98.6 and Other Myths

According to weather forecasters, Utah is entering into a period of extreme summer heat. It's supposed to get into three digits by the weekend. I personally wouldn't know the difference because I am always cold. A sluggish thyroid is to blame, but so is cancer.

On chemo day, once the implanted port has been accessed and the infusions begin, I start feeling cold immediately. One of the best things about the treatment center is the heated unit full of blankets. Fortunately the "minions" who accompany me have learned by now that the way the blankets are folded in the heater is lengthwise, making them perfect to cover people six feet tall and 130 pounds... which I am not. Once I get settled into the reclining lounger, my people choose the heavier blankets, rather than the tissue-thin flannel sheets and refold them the other direction so they're wide enough to cover me. They tuck the blankets under my feet and all the way up behind my shoulders. It really helps counteract that cold liquid being infused into my body. I used to bring a book to read, but now I opt for the music stored on my phone. Something serene happens then when I'm warm and listening to my music.

In all my adult life, if my temperature has been 98.6 (normal for everybody else) it's an indication that I'm sick. A couple of times in the past four months of chemotherapy treatment my temperature has gone up to 98.0 and 98.4, but never 98.6. For a day or two after the chemo, I also experience a face flush, making my cheeks feel warm and look pink and healthy, but my temperature never goes up.

Side effects include neuropathy in hands and feet--tingling sensations, sort of like what my nephew once described as "7Up in your fingers." Many of my fingernails have what looks like bruises, but it's blood pooling in the nail beds, making them tender to the touch. I'm grateful that I can still type. Neuropathy in the feet is another issue. My feet feel like blocks of ice, and my poor little piggie toes suffer the sensation of drawing cold out of the floor. Wherever I sit, I try to keep my feet bundled up. Visitors think I'm nuts because they are all sweating and suffering from the heat.

Dressing all bundled up when I go to church makes me look funny, I'm sure--I've been wearing hats for three months to cover my not-quite-bald head, in addition to all those layers of clothes and sweaters. Sometimes I even have to use my "church blankie" to counter the effects of the powerful air conditioning in the building.

Hubby works in the yard early in the morning to avoid the heat of the day, and when he comes back in the house, he turns on the air conditioner and a fan that blows cold air directly on him. If I'm in the same room, I add to my three or four layers of clothing a sweater or jacket, and a couple of quilts. I'm now trying to train him to turn off the fan and the AC when he leaves the house but I haven't succeeded yet in doing that.

When we leave the house together, no matter the temperature outside, I'm always wearing a sweater or jacket. In fact, when we go out on errands, I often sit in the car enjoying the heat when we've finished the major tasks, while hubby runs into another store to pick up the prescriptions or whatever. It's how we roll. It's a good thing we have dual temperature controls in our car. Hubby's is set at 68, and mine is at 75, and I'm usually still shivering. I keep a blanket in there to shield me from the cold blasts of air coming from his side of the car.

We are headed for Oregon in a couple of weeks--all of our family except our missionary in New England--and I am looking forward to a few cool days at the coast, walking in the sand, eating ice cream in Tillamook, watching colorful kites fly, petting anemones in the aquarium, and sitting on the deck till the sun goes down. Apparently weather forecasters say there's going to be a heat wave in Portland that weekend when we go to an extended family dinner party. I won't mind.

Hair Today, Not So Much Tomorrow

Twelve chemotherapy treatments have left me nearly but not quite hairless. It's a distinguishing side effect because the chemo attacks fast-growing cells, i.e. cancer, and hair follicles. Several friends have made hats for me, which I really appreciate because my head, though not totally bald, gets very cold. I used to take a lot of pride in having my hair done every week and feeling confident in how I looked. Now I settle for cute hats. In the same spirit as last week, when I reprinted an old essay, I'm reprinting the history of my hair--sort of a retrospective, sort of nostalgic, sort of hopeful.

Hair, Not the Musical

2005

         I have old hair. In fact, my hair got old before I did.

