Wiggin'

Yesterday, with nothing on my stomach but a homemade ginger-ale, I headed up to Skokie to purchase a cranial prothesis. Jerome Krause Fashion Hair, a promising name if ever I heard one, is located in grayish little medical building. There were nearer fake hair emporiums, but Krause was recommended by a friend who knows a couple of women with alopecia, and they swore by the place. It's also in center of the Orthodox Jewish community in Chicagoland, and those woman know from wigs.















Our introduction to wig-shopping was a little rocky at first, since our stylist Linda had not been informed of our appointment. But she dropped the hank of premium Ukrainian hair she was dyeing at the time, and served us with enthusiasm one rarely sees directed at chunks of inert protein. She brought out boxes and boxes of wigs, some hand-sewn, some machine-sewn, some synthetic, some human. Oh, the Russian hair is the best, she said. I patted some Russian hair, and it was sexy, smooth, and oh god...whose head did this hair belong to? Too disturbing. I started hearing that Wallace Shawn monologue The Fever in my head, and I couldn't consider wearing it. Let's buy some hair made in a sweatshop in Thailand, shall we? Much bettah..

I always knew I had an enormous head, confirmed every time I tried on Easter bonnets at Marshall Field's, and all of them perched on the top of my skull, like those comical little hats you see on lady clowns at the circus. Linda measured my head. "Is it huge?" I asked. "No, no..you are in the average range, 22 inches." What was the large range? "22 1/4 inches and above." My head was only largeISH. I also had, Linda informed me, a pronounced occipital bone, which was why wigs that looked great on most women made me look like I had a football coming out of the back of my head.


Because of the "hump," we decided to go with sleeker wigs, although I think this one goes a bit too far. It makes the fashion statement: I'm a high-strung German Philosophy doctoral candidate who chainsmokes and uses the word "bricolage" in regular conversation.









Then, there's this wig. I believe it was called "Cheryl," but I like to call it "MILF." No, no and no.



















This was called "Danielle." I call it "WTF?"


















Finally, we save the best for last. My husband modeling the "Phil Spector." Actually, it was "MILF" turned a little sideways.

I finally settled on a sassy red bob, and Linda clipped and styled it into a more hairdo-like shape. I'll post that later, since I still think it needs a few tweaks.

Kiddie Cocktail Time: Ginger-ale

In light of my recent discovery that all of my once favorite beverages, such as Pilsner Urquell and Knob Creek do not go with chemo, I've been trying to bring back a little excitement into my drink-deprived life by investigating the making of syrups.

Yes, I could buy soda-pop, or the insipid corn-syrup flavored liquid candy which is marketed as such. When I was a kid, you could go to any gas station, and there it was: the Coke machine, a humming, steel megalith wearing an enticing veil of condensation. For 25 cents, (at least in 1965), it would give you a tiny Coke, in a returned (not recycled) bottle as polished and blue as seaglass. It too would be covered with a fog of cool droplets. You cracked open your tiny Coke with an opener on the side of the machine. It tasted so good it hurt, as the carbonation and "secret ingredients" of the searing brown liquid (Some folks unclogged drains with warm Coca Cola) hit your soft palate. Then you tasted the sweetness, the clean sweetness of cane sugar, which blended perfectly with the slightly bitter back-taste of cola and those "secret ingredients." Refreshing, so refreshing.

But, most things were better in 1965. Except civil rights, the cold war, Vietnam... but still, Coke was damn good back then.

Last week, I had lunch at the Custom House, a restaurant located in the hotel where I had my final bourbon as a single woman. The name has changed, and the restaurant has been extensively remodeled, but there it was: the bar where I sat in my wedding dress and threw one down with Laurie and Marjie. Miss you, ladies. When I asked about kiddie cocktails, the barman recommended the house homemade ginger ale. I've used his hints and swiped a few more off of the internet for my own brew. It packs a punch, so give to real kiddies with caution.


