all gifts. Since then, the cats have increased, and I now have a book of cat stickers, a drawing of one of my cats that someone sent and cat get-well and Easter cards.

Yesterday, my boyfriend brought me a digital picture frame loaded with photos. Sometimes, I can’t imagine a return to “normal” life, and sometimes I don’t dare, in case I’m disappointed. Yet looking at photos of family and friends and so many happy memories has been more therapeutic than I would have thought, and it reminds me of the good things to come.

Even more cats.

Cats.

cats

Even more cats!

 

 

More cats.

More cats.

Candy.

Candy.

Second Round of Augmented ICE Delayed

I was supposed to be in the hospital right now, receiving my second round of augmented ICE. Instead, I am lounging in bed and catching up on work—and, of course, this blog. I have mixed feelings about this—obviously, I’d rather not be in the hospital, but it’s just a three-day respite from the inevitable. Instead, I’m going in tomorrow, just in time for the snowstorm. (One of the many snowstorms of this winter.)

I have mixed feelings about the weather too—on one hand, it makes going to the hospital and doctors’ appointments, of which there will be many, less pleasant, but on the other hand, I have to be a hermit through May, and hermitlike through mid July, when the weather is beautiful. (I expect the winter to be done by then, at least.) This is when I wished I’d skipped the Brentuximab and gotten all this unpleasantness over with in the winter. Ah, well.

Friday, I packed up my hospital suitcase full of loungewear and my blanket and headed to my doctor’s appointment before the scheduled leukapheresis catheter placement. When the doctors saw the arm with the two clots, however, they decided to delay catheter placement and my hospital stay. My arm at that point looked better than it did on Thursday, when it swelled to giant proportions. I was worried it would burst open like a piñata filled with blood, but I realized this is probably not possible.

After a night of a heating pad and menthol pain patches, my arm was still red and hot to the touch. And it hurts. Sometimes, it feels like a tiny flame is in my arm. I rated the pain a five or six, but my boyfriend told the doctor it’s an eight. He corrects me a lot at the doctor, and I always wonder if they write down what I’ve said or his opinions. I think I have to agree with him in order for them to take his into account. An eight is pretty serious though. I maintain this is a six.

In case my arm is infected, I’m on antibiotics, and I went for another ultrasound. Apparently, the clots are the same size. They’re just inexplicably more painful and annoying. So I got some more Lovenox to inject daily to try to clear them up.

I start chemo on Monday and then I have my catheter placement on Tuesday. In the meantime, they might use a PICC line for the chemo, since my veins have been less than cooperative.

On Friday,  I did meet with the transplant doctor, who gave me an idea of what’s in store in the coming months. Spoiler alert: Not much in the way of fun.

The saddest news came when she asked me if I have pets. When she found out, I have two cats, she had a list of don’ts. I can’t change the litter, but that’s my boyfriend’s job anyway. Also, she said I have to keep them away from my face until mid-July. What? How am I supposed to resist burying my face in their fuzzy bellies?

Also, one of the cats is extremely proactive about touching our faces. Just the other night, she was curled up by my boyfriend’s face, rubbing her wet nose against his cheek while he tried to sleep. I wake up with her paw on my shoulder or her face buried in my neck, or sometimes I wake up because she’s pressing her nose against mine.

The doctor is very knowledgeable about stem cell transplants and medicine, for which I am grateful, but I suspect she knows very little about cats when she suggested we break the cat of her habits. There’s no teaching a cat anything. It’s going to be a long, sad three months.

I didn’t cry when I pulled my hair out or applied duct tape to my head. I didn’t cry when I heard about my upcoming “hell week.” But I did cry about this. Sometimes, I’ll just look at the cats and tear up. It’s not even like I won’t be able to pet them. I guess it’s just a symbol of how things are going to change in the coming months. Also, I love kitty-cats.

I have to make sure all their shots are up-to-date, so luckily we just took them to the vet. They are senior cats, but in far better shape than I am right now. In fact, the female cat is in the shape of a cat one-third her age. I wish she could understand the vet, because she is vain and would enjoy this news.

Aside from the cats, I’ll have to avoid alcohol, something I had assumed was a given. Once your fast-growing cells are poisoned and you have to take anti-nausea drugs, drinking isn’t something you feel like doing. Also, after the last ICE, the nurse advised drinking at least two liters of water a day so the drugs don’t irritate the bladder and cause bleeding. So I stayed extremely hydrated, although I’d have a little coffee with milk during the second week. Of course, I’d love to hit happy hour instead of giving myself blood thinner injections. I think I could do an excellent job of thinning my blood on my own. Alas.

I’m also supposed to walk to help with recovery. Vigorous exercise is out—I haven’t done my workout DVDs since the first round of ICE and I managed to do yoga only four times since, after being thwarted by my fever, hospital stay and the arm I can’t move because of the clots. The thing is, I don’t want to walk outside when it’s cold, and there’s no sign of spring in sight. I’ve thought of getting an elliptical, but I have a small Brooklyn apartment. I do have a Leslie Sansone walking DVD that I got when I worked at a women’s magazine and edited the fitness section of the blog. The magazine shut down before I had a chance to watch it, and I’m intrigued. It could be a nice indoor walking solution that doesn’t take up much space.

