Breast Cancer Awareness

In the spring of my senior year of college, I made an S.O.S. call to my dad.  I was doing my taxes on my own for the first time, and it wasn’t going well.

“Let me get this straight,” he said.  “You’re getting an A in Calculus, but you can’t fill out a 1040 EZ form?”

I sheepishly admitted to the irony.  It’s a paradox I still can’t explain — why complicated things like writing a master’s thesis, studying at two Ivy League universities, and acing Organic Chemistry come easy to me while simple tasks like completing a 1040 EZ form, changing my windshield wipers, or registering my car at the D.M.V. completely elude me.

This may help explain why I was dreading my recent trip to the Oregon D.M.V., where I had to register my car and trade my Connecticut driver’s license for an Oregon I.D.  I had just moved cross-country to be closer to friends while I was recovering from a seven month course of treatment for breast cancer.  My body and my brain were still lethargic from the effects of chemo.

I decided that being perfectly prepared was my best defense against being overwhelmed.  So I showed up at the D.M.V. armed with all the documentation I could find: my license, registration, proof of insurance, title, and address verification.  I proudly produced these to the woman behind the counter, who instead of being impressed by my organization asked tersely, “Where’s your emissions certificate?”

“My what?” I asked.

She gave me the address of an emissions testing site, I packed up all my documents, and left.  An hour later, I returned with the certificate. Before finishing my registration, the woman said I needed to take my driver’s exam.  Had I studied, she asked.

Yes, I answered.

She showed me to Computer #1. I sat down, took the exam…and failed it.

“I thought you studied,” the woman said.

“I did,” I answered.  “I read the entire online study guide.”

“Oh,” she said, handing me a driver’s manual.  “The online edition isn’t the complete version.”

“Obviously not,” I whispered to myself.

She told me I could come back the next day to retake the exam.

I left the D.M.V. completely frustrated, ready to pull out the little post-chemo hair I had.  The bright spot of my day was that I had a date that night.  “There’s this cool place that has a great happy hour,” my date told me when he called me to make plans.

“Perfect,” I said.  “I could use a fun night out.”

When we got to the restaurant, the bartender asked to see our I.D.’s before we could enter the bar where the happy hour specials were being served.  He looked at my Connecticut I.D. - the one taken 3 years ago when my hair was long and blonde- then looked up at me, then back at my I.D. before finally handing it back to me.

“What made you chop your hair?” he asked glibly.

“I had chemo and it fell out, and it’s just starting to grow back,” I answered him with an even stare.  I have found that this answer usually shocks people into a respectful silence, or at most a meaningful, “I’m so sorry.”

But not this guy.  Nope. Without pausing, he asked loudly, “Did you lose ALL your hair?”

I nodded silently.

“What flavor did you have?” he asked next.

“What do you mean — what flavor of chemo or what flavor of cancer?” I asked incredulously, shocked that this conversation was still going.

“Cancer,” he said nonchalantly.

“I had breast cancer,” I answered, barely above a whisper, willing him to be shocked into shutting up.

“Cool,” he answered.

“No, not really – it’s not like picking an ice cream flavor.”

“This guy who works here had thyroid cancer and he had chemo and all his hair fell out – even his eyebrows. It was crazy.”

And with that, he switched topics.  My date ordered for us, and the bartender left to put in the order.

I stared at the T.V. monitor on the opposite wall pretending to watch the baseball game, mustering all the strength in me to blink back the tears.  I am always ashamed to cry in public.  To me, it carries the same stigma of peeing your pants – everyone stares at you and simultaneously feels sympathetic for and titillated by your misfortune.

I was managing to hold it in until my date put his arm around me and said softly, “You’re really quiet.  Are you okay?”

I shook my head, and with that, the dam broke.  Tears of anger and frustration and profound sadness began streaming down my cheeks.  I tried to find the words to tell my date how angry I was that this idiot had dared to compare having cancer to choosing an ice cream flavor, that he had dared to point out how inferior my cropped head was to the long blond tresses I used to have, that he hadn’t shut up and respected my privacy, that I hadn’t forced the end of the conversation sooner, and maybe most of all, that he had reminded me.  I was trying to be a normal girl in a cute skirt with a matching hand bag out to dinner with a date, and with a few questions from an intrusive stranger, the illusion that I was just a normal girl was shattered, and I was thrown back into the terrifying hell of cancer and chemo.

But of course, I couldn’t articulate any of these thoughts.  I could only blubber and use my cloth napkin to wipe away the tears falling so furiously they were dripping from my chin.

In an attempt to retain the little dignity I had left, I stood up, laid my napkin on my chair, whispered “I’ll be back,”and made a beeline to the ladies’ room.

In the privacy of the stall, I buried my face in my hands and cried. And cried. And cried some more.  Every time I thought the flood was abating, a new wave welled up and streamed down my face in torrents.  All I could think was, “If only.”  If only we hadn’t come here, if only we hadn’t sat in the bar, if only the bartender had kept his mouth shut, if only I’d passed the driver’s test and gotten my new I.D., he never would have seen that old photo of me…that’s right.  In a hail-Mary attempt to fault someone for this disastrous day, I blamed it all on the D.M.V.

I don’t know how long it took me to compose myself. Ten, 15, 20 minutes?  I wasn’t keeping track.   I splashed my face with water, then blotted it dry, and prayed I could be strong enough to hold back the tears I could still feel deep down inside of me.

I walked out of the bathroom to find my date standing in the lobby, holding my purse.

“What did you do with the food?” I asked, feeling guilty he’d forfeited his dinner for me.

“I took care of it,” he said elusively, but I didn’t press him for details.  He held my hand as we walked to the car.  He opened my door for me, and closed it once I had fastened my seatbelt.

As he started the car, I began crying again.  I sat in the passenger’s seat silently with tears streaming down my face.   As he drove and I cried, the rearview mirror caught my attention.  I watched the road and the trees that lined it — the ones that used to loom so large in my view — growing smaller and smaller until they disappeared into a vague background.

And somehow, it gave me hope.