Ginger Ale


Ingredients*

2 cups water
2 cups sugar
2 cups fresh ginger, peeled and cut into coin-sized slices
Club soda
Lime or lemon wedges

Boil 2 cups peeled and sliced fresh ginger in two cups water for five minutes. Allow to cool and steep for 20 minutes.

Strain ginger slices out, and bring ginger-infused water to a boil over medium heat. Slowly stir in two cups of sugar (or less, depending on thickness and taste preferences). Cook until texture thickens slightly, about five minutes. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.
Some recipes recommend straining in a fine sieve to remove sediment, but I like the murky, medicinal quality of its appearance.

To make ginger-ale, pour over ice in a glass. Start with 1/4 c to for an ice-tea sized glass, and more to taste. Squeeze in two lime or lemon wedges, and fill the rest of the glass with club soda or sparkling water. Spicy and refreshing!

*additional spices can include cloves, a cinnamon stick, Asian anise/liquorice, and, per the barman at the Custom House, bay leaf and cayenne pepper.

Chemo 2/8

My husband took this picture, but only under duress. I wanted to demystify the process and show me, happy chemo patient, during infusion. However, it's difficult to crack a real smile when something called Cytoxan is being dripped into your veins. Cell poison, that's essentially what the name means. Nice if it's just the cancer cells it's going after, not so nice if the poisoning is more indiscriminate. The drug stops or slows cancer cell growth, but also interferes with bone marrow, hair and nail growth.

Speaking of hair growth: I better get some flattering pics of myself in short hair while I still have some. Last night, as I tried to pluck a few wayward eyebrow hairs, I realized that I didn't really need tweezers. I could pull them out with my fingernails. I tested a leg hair. Yep, came out with hardly any resistance. It seems that every time I get used to something, a new freak-out is waiting just around the corner.

My chemo wasn't scheduled until later in the morning, so the earlier appointments were for blood work and a meeting with the oncologist, Dr. G. He once again left us alone in a room, but this time we sat there until someone collected us. When the pager for my chemo therapy vibrated, we then trooped up to the treatment door to wait for a technician. A distressed-looking woman and her husband blocked our path. "Do you need water?" The technician asked. The woman nodded mutely, her face desperate. The nurse led us into a treatment room, which this time was a shared space, with threadbare recliners and a curtain separating the two room halves. The water woman and her husband came in behind us and sat on the other side. She peeked around the curtain, putting a hand on one of the large medical wastecans on our side of the barrier. "Sorry folks, I need to borrow this. It isn't gonna be pretty." She barely got back to the other side of the curtain before vomiting.

While waiting, I had been reading one of the cancer-oriented magazines strewn around the oncology center. I think it was called CancerWoman. In it, an article described the importance of dignity for patients, especially those with terminal diagnoses. Dignity was in short supply in our shared chemo room that day, as the poor woman retched uncontrollably next to two complete strangers. The nurse came in, and said "all the private rooms are full right now." The oncologist then arrived and asked about antinausea drugs. No, she hadn't been given any yet. I heard him say "Ativan drip." There where whispers assuring the couple that it was inexpensive. Oh God, to be uninsured or underinsured with this illness. Forget me, pray for them. In half an hour, she was snoring peacefully.


Loaded full of my own dose of Ativan, I had no objections to a stop at our local diner, Clara & James (although some say James got the heave-ho), for a post-chemo omelette. I have a lot of affection for this little place, especially after a recent make-over involving kelly-green vinyl and a mural with dozens of unrelated cartoon characters. That's Yosemite Sam peeking out from behind the tree. And, that's my husband on the right. Two vegi omelettes with toast, a coffee, tomato juice and Sprite, under $20. Two thumbs up!

Although I ate with gusto, I will probably feel pretty lousy later on, especially later tonight. Already, the Cytoxan has my head pounding, and nausea is creeping its way back into my consciousness. Chemo is like that, and you take your pleasures when your stomach will have them. Although he was not exactly referring to omelettes, I think these lines from Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress are still appropriate:

Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.