I can do gentle yoga, but I’ll have that chest catheter so I’m wary of stretching. The doctor advises stretching a little bit once it’s in, but in addition to the heebie-jeebies, I can’t move my right arm much because the clots hurt.

At some point, I’m also going to get a blood transfusion.

I got a thick binder full of information from the doctor all about the transplant with fun topics like hair loss, catheter care and giving Neupogen injections twice a day. I haven’t even scratched the surface. For those asking what’s in store and my schedule, here’s an idea:

March 3–5: Second round of augmented ICE, catheter placement. I am not looking forward to having tubes sticking out of my chest. This gives me the heebie-jeebies. There will be two for the stem cell collection—one to take my blood out and the other to put it back in once the stem cells are removed and my blood spins around in a machine.

March 7–16: Neopogen injections, a catheter dressing change. We’ll do the former, but I’m glad we don’t have to do the latter. The shots to increase stem cells might cause bone pain, I’m told. They’re going to give me pain medication, but I hate taking pain medication. I don’t even like to take aspirin. I do hate pain, though, so we’ll see.

March 17–19: Stem cell collection. This involves sitting around for four hours, while your blood is taken out and put back in. It doesn’t sound so bad. During these days, I also have a flurry of tests and appointments, including an echocardiogram and a pulmonary function test, as well as an appointment with a social worker to mentally prepare me for the transplant. The best part of this process is that I have to eat a high-dairy diet these days. Bring on the milkshakes and cheese. (Greens also have a lot of calcium, so I’ll be sure to eat those as well.)

Stem cell collection might take longer than three days. They need 5 million. The record to beat is 32 million, but the doctor said that person had a lot of bone pain, so I’m OK if it takes longer. I’d like it to take only two to three days, if possible. I hope my bone marrow cooperates.

March 24: PET scan. I need a clear one to go on to the transplant, so I hope I pass! It would be nice to finally get a clear PET scan, something I’ve been hoping for since October. And I think I start outpatient radiation this week.

April: If everything goes well, five days of inpatient radiation and three weeks in the hospital for the transplant. The radiation is supposed to have unpleasant side effects, so I’m just in the hospital so they can keep an eye on me. Then the first week, when they do the chemo, is supposed to be OK. They keep referring to the second week as the bad one. Someone called it “hell week.” I’m scheduled to speak with a volunteer who has been through this to answer any questions. Also, someone left a comment on my last blog about a friend of hers who did a stem cell transplant for refractory Hodgkin’s lymphoma and is doing well. It’s always nice to hear tales from the other side.

In the third week, I start a long recovery—about three months of rest and isolation from crowds and six months until I’m 100 percent. I’m a little disappointed to hear that the first month of recovery is so intense and that I’ll need 24-hour supervision. Of course, I didn’t expect to emerge from the hospital feeling great. But I’ll have the immune system of a newborn.

So that’s what’s in store! The next steps start tomorrow, and as much as I’m wary of what’s in store for the next few months, I’m also eager to move towards the end.

All My Hair Is Falling Out at Once

After finishing up with chemo in late September, I shaved my head once more to be Walter White for Halloween, and my hair has grown in once more, thick and lustrous. It’s finally to a point where it looks like a haircut on purpose, like a cute pixie cut.

And now it’s time for it to fall out again. I was told I would lose my hair about two weeks after the augmented ICE chemotherapy, and sure enough, it’s time. I just realized I won’t have to pack shampoo for my next hospital stay.

My scalp aches. It’s as if I can feel each follicle letting go of its hair. This happened with the ABVD chemo as well. Although with the lower dose chemo, the hair loss was gradual—until one day I noticed my hair was too thin to keep.

I had wondered if my hair loss would happen all at once with the high-dose chemo, and it pretty much is. If I reach up and tug at the back of my scalp, I can pull out a handful of hair. It’s been perversely tempting to do so, but I don’t need to develop any more nervous habits. (Or maybe I do need a new one to break me of biting my nails.) I’m pretty sure I could just wash my hair away in a few days. But I’m worried I’ll end up looking like Smigel.

So I’ll probably have to shave my head for the third time tomorrow or Monday.

What makes me a little nervous is that when it does come back, some time in April or May, it’s probably going to be a different color or texture. I hope it doesn’t turn white, like Moses after talking to the burning bush. (Actually, I just looked that up and it’s not a Bible fact, but I saw that Charlton Heston movie a lot as a kid.) I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

I do know I’m going to keep it short once it comes back in. I don’t even have any interest in wearing my long wig. All these years I’ve based my hairstyle on what I thought would look best and be easiest to take care of, and i thought that was long and straight. Now that I’ve found a hairstyle with even less maintenance is available to me, I can’t go back to anything else.

So long, hair, it’s been fun. See you again in the spring!

A Happy Suprise

I got my blood drawn this afternoon and 15 minutes later, my room phone rang. It was the doctor. My blood count reached the magic number of 500 and I would be released! After the general consensus had been a Sunday discharge, this was an unexpected bit of good news.

