Part One: Chemo day one: Life is Just a Bowl of Steroids  (9/26)  Literary grace under pressure.

Part Two: Okay, for those of you who have remained curious about my round of golf with cancer, I followed an opening triple-bogey, on the first day of chemo three weeks ago with a hard-working bogey last week.

My session at St. Vincents with 11 strong women in the lounge full of
Barceloungers and bags-'o-medicine was eventful only by virtue of some
consistent clumsiness.

I forget I have attachments on my hands. My veins roll and I drop compact 
discs. I get up to go to bathrooms with the headphones still on, yank the player off the table and then capsize my IV framework when I try to pick it
up. Fundamentals. I've somewhat expectantly become the class clown.

I have learned how this stuff plays me now, after two holes. First you feel like Michael Jordan for a day and one-half, before the curtain begins to fall at a rapid clip. Then, for three days, you hope for an hour's relief, three  hours straight sleep and pleadingly make excuses with the rest of the outside world.

Then, day six, you begin to come back. Depending on your medication you're ready for the world, full of something resembling energy and overly optimistic that you can "be yourself," in areas such as work  and house tidying. The dog finally smiles, knowing it is going to get to walk  around a bit today.

So that's the medical/physical side of things. What I really need to address
here is what happens when you shave your head for the first time in your life. Weary of clumps plummeting into the shower and onto your pillow, you 
think you're headed toward baldness anyway, so a phone call to a hair
stylist friend brings her kindly to your kitchen. She insists I  take the first
swipe with the clippers so her role, in essence, will be to "fix it," not to "do it" to me.

In preparation, I have pondered the healthy male appearance of Yul Brynner as a role model. And told myself that the style is somewhat unusually bald these days in many circles. It'll fit, I convince myself. I think of Yul and practice saying, "Et cetera, et cetera,  etcetera", with some earnestness.

Telly Savales, the guy on The Shield, Jordan, hell, I might even look good.

The horror, the horror. The first thing you see when you look in the mirror, the first time you  shave your head, I don't care who you are, is "Gollum", Peter Jackson's version in a fleshtone. Frightful,  zip-codes from  handsome...your eyes suddenly hang heavy like those of a rhinoceros and
your ears are the size of airplane landing devices. There are blotches of red (thankfully she said it was pretty round, at least) and when someone finally sees you, and says, "It looks GOOD," you  envision their tongue bleeding profusely when you leave the room.

Hats, dig deep..old golf bags, the trunk. Living rural does not lend the
opportunity to purchase a nice, let's say, beret' or reggae stocking cap. This is going to take time. No mirrors without  headgear in place. Scared the bubbles out of a young boy who has been walking my dog for me the past few days. Forgot I was unadorned.

Anyway, two down, four to go. So, with only six holes to play overall, we'll count each one as three. I'm four over after six and not really knowing who's in the mirror these days. But, made it to day six of the second set and actually feel some good energy. But, Yul Brynner he's not.

Thanks for caring.

MOB

© 2006 Michael O'Brien