Revival

In one week it will be exactly 11 months since my diagnosis and I find myself not simply taking stock of my progress so far but, for once, celebrating a rather positive state of mind.

My mood is helped by the fact that Brisbane has been celebrating a string of perfectly beautiful days with their trademark crisp, clear skies and gentle coolness.

Who could not feel blessed to be alive under these conditions?

My frame of mind is further assisted by an unusual peace that has descended on what has been a building site for the past few days.

Today, the house is quiet with Ben at school and Alan away for a few days in Thailand where, lucky man, he'll be playing on a golf course regarded by Tiger Woods as one of the best in the world. (He's taking a well-deserved break as the stress around his various business interests has been chronic of late).

In this environment, I have found that it has been a little easier to be motivated in that way that seems to have eluded me in more recent months.

Pet projects that have languished in the archives of my computer have been revived and I've been making the most of some rare ambition.

Firstly, the novel I slaved over for the better part of 10 years, and which I had discarded, was dusted off and a quick editor's eye passed over it for the last time. I spent days reading up on e-publishing, then reformatted it for publishing on Kindle. In a few short hours today, the book will be uploaded as a product on Kindle's bookstore.

In case you are curious about my capacities as a fiction writer, here is the link.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=4%3A05+-++A+novel&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3A4%3A05+-++A+novel

Feel free to part with your $3.99 if you feel inclined but my no means feel pressured.

This novel was in some ways an indulgence, written in between the long months that can sometime straddle the projects of a freelance operative, and morphed through so many stages of rewriting and restructuring that it nearly drove me to drink.

I feel relieved to have thrown it from the nest. If it flies or falls is of no consequence to me. I am just happy if somebody reads it. Anybody!

Secondly, at long last I have started the process of distributing a small gift book Al and I created some years ago. Featuring an original poem (by moi) and printed by a friend, boxes of the bloody things had been sitting in my garage for years.

Now moved into the house, the boxes have been a cruel reminder of my long list of 'coulda beens'.

But good feedback from people I've gifted the book to recently has motivated me to find SOME way of distributing them, and I have enlisted the help of my dear friend Craig (who could sell lamb chops to a vegetarian, I swear).

I can owe the revival of these projects entirely to cancer.

Because one of the things that my ordeal so far has taught me is that the single most important thing in life is people.

Without people - my family and friends - I have no idea how I would have survived so far.

And now, post-chemo, I find it easier to ask people for help - in other ways.

I have no idea why many people find it so hard to do so. Do they think it is an admission of weakness? Of failure?

To that I say: "Horsefeathers!" (not to mention "Balderdash!", "Codswallop!" and "Fiddle-Faddle")

Lately I have been reminded of the mantra I consistently conveyed to my children. "If you don't ask, you don't get" (this, mostly in the context of help from their teachers).

I reminded myself of what I learned years ago, when I turned 10 years old. That birthday, my Dad asked me what I would like for a present and thinking 'no way could my parents afford that', I asked for a guitar.

My parents were never flush with cash in those days. In fact, it was financially always a huge struggle with both Mum and Dad working dead end jobs to help keep their heads above water.

But still, Dad managed to buy me that guitar and, to this day, I remember the exhilarating moment when I realised that if you ASK, sometimes you GET. Because I got that guitar!

I don't know where that feeling went. Over the years as I dealt with a string of disappointments - the many jobs I didn't get, the pitches I didn't win, the doors that slammed in my face as I peddled my various creative wares - I think I became fearful of asking.

What I've told my kids to do, I found harder and harder to do.

But thanks to cancer, that youthful belief has resurfaced: that there is no harm in asking. All they can say is 'no'.

My revived novel and gift book are a small testament to that.

In the meantime, I have maintained the rage against my decrepit body and continue to find time to exercise 6 out of 7 days.

I have no idea what has come over me. These days the less I want to do something, the harder I work to MAKE myself do it.

I think back to that fifth chemo session, when I was terrified of going and kept arguing that surely, missing the last two would make no difference to the end result. I MADE myself go.

Is this one certain way in which cancer has transformed me? This bloody-minded conviction that no matter how detestful the activity, if it's good for me I will do it? If I've made a commitment I'll rally on?

I don't think so.

I am reminded of that fateful year in 2010 when I joined the Capalaba Division 5 soccer team and found myself under the control of an arrogant, bombastic bully of a coach. He had me in tears on several occasions and left me on the bench for around 70% of that season.

That was the season where I passed endless minutes of the game sitting next to the Coach's wife, his manager, a woman with the personality of a toenail.

It was also the year my team won the Grand Final (on my birthday!) and when, after kitting up and driving for an hour to get to the field, I was left on the bench for the duration. Can I repeat: On my birthday!

You know, they say life is not a dress rehearsal. But I disagree.