As nice as Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center is, I was packed and ready to go in 20 minutes. After this morning’s breakfast Nutella and banana crepes and my jambalaya lunch, I was looking forward to tonight’s stir-fry shrimp, but I’ll be back at the hospital in a week. I also didn’t have time to check out the recreation center again and I was going to avail myself of the free board games tomorrow.

Also, I discovered there’s a pool table. How do you navigate a pool table with an IV in your arm?  I also discovered that there’s an afternoon tea service. If the hospital had a happy hour and I could get a beer to go with my pool game, I might have found it harder to leave.

But I was tired of wheeling around an IV stand and I’d gotten away without peeing in a hat until today. I did figure out how to take a hot shower. I don’t know what it is about dials, but I constantly misinterpret them. I’m terrible at math, don’t know my left from my right and I can’t figure out dials. I think there’s some kind of diagnosis for that, other than being dimwitted. (I repeatedly burned things in the oven our landlord brought up to replace our broken one until I realized I had been misreading the dial. I had been turning things up to 400 or 500 degrees.) So in this unfamiliar shower, I had the dial pointed toward lukewarm instead of hot.

Today I found myself packed and waiting for my IV removal, two days before expected.  I didn’t even have to change my pants, as I was wearing my brand-new dignity pants, suitable for public viewing. I threw on my boots and sweatshirt and was ready to go.

The only hitch was the car service I called to come pick me up. Since my boyfriend was working, I wasn’t being released to anyone and the nurse had to witness me getting into a cab or car. When I called right before 5 pm, the operator said 15 minutes, so the nurse escorted me to downstairs. At 5:18, I called to check. At 5:25 I had to call back after being on hold and forgotten about. “Two minutes,” snapped the person who answered the phone. Seven minutes later, I called to check again and was told the car was outside. After walking through the rain and asking several cars if they were for me, I had to call back because he’s hung up on me. By this time, I couldn’t get through. At 5:38, I called and was told to wait five more minutes.  At 5:41, I called to cancel. At least I gave them the courtesy of an update. The front desk called me a car service that arrived in three minutes.

By this time, I was in tears, upset and having to have someone else waste her time, even though she so kindly waited with me and eventually ended up comforting me.

It’s always the little things that push you over the edge. Or push me over the edge, at least. Being back in the hospital was disappointing, but I had been OK up until the point where I couldn’t leave because of a car service. That was my breaking point. The car service just acted like they were doing me a favor. They had obviously lied about when they would arrive and even being there and then didn’t seem to understand why I was upset that they were almost an hour late. Once I even got into a car, finally, from another service, I couldn’t stop the tears. It wasn’t about the car anymore. The dam had broken and I just let things flow out. Quietly. Maybe a dam isn’t the right analogy. It was more like a slow leak.

I had been so angry, I worried my blood boiled and threw off my counts again.

But all is well, once again. As I type this, a cat is weighing down my right arm with her paw over my hand. I have a week at home, and all is right with the world.

Back at the Hospital

Yesterday, I felt great. I woke up early, got a bunch of stuff done and felt ready to conquer the world, albeit from my bed. I even did yoga for a few days this week. In the afternoon, I felt a little sleepy, so I took a nap. Then I took another nap. By the time I woke up at 6, I had the chills and felt a little achey.

I took my temperature and it was 100, then 101, so I called the doctor. I had hoped he would just tell me to take more of the antibiotics I had on hand, but the doctor wanted me to come in to urgent care with the possibility of being admitted to the hospital since my white blood cell count is low and I’m at high risk for infection. So I packed up my bags and we headed to the hospital, about a week and a half sooner than I wanted to return.

My white blood cell count was 1 on Monday and now it’s hovering around 0, meaning I am neutropenic and have no immune system to speak of. It’s what they had expected after the augmented ICE, and the shot I was given on Friday hasn’t kicked my white blood cell count back up for some reason.

The good news is that they didn’t detect any virus activity, though I’ve been sniffly the past few days. After waiting in Urgent Care, I finally got an X-ray and got to my room around 1:30 am. I tried to keep in mind it’s always better to wait in Urgent Care than being rushed in as an emergency. My boyfriend offered to stay, but sleeping on an uncomfortable pull-out chair among all-night beeping machines is no way to get proper rest. I sent him home.

This morning, I got the verdict: I probably won’t go home until Sunday, or at least until my blood counts are back up. They don’t want to send me home just to have me return. This is a pretty common thing after augmented ICE chemotherapy, so I just have to bide my time until I can return home. Although I’ll be turning around and coming back here next Friday if everything goes as planned for my second round of augmented ICE.

The hospital is full of surprises. When I took a shower, I came back to find my bed made. It was nice, like going to the bathroom at a restaurant and finding your napkin folded upon your return. Later on, the nurse came in with a Lovenox blood thinner shot and I remembered that it stings a little bit, so that was a less fun surprise.

