Yesterday, they were holding a fund-raising event at Rawdon, 10-15 minutes from here. I decided to go by cab. Me, going on my own into an event where I know no one? This just isn’t me. Maybe it’s part of a subtle character transformation - time will tell.
The event was packed. Two women, who I later discovered were a pair of sisters who had both had breast cancer, were having their heads shaved as part of a gigantic fund-raising effort by a young woman called Sherine who is now being treated for secondary cancer. Pinderfields, it turns out, has only two cold caps for the whole chemo unit and she’s raising £40k to get four more. As she said, she saw someone arrive for chemo only to find the cold cap (something that is carefully timed and adds hours to treatment time) still in use so she had to have treatment without it. Sherine quite rightly believes every chemo patient should have the option at least.
I find this astounding. St James’s has these by the dozen. Ok, chemo is on more of a factory scale than the domestic workshop scale of Pinderfields (bit of history there, folks - it just slipped in) but I can’t recall ever seeing more than one person in any of my many chemo sessions (13 now) using the cold cap. I’ve also seen them stacked in a corner where the ward assistant (for whom Dennis developed a bit of a crush - she did have a lovely smile so it wasn’t just her egg sandwiches) goes for her supplies. Why don’t the hospitals liaise? Pinderfields patients have to attend St James’s for radiotherapy so it’s not like there’s no link already established.
Frankly, I couldn’t see any attraction in the idea. I’ve been told by people who’ve used, or tried to use them that they are very tight and constricting, hurt like hell till you get used to it (they freeze the hair follicles) and add hours to your treatment time. However, I imagine if you’ve spent all your life revelling in long locks, tending your split ends and it’s important to your self image, it could be devastating and dehumanising to lose your hair - a bit like me and my eyelashes (I smile every day when I apply mascara to more lower lashes than I have had since teenage!). The only visual image I can conjure up for comparison is too non-PC for me even to take the thought further. - but they do look daft!
Anyway, I was introduced to Sara who gave up whatever she was doing to sit and chat with me. Then she introduced me to Sherine and, during our conversation, we exchanged a stroke of each other’s hair, both of us admitting that we love stroking our hair! It’s GORGEOUS. I’d keep it like this just for the therapeutic benefits of stroking my own head. It feels like stroking a kitten. However I suspect the soft scalp-hugging hair will soon turn back to coarser adult hair. I also chatted to Lynne who was selling wonderful tote bags that their craft group makes (of course I did - three and one for Trina. Oops, I haven’t told her - maybe she’ll receive it before reading this. Why didn’t I just delete it?). Lynne’s group meets in Ossett which is Wakefield way and though I happily and miserably drove to Methley Park, which is in that direction, Ossett feels too far for me.
What struck me was the real friendship, warmth and affection that existed between all these different groups of women. They all met either through treatment (hardly anyone speaks to anyone else at St James’s) or through The Haven. Maybe I do need to give it another go after all. I did visit when I was at a very low ebb, while I was still catastrophising about chemo.
I’d love to put up some pictures but it’s other people’s privacy- and I didn’t take any, not even of the head shaving! Anyway, back to elephants and a book I am slowly beginning to see some readability in. I’m told it has a twist at the end so I haven’t looked but - FOR MAUREEN - here’s my prediction. The narrator is dead. I’m basing this guess/deduction on the fact that there is a twist and Carol O’Connell wrote a brilliant book “The Judas Child” in the last century. You can chuckle away if I’m way off.
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