Some parts of your life ARE a dress rehearsal - for how you'll cope for that day that comes for all of us, when things will be harder. When life won't be so easy. When everything - even getting out of bed - is a challenge.

My dress rehearsal was that soccer season of 2010 when I discovered that I had staying power. That I would not quit - no matter what. That, despite the tears, I would carry on.

After that grand final match, I did not stay for the team photograph. I despatched my friend Emily to get our medals as I snivelled in the car.

As we drove off, I threw those medals out of the car window. They were meaningless to me.

And that is how I imagine myself putting all of this behind me one day. Giving cancer the finger. Throwing away that gold medal I might get - the Five-Year All Clear! - because that's not what really matters is it?

In the end, it's not whether I live or die that's important. It's what I brought to the fight that's important.

It's not the end that matters. It's the journey.

Has cancer transformed me so far?

No, it hasn't.

What it has done is revive me, and it has reminded me of the potential I've always had: To be brave and to ask for help if I need it; To stay the distance and make myself keep going.

Is cancer about transformation at all?

Of a sort.

In the end it's about the transformation of a day: how a bad day is transformed into a good day - how being unable to get out of bed of a morning ends with a 10 km run.

It's about how feeling vulnerable can be reinterpreted into a feeling that somehow, everything will work out in the end.

It's about how my devastation at not being allowed to play that Gold Medal match was transformed into a finger in the air ...

...And Emily and I laughing at that fat, ignorant, bullying nothing of a coach as we drove home.

That's how I'll be driving away not just from my cancer match - but all those strings of disappointments and road blocks and cul de sacs I have yet to encounter.

Because it's never, ever, ever about winning the game. It will always, always be about how you play it.

Now, someone, pass me the ball!

Hair 3

Hairraaayyyyyy!!! (At last, I am Punning with Scissors!)

First up, let me announce, that my head hair is growing back. And I can tell you it's a little uncomfortable: by turns itchy and painful.

In fact hair is sprouting again and, although here in Australia we are moving into autumn, in Bronwyn Land it's spring!

The resprouting of the head, however, is a real cause for celebration.

This week we took this picture of the start of the regrowth: a very sad smattering of grey and black but I don't care.

I can't wait to have even a tiny bit of lawn cover - I'm not fussy - because frankly I'm over it.

Being bald has been extremely practical - less time in the shower; less water wastage; no nasty sulphate-containing shampoos ; less time preening altogether; money saved on expensive visits to the hair dresser.

But it's also meant that I am by turns freezing or sweating with the loss of, apparently, an important part of my body's thermal regulatory functions.

It's meant I take less pleasure from dressing. Despite the countless times I seem to have been congratulated on the lovely shape of my head, and the sweet efforts of friends suggesting I'm beautiful, I'm sorry guys but, to coin a phrase, it just doesn't cut it.

It's meant I feel self-conscious at times: like the rogue Crash Test Dummy at a fancy Mannequins' Convention; like a frame from 'Metropolis' accidentally spliced into a Pantene commercial.

I admit it, okay! Lately I find even the most ordinary heads of hair positively mesmerising. I've been pining over them like a star-struck lover chasing the unattainable - until now!

There’s simply no denying it.

Where cancer patients are concerned, one of the side effects of treatment that we, possibly, most despair over is the loss of hair.

Somewhere after the first round of chemotherapy, in follicles then clumps, many are divested of every inch of bodily hair, until what’s revealed is the truly naked self.

This defoliation may be compared to a return to a pre-pupal state. Cancer patients are gradually stripped of their vanities until, what appears is a kind of larvae, a human returned to a pre-adult stage almost: smooth and bald as a baby.

But it’s the bald head that most galls.

Bald may be beautiful but my observations suggests that by and large, most cancer patients seem to want to cover up as much as possible.

At a recent radiation session in fact, my nurse Trish, commented on my bald pate. She too, has noticed that there are few who choose to be brazenly bald and bare.

What is it with hair - or its lack thereof?

I'm a lover of trivia as you may have realised by now, so of course I want to tell you that that a developing fetus has all of its hair follicles formed by week 22 by which time there are 5 MILLION follicles on the body, one million of which are on the head and around 100,000 on the scalp. (Yes, I like you, wonder at the poor sod whose job it was to count them).

Personally, I have long been fascinated by the symbolism of hair and several years ago, had my first ever magazine story published in ‘Girlfriend’ magazine on that very subject (it was even promoted on the front cover: Gee, they were desperate!).

Most of us will, for instance, know the story of Sampson and Nisos, where the length of the hero’s hair was linked to strength and mortality; or Rapunzel where it was associated with imprisonment and freedom.

Certainly, being proudly bald has been a kind of freedom for me.