I like this room better — the bathroom is probably one square foot bigger and it makes all the difference. Also, I’m at a slightly different angle than before — the A side of the room versus the B side, so I have a nice view of the Queensboro bridge. But as I told a friend who stopped by earlier, I think I’m on a less fun floor. My last floor when I was here for the ICE had an activity center with movies, crafts and live entertainment. This floor is quieter, and I don’t think they’re as enthused to have me walk around, since I’m at risk for catching everything. That’s OK — I like my quieter bit of real estate.

The good news is that I will have the opportunity to try the Maryland crabcake and the Nutella and banana crepes during my stay. There’s also a make-your-own sandwich option, and I was going to try to get three fillings and four cheeses on one sandwich or see if the kitchen would make a giant Dagwood, but now I can space out my sandwiches.

I’m on a low microbial diet to avoid any potential pathogens, because of my suppressed immune system. It’s pretty much what I’ve been following while eating outside of my home during chemo: No deli meats or cold cuts, no raw fish and no raw fruits and vegetables (except for self-contained bananas and oranges).

I’m also not supposed to have mold-ripened cheeses, and while I haven’t had any raw cheeses for months, I think I’ve been living dangerously and eating Brie, goat and blue cheese. (Oops.) I’m also apparently not supposed to have frozen yogurt, but it’s not the ’90s, so I should be OK. (People keep telling me that frozen yogurt is making a comeback but I don’t believe it.)

For now, I bide my time and hope for an uneventful stay. I still feel a little sniffly. The internet connection here has been a little spotty, and this prevented me from taking an important Zimbio quiz on which ’90s boyfriend I would have. I will do my best to make it to Sunday in such conditions.

Rushing to a Stop

As always, I am struggling between ambition and laziness. I usually resolve this by sitting all the way back on my pillows and typing with my keyboard on my knees. But since the ABVD and ICE, my circulation hasn’t been as great, so my hands go numb in this position.

All night I tried to resolve the nonstop, self-imposed chaos that I’d subjected myself to before the hospital stay. Work or work out or have fun, but always stay as busy as possible.

What happens when you don’t stop then have to stop all at once? A cliché. Now that my body has come to a screeching halt, my mind spins aimlessly like a top landing on incongruous topics.  One night in the hospital, in a semi-sleep state, the murders from my mystery book haunted me and it fell to me to solve them. What was the connection between all these killings? I fretted, as I tossed and turned. How would I catch the killer?

Not even a seemingly innocuous book about food entrepreneurs provided relief. All that night, I wrestled with questions like: What is the valuable lesson a food entrepreneur can take away from this chapter? What’s the business takeaway here?

And somehow, in my dreams, I also had to figure out my own medications and cure my own disease. Everything was on my shoulders for my busy mind to solve.

I’d wake up, thinking I had the key to my book dilemmas or medication schedule only to be confused. Not even fully realizing that it wasn’t my problem to solve, I’d slip into another restless sleep, rushing to solve another problem.

All last night, I had similar dreams. I’m worried about the “chemo brain” or brain fog that I’ve heard accompanies these treatments. That’s what keeps me from doing more. Sending out misspelled, crazy missives. Or half-formed thoughts, like the ones in my dreams, darting away before I can get hold of them.

Mostly, I feel a little sleepy all the time. Like I could just lie down anytime and take a nap. The good thing is that I can. But it often doesn’t mesh. At times, it feels as if it’s my brain that’s sleepy and my body that feels wide awake, as it should after unlimited sleep. Yet it’s my body that’s actually taking it easy, as my blood counts drop and the chemo hits. My mind races around, trying to finish up last minute chores and assignments.

My digestive system is similarly not in sync with itself, but this is on purpose. From what I understand about these anti-nausea drugs, they work in your brain, not in your stomach. I could be wrong, but according to what I’ve heard, my stomach lining is well aware of the chemo and would be reacting accordingly. But the drugs tell the brain not to worry and in effect, not to be nauseated. (Essentially, that makes my stomach look unfairly like a liar.)

To be safe, I’ve been sticking with mild foods like oatmeal and soup. But another part of me — the unwise part — wants a big bacon cheeseburger. Every now and then, I get a little pang from my stomach, letting me know that, while everything is under control, don’t push my luck.

So I find myself on this hiatus of sorts, where I do what I can and what I’m up for. I can resume being a prolific Facebook poster, for instance.

It’s somewhat of a relief to wake up and not have a looming list of to-dos. I wouldn’t suggest cancer as an excuse for a staycation or a reason to take it easy if you can find another way. But I think that I haven’t taken some time for myself since before I lost my job this summer. Or before I found out about the cancer. I can’t even tell you the last time I truly relaxed without something else nagging me.

As I slip into a cat-like existence of naps and nothing, I still have to learn to let go of everything I felt I should be doing. When I get a good night’s sleep, not peppered by frantic problems, real and imagined, then I’ll be successful.

All or Nothing

I realized when the nurse practitioner told me I needed to do the ICE high-dose chemotherapy before moving on to the stem cell transplant that it was what I’d been expecting. My PET scan looked better, but it’s not 100 percent clear. The stubborn lymphoma spots in my chest and belly have decreased in size, and they don’t show up as brightly on the scan. So that’s good. But I still have to do the ICE. Close, but no cigar, Brentuximab.

