The Power of an Index Card
“Instructions for living a life: Pay Attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
I consider myself to be the near-ideal patient if I do say so myself. The people pleaser in me right now is ashamedly on full throttle, feeling delightfully justified in a laundry list of respectable reasons associated with my treatment, recovery, and ultimately full remission. All good motives, right?? I will follow all the directions. I will take all the needles with a smile. I will not contact my doctors unless absolutely necessary. And I wear it all with a strange cloak of pride.
Dumb. I know.
It was for these reasons – along with the fact that I’ve been feeling essentially fine, with no major uncomfortable side effects – that I skipped (strutted?) into my chemo appointment this past Celebration Monday. (And we all know what happens when one gets cocky with chemo…)
I was excited to have Dad as my chaperone so he could see the offices, be able to picture the infusion process, and hopefully meet Dr. Kass.
This time, instead of going through the right door to the infusion center, they asked us to go through the left door into one of the patient waiting rooms.
Hmm. That’s odd.
A nurse drew an impromptu blood test. “To check your levels again,” she’d said. We sat and waited. I heard some conversing in the hallway but couldn’t quite make it out. Finally, Dr. Kass opened the door. After exchanging niceties, he got down to business.
“Your white blood cell counts are lower than we’d like, and too low for treatment today, unfortunately,” he said.
I was shocked. I’d done everything asked of me. I felt great. I was strong and healthy. How could my body be too compromised for treatment this early into the process? Everything about chemo is so weird, I’m learning. So unpredictable. Dr. Kass assured us this was merely a bump in the road… “a pit stop in a Formula 1 race,” he said.
I was disappointed but trust him impeccably. So, I shrugged it off as best I could, and moved on.
“Let’s do an exam before you go, though,” he said. “You know… my super scientific measuring method?” he said, grinning under his mask.
I’m developing a gratitude crush on Dr. Kass. He embodies what doctors should be but rarely are: Authentically compassionate, profoundly skilled, and uniquely able to connect on a deeply human level. If you or a loved one ever find yourself in a similar situation, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of searching incessantly for a doctor who fills these needs, who “makes your blood pressure drop, not increase,” as Dr. Kass once said to me early on. Your doctor will make or break your experience. Like a dog to a bone, continue searching until you find the right match. No explanation is needed for those who aren’t a match. When you find him/her, you’ll know.
While Dr. Kass is just as progressive as doctors half his age, he also incorporates a little old-fashioned sensibility that I adore. One example? Measuring tumors with an index card.
He’d told Bob and me early on that he expected the primary tumor to shrink quickly within the first month of chemo, though insurance only offers so many MRIs to measure it with technology. So meanwhile, enter “the index card.”
Right before my first chemo infusion on May 8th, he felt both sides of my primary tumor, then placed an index card next to it and made a few quick lines to show its general size, then folded it in half to show the size visually by the crease in the card. Now, here we were, two weeks later on May 22nd and he pulled out the same card, examined the tumor, and made another set of marks on the card.
“Well, what’s it showing on the index card?” I asked.
Let me digress momentarily to set the scene of my emotions. This quickly, and without fanfare, ballooned into a moment ofimportancet for me. Though rare, some people simply do not respond to chemo. Or their bodies can’t handle the chemo. This was one more of those pivotal mental checkboxes that I had quietly consternated over. And I was about to find out if my worry was true or false. If it had shrunk at all, we could, with a fair amount of confidence, say that we were on the right trajectory and the chemo was working. If it hadn’t shrunk much, the jury was still out.
“It’s half,” he replied.
“Half, as in, half the index card again?” I said. My heart sank. It was still the same size.
“No, it’s shrunk by half,” he said. “More than half, actually.” He showed me the card.
Half the size in two weeks!? I looked at it and nearly burst into tears of joy. Relief.
That wonderful, beautiful little index card.
I hadn’t had the guts to feel it myself since the diagnosis, but now emboldened, I tried to find it. That tumor that once felt the size of a huge cherry tomato was now nearly impossible for me to feel!
Dad and I walked out of that office on Cloud Nine. It was a huge day. A huge win.
*****
Meanwhile, my hair is falling out like crazy. A colossal wad comes out each morning and evening when I brush it with a wide tooth comb. Thankfully, I began with absurdly thick hair, so no drastic measures needed to be taken quickly. Another fortunate blessing is the fact that it seems to be falling out rather evenly.