You might even know the story of Queen Berenice II of Egypt who swore to the goddess Aphrodite, to sacrifice her long, blonde hair of which she was extremely proud, if her husband returned safely. (He did and today, there’s a cluster of stars called 'Berenice’s Hair’ that is sometimes visible).

Maybe for cancer patients, giving up their hair is like a contract with your God (whoever that may be for you): I will lose my hair if you will save me.

Scientists say that long hair plays a large part in natural selection among many species. That’s because long, thick and healthy hair (or fur) is a sign of fertility and youth.

Maybe it's fitting that, as menopause seems to have aged my body overnight, that I'm bald?

In East Asian cultures, long, unkempt hair is a sign of sexual intent or of a recent sexual encounter (either that, or they lost their hairbrush). That’s why ponytails, plaits and buns are the norm.

In the case of my utter baldness, this could explain... hmm, have I mentioned VAGINAL DRYNESS?

I have combed through Google for some other hair facts.

I've found that the association of hair with sexuality is, historically, a common theme through most cultures with long, loose hair associated with youthful maidens (subtext: I’m available, honey) while married women wore their hair in a bun.

It seems, chemotherapy gives you neither option and suggests that perhaps sexual availability is irrelevant. My husband would agree, alas.

The cutting of a woman’s hair, save those taking the veil of a religious order, it seems, was considered "deviant, punitive and a self-inflicted denial of sexuality".

I also found an argument where one scholar suggests ‘cross culturally, the head represents the penis, and head hair, semen.' From here, he provides a discoursive rationale as to why long hair represents unrestrained sexuality, and removing it expresses sexual restraint, as in celibacy or castration. I like it!

There seems to be a kind of absolute castration with female baldness. Maybe this absolutely hairless state is how Greer might have imagined the Female Eunuch?

Google also reveals that, in the Old Testament, long hair in men was a sign of devotion to God. This is also reflected in the beliefs of the Sikhs, where allowing your hair to grow naturally is a sign of devotion to God and lack of worldliness.

This could explain where on several occasions of late, I have caught sight of my bald head and cried "Oh God!".

For Sikhs and others, the long ponytail (or queue in the case of some Chinese tribes) was seen as the way in which God would reach from the sky and pull you up to heaven (and life in the hair-after I suppose).

So I guess my bald head means that, for now, I must put up with whatever my hell is here on earth.

In Ancient Greece, long female hair signified freedom, health, wealth and good behaviour.

In fact this carries through several culture, for example, traditional Chinese culture where long hair represented wealth and power. In many countries, such as Indonesia, the enforcement of shorter hairstyles on men especially, was a sign of servitude.

In West African cultures, women with long hair were highly valued with long, thick hair seen as a sign of health, strength and the capability to bear many children.

All of this explains why chemo patients could be described as 'poor bastards' in one context or another.

In some Jewish customes, hair was shortened to signify mourning and sadness. Tearing out or shaving the hair was believed to be an offering to strengthen the ghost of the departed into the nether world.

I suppose, I'm mourning a few things: the loss of my health, beauty and, to an extent, freedom.

But the relationship with hair and life (or cutting hair and death) recurs in other cultures.

In Victorian times, for instance, there existed a bizarre practice of creating ‘mourning art’ where the hair of the disease was preserved in pieces of jewellery, or ground into sepia paint and used on canvases, or woven and glued to urns and other high relief or three dimensional works, or even embroidered into silk pieces. Yuk. Truly creepy.

During this era, the hair of the diseased was often cut off and crafted into a wreathe to be displayed in the home. In fact, the hair was a prized possession, and the wreathe proudly displayed.

Reading all of this then, I have a deeper understanding of just why so many chemotherapeutically balded women seem to be ashamed of their naked heads.

Could it be that we feel not just uglified, but stripped of our social context?

Perhaps we are unsure as to what being brazenly bald says about us?

Perhaps we are ashamed of the fact that we are 'marked' as 'the unlucky ones', attracting pity because we bear the scars of breast cancer?

I don't know what the reasoning really is and the literature offers no answers.

What exactly does it SAY about a woman who is PROUDLY bald?

Once, when I had extremely short hair, I had to literally beat off a few lesbians. But aside from that, what else might being proudly bald tell you?

I will tell you what I think.

Being proudly bald simply means that you are person who isn't ashamed of whatever life has dealt you.

It might also mean, that in my case, you're simply being practical. Listen, mate, the wig's just uncomfortable, okay?

What is wrong with us if we are not permitted to be hair-free, regardless of our own discomfort?

So you know what?

My bald head may say different things to different people. It may say I'm ugly or unsexy, unhealthy or unwell, infertile, un-whatever.

But who cares?

The only thing that should be important is what it says to ME!

And here is what it says:

Live in the Hair and Now as best you can.

Because nothing is forever. Bald now? Pfft. Tomorrow. Hair.

It really IS as simple as that.