Part of the reason that the doctors were doing this trial was to find a less toxic alternative to ICE. And ICE doesn’t sound pleasant. I allowed myself one blog read of someone who has gone through it, just to prepare myself without scaring myself.

On Monday, I pack up for three days and go to the hospital for round one of augmented ICE. Then I’m home for 21 days, while going in for blood tests and such, before going back for three more days of ICE. Then it’s on to the stem cell collection, then 10 days of radiation and the 21-day stay in the hospital for the transplant.

Everything’s going to change as of Monday, even if most of it is temporary. (After the stem cell transplant, I should be back to normal in about six months with a few long-term side effects.)

I feel as if I shouldn’t be writing this. Lately, no matter what I’m doing, I feel as if I should be doing something else. I have a limited time to do everything, a looming deadline that I can’t push back. I have work I need to finish, so I feel as if I need to get as much done as possible before I go into the hospital.

I won’t be able to work out for months. I’ve finally started doing yoga at home and a 20-minute Jillian Michaels workout. (I’m up to level two on the 30-Day Shred!) After six months of working out sporadically and about two months of barely working out at all, I’m finally getting stronger. I’ve even returned to a few kickboxing and TRX classes here and there.

But, of course, I’m going to have to take a long break again. So I also feel as if I should be working out more. Sometimes, I’ll sneak in some yoga, but I’ve usually been doing just the 20 minutes—and even that’s been hard to work in. Where does my time go?

I also feel as if I should be out having fun, though all this snow and cold makes me want to stay in and hibernate. And when I am out, what constitutes enough fun when the next few months are going to be no fun at all? There isn’t enough fun to be had. Am I failing at fun?

I picture this elusive fun as something like Mötley Crüe’s “Girls, Girls, Girls” video (though I’m not particularly comfortable with strippers or motorcycles) and Bananarama’s “Cruel Summer” (filmed not far from where I live, in much warmer weather, years ago). I should be carelessly frolicking or maybe doing something debauched right now. Instead I am inside, blogging, after working all day and doing my 20-minute workout.

There’s a perverse part of me that wants to see what I can get away with before my hospital stays. Sometimes, it’s all-or-nothing with me. When the radiology oncologist told me that I’d have to eat heart-healthy for the rest of my life, I wondered, “Should I just eat a bunch of double bacon cheeseburgers until then?”

I should be dining like a medieval king, eating giant turkey legs, swilling mead and making jesters entertain me. Tonight, I have veggie chili, tea and the cats—oh, and Homeland, which I’m catching up on. I should be living like Marie Antoinette in that Sofia Coppola movie, before the beheading. Mile End deli is having a poutine week, so I might indulge in that at some point.

I feel all this pressure to work, workout and have fun before the unknown fatigue and nausea of the next few months. Aside from that, another main factor, according to the doctors and nurses, is boredom. Apparently, I’m better than I thought at hiding my lazy streak. Everyone seems to be underestimating how good I can be at doing nothing.

I’m glad that all the hard work I’ve put into appearing hard-working is working. People assume that doing nothing will bother me. I know that, since I say I’m stressed out about having fun, it doesn’t seem like I’m capable of relaxing, but that really is my natural state.

I achieve a delicate balance of hard work and utter laziness. A few weeks ago, I worked from 9 am to midnight, with the exception of a radiology appointment. (Even at the appointment, before seeing the doctor, I had my laptop out, working on a last-minute assignment.) And I did my quick 20-minute DVD, which is essentially working out really hard so you don’t have to work out as long. Later that evening, my idea of good planning was wearing a navy T-shirt because we were having pasta, and I thought there was a good chance I’d drop some on myself. So on one hand, I got a lot done, but on the other, I’m too lazy to properly feed myself.

Last week I achieved my main sloth goal, which was to not leave the apartment during the deep freeze. I also managed to see some friends who I haven’t seen during my hibernation. One of them lives just a few blocks from me and when I finally emerged from near hermitage to go to chemo on Friday, she lured me over with cookies.

That’s about as crazy as it gets around here, before my months of being somewhat of a shut-in begins. I’ll be enjoying time with my boyfriend, friends and cats (sadly banned from hospital visits) before my time of rest and recovery. However, two friends gave me a cat totem to take with me in lieu of my cats, and my boyfriend’s mom made me a blanket with a cat pattern, so I can be properly identified as a cat lady in the hospital.

This week, however, you will probably not see me cruise by on a motorcycle or dancing on rooftops or throwing bananas at cops—at least not if this snow prediction is accurate.  I’ll have to save that for after the transplant.

More Thoughts on Being a Bald Lady

I’ve been bald for several weeks now, and I still love it. I’ve put a big glob of shampoo on my hairless head in the shower only twice so far.

Reactions to my new look have been mostly positive. People tell me I can pull the bald thing off. I have big facial features, and it balances out the baldness somehow. They’re strong enough to stand on their own, without a hair frame. Babies seem to like me, and I think it’s for this reason. If someone increased my facial proportions just ever so slightly, I’d look like a cartoon. I’ve never had my caricature done. I’m convinced it would look just like a regular drawing.