       Some people have bad hair days, but I’ve had a bad hair life. I was born with fine, limp, straight, plain brown hair, with a cowlick in the front. [Well, it was blonde for the first few years of my life, but that didn’t last long.] It grows fast and will not be ignored. It has always dictated to me what it wanted to do. In pristine western Oregon where I was raised, in the days before portable hair dryers, you didn’t give a lot of thought to your hair. The water was naturally soft runoff from Mt. Hood, and the climate was temperate. Whenever I washed my hair, I would comb it in place, maybe put a few curlers on the ends, and either sit by an open window to let the sun and breeze dry it, or in front of the roaring fireplace. When my hair was dry, I brushed it, and that was that—not a lot of fuss.

         When I got into high school curls were more socially important, and the fuss quotient increased. I knew by then that I was fighting nature. Through high school I usually wore it collar length, no bangs, often in a French twist or a ponytail. My sister, who has naturally curly hair, wore hers short, did it up in pin curls, and had what was then described as a tossed salad hairdo, right in style. I was so jealous.

         Until I went away to school in Utah, I had never used hand lotion or hair conditioner. The water is hard and the climate is dry in Utah, and I didn’t know what to do. The first time I washed my hair and didn’t use conditioner, I looked like someone who had never fixed her own hair before. It was embarrassing, and I still have the yearbook picture to prove it. Editors used your student ID picture for the yearbook in those days, for freshmen anyway. Lacking the natural drying elements I used at home—sun and fire—I got one of those portable hair dryers with a plastic cap that fit over my curlers so I didn’t have to go out in the cold with wet hair.

         During college I experimented a lot with hairdos. Some were pretty extreme, and observers might have assumed I was a rebel, but the truth was, I was just trying to make peace with my hair.

         Over the years I have not managed my hair as much as it has managed me; sometimes all I could do was give in to its whims. I tried coloring it a few times when I was in my early 20’s, but that turned out to be a treadmill I didn’t want to stay on.

          When we lived on Guam, the tropical climate and the Hair With A Mind of Its Own conspired together to undo me again. This time, curl was impossible because of the damp air. I had collar length hair when I arrive, and when I washed it the next morning, there was a power outage that took out my portable hair dryer. The following week I went to a salon where my hair was coifed and sprayed within an inch of its life. “That’ll show you,” I thought as I inspected the finished product. I strode triumphantly out into the weather again looking fabulous, for about ten minutes. Again the hair had the last laugh. By the time I got home about 20 minutes later it was a sticky, back-combed, shapeless mess. Not long after that, I surrendered to a very short wash-and-wear hairdo known in those days as a pixie cut. I have worn it fairly short ever since, though not always that boyishly short.

         To maintain some semblance of order, I have to get my hair cut every six or seven weeks. It laughs demonically at curling irons, so permanents have been my only hope for an alternative to that look you see in cartoons when someone has touched a live electrical wire. With a perm every three months to give me a little height, and some softness around my angular face, things have gone along pretty well for quite a few years.

         After my children were born, when I was in my late 20’s and mid-30’s, my hair turned a much darker shade of brown. Shortly after my son was born it began to turn gray, which has nothing to do with the fact that he was a boy and also my last child and I wasn’t that far from 40. Actually, my hair has a kind of mink effect, with gray ends and dark roots. People think it costs me a lot of money to keep that up, but I just smile when they suggest such a thing. I’m way too lazy for that.

         At that rate, my hair was almost completely gray by the time I was 60, and is well on its way to white. White hair is beautiful, as is gray, but it is also curl-resistant, no matter what my hairdresser has tried. For a while I surrendered and let my hair do what it wants. I let it grow and pinned it up on top of my head, like a matronly silver halo hovering over me, suggesting to my grandchildren something otherworldly and mysterious. That didn’t last long, and I fear I am doomed to an old age hairstyle that could easily make me a George Washington look-alike.

         Now I am giving some consideration to hats.