The Merits of the Case

Shelley left a comment today after my hair post with a really great question. It’s something I’ve been talking and thinking a lot about lately, and I think the subject deserves its own post. Here is Shelley’s comment, in case you didn’t see it:

Kim, thanks for posting candidly on something that has to be incredibly hard to deal with. If you'd rather not answer this, I'd understand, but I am curious as someone who wouldn't know what to say: how would you like people to react when they see you sans-coiffure? Would you want them to act as if nothing has happened, or to offer sympathy?

My gut reaction would be to ask how you're feeling and let you talk about it or not, but would that come across as pity?

The answer to the last question, which is the easiest to answer, is that your gut reaction would be exactly right on and would be my gut reaction as well in the same situation. If I run into you on the football field sidelines, in the office at school or in the grocery store, I would hope that you would feel very comfortable asking me anything you want to know. In that situation, it would definitely not come across as pity. I am assuming, for the sake of that answer, that we know one another.

I made the decision at the very beginning of all of this to be open with people and to talk about what I am going through. (Thus a website for all the world to read!) For me, that was the best decision because it has made it so much easier for me. Breast cancer has been such an all-consuming part of my life since April and I can’t imagine trying to keep it quiet or secret. The people I run into on a daily basis are usually, via this blog, up to date on what is going on with me and that allows us to jump right into a conversation without having to waste time “catching up.” This will probably change once I get back to school, but so far there have only been a couple of occasions when I ran into someone I know who didn’t know.

But I’ve been on the other side of the fence, and I know it’s not easy to know what to say.

Last year the mother of one of Matthew’s friends went through breast cancer. I didn’t know her very well…our relationship was mostly based on talking on the phone and in one another’s foyers about pick up times and future play dates for the boys. I remember very clearly the day she answered the door with a scarf on her head when I dropped Matthew off at her house one afternoon. It was immediately evident that she was bald and I assumed that she was going through cancer treatments. My reaction was to ignore the scarf completely and to not address the obvious situation at all. I never asked her about it or said anything to her. Because I didn’t know her very well, I had no way to know how she would react to any questions I might ask and I didn’t really even know what to say since I had never known anyone with cancer before except for my cousin, Jenny. Knowing what I know now, I would react very differently in the same situation.

Matthew was invited to his friend’s house again just last week and when we arrived I asked his friend’s mother about her cancer. I apologized for not having said something last year, told her about my diagnosis and we had a wonderful conversation about our experiences.

Even though I am open about this and don’t mind talking about it, I know that there are people who definitely do not feel that way. The day I was diagnosed with breast cancer I unexpectedly ran into an old friend at the surgeon’s office. I saw her within minutes of my receipt of the official diagnosis and was still in shock at hearing the news. My friend was at the doctor’s office with her mother, who, as it turns out, is a breast cancer survivor. When she told her mother about my diagnosis, her mother became visibly upset and walked to another part of the waiting room. My friend told me that it was because her mother doesn’t like to talk about it. And indeed, everyone handles their cancer experience differently. It is impossible to know whether the person you are talking with is someone who is open about it or who prefers to keep it to him or herself and that makes it difficult to know exactly how to respond in any given situation.

And what about strangers? Shelley asks, “[H]ow would you like people to react when they see you sans-coiffure? Would you want them to act as if nothing has happened, or to offer sympathy?” I think that this can be a difficult situation because if two people don’t know one another they have no way to know how the other person is going to react. From my point of view, as I mentioned in my last post, it will be very difficult for me to face the pity or fear that I will inevitably encounter in the faces of strangers. I would prefer that they ask me about it rather than just feel sorry for me, but I know that is unrealistic and that most strangers are going to be reluctant to say anything.

Right after my diagnosis I was grocery shopping one morning when I passed a woman and her daughter in the aisle. The woman was wearing a pink scarf on her head and was obviously bald and going through cancer treatments. My reaction to her, when my emotions were still raw from my recent diagnosis, was immediate and visceral. It was all I could do not to sob at the vision of her scarf and what it covered. I looked at her as we passed one another, wanting to connect with her somehow even though she would have had no idea what we were connecting about if she had looked at me. And I don’t know what she would have seen in my face if she had looked at me at that moment, but I suspect it would have been a mixture of fear and sadness, exactly the thing I dread seeing in a stranger’s face.

So how would I answer Shelley’s questions? Well, I hope that if you see me somewhere and you want to say something or ask me something about the scarf on my head or my lack of hair, that you will, whether we know one another or not. I will be receptive and happy to talk to you about it. And I would hope that you wouldn’t feel sorry for me or feel pity for me, because there is nothing to be sorry for. This is the experience I have been given to handle, and handle it I will. I am okay and I am fighting this. The scarf and the bald head are symbols of my fight…battle scars even. But they are temporary and they are manageable and for now, they are me.