I recently thought back to a conversation I had in high school with a friend about my nose. I hated my nose. It’s not exactly that it’s so big, it’s just kind of weird. It’s not like other noses. I mean, I wanted to be weird when I was 15, but weird in a cool way so that counterculture peers would accept me and people who might make fun of me would leave me alone. I don’t think any 15-year-old girl wants to be known for her unique nose.

Anyway, my friend’s wise words that day put me at peace with my nose. She said that my nose fit in with all my other facial features and that if I had a smaller nose, I’d look strange. I realized she was right. I wish I could say from that day forward, I shed all my insecurities and had some epiphany about what makes you unique can make you beautiful, but that didn’t really happen then. No longer hating my nose was an important step forward, though, in a still-ongoing journey of self-acceptance.

Now that I’m bald, this is probably not even the “weirdest” I’ve ever looked. Maybe it’s the most subversive look I’ve had, but not on purpose.

In my mid-teens to early 20s, I was goth. When I lived in Columbus and walked by this sports bar with a giant patio on The Ohio State University campus, I would habitually cringe and wait for insults to fly my way from drunk guys, but in later years, I remembered I wasn’t goth anymore so I wasn’t such an easy target. (Still, really drunk guys will yell for lots of reasons, so groups of them in situations where they can yell at me, safe behind some kind of patio fence, still make me nervous.)

In my 20s, I wore all sorts of crazy outfits. I wasn’t exactly Lady Gaga, but I love fun clothes. Even recently, when I worked in an office (often by myself), I would still sometimes have themes to my weeks: polka dots, black-and-white, cats, gingham.

Now that crisp fall weather has arrived, however, my head has been getting cold. I have my Kangol hat, a purple floppy hat from a friend, a purple cap knitted by another friend and my Heisenberg fedora, of course. And I have plenty of hoodies.

Unless I’m going to an office or a business thing, I don’t usually wear my wig. It’s partially out of the same laziness I’ve always shown toward my hair situation. My wig doesn’t look very realistic either, particularly because I keep fiddling with it—shifting it, touching the back to make sure it’s not puffing out, snapping at its band.

In those situations, I wear the wig for other people. I don’t want to be too distracting by being “the bald lady.” Or the “bald cancer lady” at the office. When I wear my wig, I feel a little bit less like myself, though.

In fact, I went to dinner in my neighborhood the other night after a long day at work and just left my wig on. I didn’t notice until we were almost done eating that there was a bald woman at the table of three next to us, as if we were seated in an invisible bald woman/wig area. I felt like kind of a phony wearing my wig then—I wanted to rip it off and say, “Hey, nice ‘do!”

I think we might be leading parallel, hairless lives, because I think I saw the same person at a concert on Friday. She can pull off being bald and wearing glasses, though. I’m not a huge fan of wearing my glasses, but I mind much less now. Still, I think I look a little like the Beacon’s Closet baby mascot. Oddly, I don’t mind wearing my glasses with my wig. They work together.

As long as I’m talking about wigs and glasses, an aside: Does anyone remember a TV commercial for Focus contact lenses that showed a man and a man in drag out to dinner? (It aired in 1996, so it’s OK if you don’t.) Suddenly the man in drag says, “I have to tell you something!” and he wipes off his lipstick, pulls off his wig and confesses, “I have astigmatism.” Then his date tells him about soft lenses for astigmatism. Not only did I find out I could have disposable lenses, but I loved it for some reason so much that I’ve remembered it for 17 years. So I think about this commercial when I think about pulling off my wig in a public place.

I don’t get many stares. I did get an oddly dirty look on the train that day that left me wondering if I looked like a skinhead. I don’t think so. Dirty looks on the train can be about anything.

I caught someone’s jaw drop once, but she appeared to be from out of town, because she was seated outside having dinner with a bunch of people wearing nametag stickers. She quickly composed herself, but she just didn’t have that looking-without-looking thing that New Yorkers have down, the dead-eyed subway stare—the skill of looking very intently at nothing at all.

Perhaps she wasn’t from out of town, and, like me, she wears all her emotions on her face. Maybe the look wasn’t about me. But for a moment, our eyes met, both of us confused for a second.  My look said,”Huh? Is it because you didn’t expect a bald lady when you looked up from your falafel? Or is it because I look like someone who would steal your falafel from your plate as I walked by?” I was casting an envious glance at her meal, and perhaps it was a protective feeling that made her look up at that moment. Maybe she was opening her mouth to say, “Hey, lady! Get your own food!” But she saw that I was bald and either thought I was too bad to mess with or knew that I was going through chemo and decided to be nice.

If I was worried I’d be the weirdo on the train, I quickly remembered that you have to do a lot to draw attention to yourself. On my way to a housewarming party, a man painted silver got on a few stops later. (What do people painted in silver do? Pretend to be statues? Robots?) But no one looked at him either, except for me.

I think my head sparked a discussion between two teenagers, but it wasn’t really about me. They were trying to come up with the name of the bald singer and one of them finally remembered it was Sinead O’Connor.