As you all know, I’ve struggled with the wig topic. We visited a wig shop in Santa Barbara but didn’t find much. And the price tags ($1600+) felt ludicrous – both because nothing we tried was perfect and I was lukewarm on the topic anyway.
Still on a high from our Celebration Monday news, I woke up the next morning to Bob announcing a mapped-out tour of three new wig shops to the north of us. It was such a typical take the bull by the horns move for us to do. I was so grateful for his thoughtful gesture and plan.
We drove to the farthest one first, an hour north of us in Arroyo Grande. It’s a nice drive. I take it frequently when I do photography at Varian Arabians. We had Bob Marley’s “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” blasting as we sipped our oat milk lattes. I felt happy. Optimistic about the day. Plus, I always love checking a good box, and this one – finally figuring out a wig – would be a particularly satisfying one to check.
Pulling into the strip mall, we enthusiastically hop out of the car… only to find a darkened wig shop with locked doors. Did I get their open hours wrong? Nope. Try calling the number. Nothing. Try going next door. They had no idea. Let’s wait here a bit.
Fifteen minutes later, we left as I silently seethed at the maybe/maybe not’s of small towns and their open-ended business hours.
Next stop: Guadalupe. An odd place for a wig shop, I thought.
“Have you ever been to Guadalupe?” I asked Bob.
“Once, I think,” he said. “It’s mostly farming and agriculture.”
I had a bad feeling about it.
Sure enough, we arrive… at a flipping post office. After much deliberation into the cobwebs of their website, we discover that A.) This was their mailing address, not their store address, B.) Their actual shop is online only (didn’t mention this tidbit on the website), and C.) Their actual store is –get this – back up in Arroyo Grande!
I could feel my positivity rapidly waning, and the ridiculous June Gloom (overcast skies from the ocean) gracing us with its early presence in May was doing my poor attitude no favors. By this point, we’d literally been driving all over the Central Coast for four wasted hours.
“Let’s just try the last shop in Santa Maria,” Bob said calmly. He could sense my slipping optimism.
I felt this little nudge inside me. Everything happens for a reason. Nothing is wasted. You are right where you’re supposed to be. This will work out. You’ll see.
I did my best to acknowledge the opportunity, but the heavy grey skies hanging over my head seemed to laugh at my best efforts.
Thirty minutes later, we pulled up to the humble little shop. It wasn’t huge, but it was all we had. The owner, Nora, was cheerful, sweet, and upbeat… a positive ying to my negative yang. We started trying on wigs, one after another. Nothing.
I sat for a second, regrouping my thoughts. My eye kept returning to a platinum blond option. Not too curly, and the right length. Actually, it looks really close to my normal hairstyle when I blow it out. But the platinum blond was too much white against my increasingly pasty skin.
“Do you like that style?” she asked. “It’s a new company we just started carrying… let me see if they have other colors.” She returned a few minutes later with a swatch of hair colors. One appeared to be an exact match. The price tag? $317. Done! Later, she handed me a brochure for an organization called Hats for Hope that offers $200 discounts on wigs for cancer patients.
Long story short, we picked up the wig yesterday. It was perfect. And for a laughable grand total of $117!
I keep thinking back on that nudge in Guadalupe. Everything happens for a reason. Nothing is wasted. You are right where you should be. This will work out.
And it did. And it will. Yet another little reassuring heavenly drop-in that all is well. In my life, and in yours. Be on the lookout for these little reminders. They are plentiful when we have the awareness to see them and trust them.
A few concluding thoughts for the week:
I received three white blood cell boosters this week and should be back on track with chemo next week.
Chemo infusions are being changed from Mondays to Tuesdays going forward. So it will be Celebration Tuesdays!
I know many people are wondering if Henry liked the wig. He did. :)
My energy feels a little lower, I have some bone aches, and my head hurts from my hair falling out. But it is nothing Tylenol and some tea won’t fix. So I’m still doing great.
Thank you so much for all the care packages, juices, cards, Henry playdates, & messages. We are more grateful than words can say.
I have the best girlfriends.
Thank you for your continued love and prayers for our family. I know they were the power behind the index card.
With Love,
Evie