On a train ride home, someone stole my thunder by throwing up. I didn’t even notice, until someone warned me to watch out for my shoes, as the motion of the train caused some vomit to roll toward our area. Then, before switching train cars, the stranger and I reminisced about other times we’d seen people vomit on the train. (This was the third time for her in two years and the fourth time for me in five years, though once I was only visiting and it was New Year’s Eve so I’m not sure that incident counts. I have never thrown up on the train, but I’ve fallen asleep on a stranger, who was not at all happy about it. That’s why this is not the City of Brotherly Love, but the City That Never Sleeps, especially not on the shoulder of a public transit stranger.)

When I shaved my head, I had kind of hoped maybe I would get seats on the train. Not necessarily people standing up to offer, but at least I’d get dibs as long as no pregnant women were around. A few years ago at Upright Citizen’s Brigade, I saw comedian Pam Murphy’s one-woman show, “The C Word,” and she has a really funny, true bit where she plays two parts: the cancer patient on the train who hopes for the offer of a seat, and a seated passenger, wondering if she should give up her space.

I realize I fall into a gray area, along with pregnant women who aren’t fully showing yet. I mean, what if she’s not pregnant? In these cases, I sometimes just get up and pretend like my stop is coming up to ease my conscience. I’m also terrible at noticing pregnant women and have stared at someone’s belly for a full minute before I realize I should stand up. I saw one non-showing woman reading a pregnancy book on the train to let people know that yes, she would like to sit.

But I know all bald women don’t necessarily have cancer. And most of the time I’m fine, and I don’t even need to sit. I just like to sit.

I really just need a seat once every two weeks, right after chemo, when I’m tired and in a Benadryl haze. That day was today. I happened to get a seat on the first bus, but today everyone was in a mood. The bus stopped to pick people up and it wasn’t an official stop, so the bus driver wouldn’t let someone off. At least four people who weren’t affected by this were angry. It was just one of those days when everyone’s in a contagious bad mood and no one could break it.

I certainly couldn’t. I was just trying to stay awake and yearning to get home. I should say that today of all days, I guess I looked more like a cancer patient than ever, because I was also wearing a cancer center sweatshirt and my hand was bandaged where they had put the IV in. I was short a hospital gown and a sign, but what can you do?

The next bus was crowded. There was a group of naysayers that you sometimes find at the front of buses and by train doors who loudly assert that there’s no room. Sometimes they’re right, but often, they’re not. I tried to go past them, but got caught in a crush, and someone was yelling at my boyfriend because he was too close to her. “Let’s just leave!” I said, defeated and medicated. We finally got to the space that was behind the group, the space that they told us wasn’t there.

I was still tired and a little cranky that I had to hold on the strap with my numb, bandaged chemo hand, but my other arm hurts from blood clots (that’s another blog). Mostly I was sad—I didn’t want a seat. I just wanted people to be nicer to me, even if it’s because I’m sick.

And people are often nicer, or nice in general. It’s not always the way you think it will be. Good things happen, even on public transit. A stranger will warn you of a stream of bodily fluids heading toward your velvet flats. A comedian I recently saw said a bus driver stopped the bus and wouldn’t move again until someone gave up a seat for a really old woman. (The story was way funnier than that; I’m paraphrasing.)

Some people go beyond nice: someone I ran into this week had gone to the beach the day before and had risked his life to save a stranger who walked into the ocean and tried to commit suicide. He said that hardly anyone was there on a weekday, and he was initially annoyed that a guy had set up his beach towel pretty close to his own, but it turned out to be fortuitous, because this man also helped to save the woman. So things that might seem unfortunate sometimes turn out to be lucky. (Sometimes they’re just irritating. I don’t think the person I fell asleep on gained any good fortune from it.)

I know I’m lucky to have such good support and so many kind words from everyone. I realize it’s selfish in a way to hope to temporarily work my way into the train hierarchy of people who get seats first.

I was just looking for perks, something few and far between when it comes to cancer. Being bald, however, has quite a few benefits. Fast showers. A blank canvas on which to put temporary Cleveland Browns tattoos for football season. My impending Walter White Halloween costume. For now, I can content myself with these perks.

 

How Walter White Became My Unlikely Hero

When I watched the first of the final eight Breaking Bad episodes on AMC last night, I had something in common with Walter White. We’re both bald.

Well, I guess we have two things in common, as I learned in the middle of the show (spoiler alert): It turns out Walt is going through chemotherapy too. I feel as if Walt and I have been through a lot together in the past few months, as he’s become somewhat of my cancer hero—or antihero. (Though I’m no Gale. W.W. is far from a shining star in my eyes. And perhaps Gale is the most obvious example of the dangers of loving Walter White.)

As everyone turned against him as the show progressed—from his wife to his former business partner to viewers of the show—I still felt somewhat of a cancer kinship with him. He was beginning to lose me in season five—but as we see so often with Jesse Pinkman or with Skyler—just when I thought I might be done with him, Walt pulled me back in.

In February, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and I’ve been undergoing chemotherapy at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center since April. In June, I started watching Breaking Bad, after hearing hype about the show for years. The show’s premise—a high-school teacher who makes crystal meth after a fatal lung cancer diagnosis—seemed timely.

Just as everyone predicted, I became addicted. In fact, when I watched all of season four at Lincoln Center during a recent Breaking Bad marathon, a fellow fan confessed he would sometimes skip work or lie to his friends about having plans when he wanted to stay home and watch multiple episodes.

As I feverishly caught up on the show in time for the new episodes, Walt became a cancer companion of sorts. There are the physical effects of the chemotherapy—the nightstand full of medications, the red urine, the PET scans—but it’s the psychological effects on Walt to which I could relate.

Anyone who has ever received a bill for cancer treatment has probably thought that they need to make more money—fast. Even with insurance—something that I may be losing at the end of the month—the bills for a biopsy, medications, scans and chemotherapy add up.

Obviously, making and selling drugs is no joke. But if you could do something to make enough money—even if it were illegal—to not worry about medical bills, would you?

I might. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s as if, from time to time, the snakes from the medical caduceus symbol slither from their post and curl up in bed with me and hiss into my ear, reminding me of the expense.

Fortunately, for society’s sake, I have no illegal talents. I’m also a terrible liar and a goodie-goodie at heart, so I’m not cut out for a life of crime.

The thing that resonates with me the most about Walter White, however, is his anger, always bubbling near the surface, and his need for control, which drives him as much as—if not more than—his love for his family.

Walt’s anger is always present, constantly bubbling near the surface. After his diagnosis, he tells off his boss at the car wash and beats up a teenager for making fun of Walter Jr.’s cerebral palsy. Most of us can relate to wanting to do these things—and a cancer diagnosis is just the thing to push you to actually do it. You often want to have a tempter tantrum over how this isn’t fair. The smallest things can set you off, because you find yourself thinking, “This happened and I have cancer.”

Sometimes, I find myself walking around daring the world to piss me off—just for the release of pent-up anger. While I haven’t blown up a drug den or even thrown a pizza on a roof, I did find myself hanging on to a cab’s door handle and screaming at a startled driver when he refused to take me to Brooklyn after my biopsy surgery in Manhattan. It was during the change in shifts for cab drivers, when they decide whether you’re on their way home or not. After being turned down by one cab, I vowed to not let it happen again. “I just had surgery and you won’t take me to Brooklyn!” I screamed, pounding on his window. If I had been close enough to the open part of the window, I would have tried to force my upper body into the cab, new stitches along my neck or not.

Most of my anger is reserved for insurance companies and bureaucratic entities that are out of the grasp of my wrath. It make me feel helpless and as if I don’t have control—which brings me back to Walt.

But pride and a need for control are what really drives Walter, more than anything, and that’s when he started to lose my sympathy. Had he accepted the offer of his former business partners, he could have avoided this meth mess completely. We finally learned this season that he’s always been haunted by his decision to sell his share of a company now worth billions for $5,000, and that’s when his reluctance to quit the meth business comes into focus.

Yet I relate to his need for control in the face of cancer. To me, cancer has felt like a betrayal of the body. Your own cells are going renegade. When you have so little control over your own body, then what do you have?

You want to be tough. I’ve assured people over and over again that I’m fine, that this is no big deal. You put on your badass black hat or your wig and you become Heisenberg, your alter ego who is always strong and in control and unfazed. Who doesn’t want to assert, “I am the danger,” and “I am the one who knocks” when you feel as if you have very little control?

As Walt sits in a hospital gown and socks for his PET scan—a test that determines the state of your cancer, whether the treatment is working or whether you’re in remission—he’s still struggling for control. As a fellow patient spouts clichés and grapples with his diagnosis aloud, Walt goes off—again there’s the anger—and asserts to this poor stranger that he’s in control.

During one of several Breaking Bad discussions this past weekend, someone observed Walt has become the cancer. He’s the danger, but as the body count piles up and the consequences of his actions become increasingly dire, he still doesn’t have the control that he wants.

In spite of all of Walt’s transgressions, I still wanted him to be happy. I often find myself defending unlikeable characters. So I was disappointed when Hank found that copy of Leaves of Grass, after it seems that poor Walt had only a month of what he finally wanted. And now his cancer is back—as is Heisenberg.

I am now bald. I have a black hat, though it’s more Holly Hobbie than Heisenberg. Am I the danger? Inadvertently. I almost set my kitchen on fire while baking cookies and two of my lab partners in high school science classes almost set our stations on fire. (I wasn’t responsible, but I still feel as if I was an accomplice.)

Before the premiere of the new episode last night, my boyfriend shaved my head. A lot of people shave their heads early in the chemo process, but my hair was so thick that the thinning wasn’t noticeable until this week. Within the course of a week and half, my hair suddenly looked really thin. It was time. And what better time than before the return of Walter White?

I didn’t cry, though I’ve done my share of it over the past several months. But I’ve never been one of those people who cry when they get their hair cut. It will grow back—though in this case it will take longer.

Right now, I’m waiting for the results of my most recent PET scan. If everything is on track, my last chemotherapy appointment will be September 27—two days before Breaking Bad comes to an end. Walter White’s story and my cancer journey will end together. I know better than to expect a happy ending for Walt, though I hope for one for the end of my own story.