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Second Comedy Class, Or, Maybe This Was Not Such A Great Idea

Posted in Second Comedy Class, Or, Maybe This Was Not Such A Great Idea, tagged , , , , on May 4, 2012 |

Second Comedy Class, Or, Maybe This Was Not Such A Great Idea

Comedy Coach Tim Ferrell gave the guidelines for how the run-through and feedback session would work after each comic took a turn on stage.  I thought he got the guidelines from a kindergarten poster.  Everyone Gets to Play.  Try New Things.  Give Your Complete Attention.  Don’t Be Mean. Keep Your Hands Off Other People’s Material.  The last one was a biggie.

“If you are considering hacking some material from your favorite comic – don’t.  I know their material.  Even if you move one noun or one verb around, I will know.  So don’t even try.  You have plenty of your own ideas and stories.”

After each comic shared their material, Tim would respond first so we learned to give constructive feedback.  “A laugh is the ultimate feedback for a comic, but what’s really helpful to the comic is understanding why he – or she – got the laugh. Or, why they didn’t. Your job is to be specific.”

The more Tim talked, the more my tummy clenched. The always simmering hot-flash threatened a full flame. The fourth chemo treatment had me on the bathroom floor, so attending class this evening might not have been all that wise. I wrote comedy notes right up until Ramona sat me in the chemo chair, but my funny bone deserted me when the toxins began seeping into my veins.  Tim was receptive when I suggested my stage debut happen next week.  Now I was secretly glad that I was too sick to stand at the mic tonight.

Christine played chauffeur and got me to the club, settling my shaky body into a rickety seat before heading off to chat up our classmates.  She was in her element, asking people about their new material and barely containing her excitement to get up on that stage.

I glanced over at Kim. Flannel clad arms wrapped tight around her chest telegraphed her nerves. Not Christine, though, she practically vibrated off her seat.

The Southern Lawyer Turned New England Mom was first up, since she’d done this before.  She was already refining a great bit about trying to get her kid to eat carrots.  I didn’t have kids, but even I was charmed by the drawn-out Southern drawl imitating a very intent three-year-old.  “I-ahh wee-ill naught eat tha-uht.”  She looked so at ease, it was scary.

Tim kept the positive energy going and called on Christine. “O’Leary, you’re up!” He’d begun using last names with some of the comics and it set up a familiar, insider feel for the group.  It made me feel like I was already a cool-ass comic.

If Christine was glowing before she got on stage, she was now afire.  And she hadn’t said a word.  The Southern Lawyer Turned New England Mom let out a low whistle.  She saw her competition, even though this wasn’t a competition.  But who were we kidding?  We all knew we were comparing ourselves to one another.  Was she funnier than me?  Was he worse?  There was no way to avoid this – and for the first time it occurred to me that putting myself in a stressful, competitive environment may have been a mistake.  Didn’t stress whack out the immune system?

Christine talked through fifteen minutes of material, most of it about being a girlie-girl who likes girls and getting a mani-pedi in a Vietnamese salon.  She wondered what the nail technicians say about the customers when they speak to each other in Vietnamese.  It was rough, but we could see where she was headed.  Tim suggested she shorten the set-ups to one or two lines, but he was clearly psyched with her direction.

“Can you hear the gems?” he asked,  “This is how it works.  You share your rough stuff for the next couple weeks and then we start polishing.”

I made it through Christine’s practice before swaying to the bathroom and throwing up.  When I returned, Tim was telling everyone to lean into their fears.  Apparently, after watching both the Southern Lawyer Turned New England Mom and Christine, the other comics were not as eager to get on stage, afraid of looking stupid.  Tim was having none of it.

“This is about taking risks, looking stupid, and making mistakes.” He laughed. “People, comedy is about pain and suffering.”

I leaned over and whispered to Christine.  “I thought that’s what the fucking cancer was.”

© 2012 Cathy Kidman

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When Steroids and Fears Collide – A Live Storytelling

Posted in When Steroids and Fears Collide, tagged , , , , on April 14, 2012 |

A different kind of post today!  Here’s a link to a story I told at SLANT, which is Portland, Maine’s Moth-like storytelling series.  For those of you who have been reading the blog from the beginning, this story will be familiar.  It’s the story of how I stumbled into stand-up comedy during a steroid-induced mania.  My story starts at 50:12 in the podcast.  I hope you enjoy it. Let me know!

February 10, 2012 SLANT storytelling evening go to 50:12

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Prologue

Posted in Prologue, tagged , , , , , on July 1, 2011 | 3 Comments »

Prologue

Clutching the mike is what new comics do.  It gives the illusion of control.  Not a bad thing to want, standing on a stage and performing stand-up comedy for the first time.  After the opening joke explained away my bald head – “Never piss off your hair stylist” – the audience was in.  I relaxed my grip.  A little.

The club was packed, most of the people there for me. The Mistress of Ceremonies acknowledged this, opening her arms wide in greeting to encompass everyone.  “And now, the person you have all been waiting for!  A closeted social worker who can show you how to use a condom, but prefers not to: Cathy Kidman!”

Hearing my name, I took a long breath and exhaled a quick prayer to the universe. Help me.  I thought about the family, friends, and healthcare professionals who had filled this comedy club to support me.  We had traveled an imperfect path to get here tonight.  I willed myself to hear their loud applause and whistling.  Willed myself to walk confidently, as if I did this everyday, from the back of the dark bar through the tight arrangement of tables and chairs, up onto the stage and into the light.

I saw black, the audience hidden.  Well, at least they could see me.  Seven months ago, that was a question mark. To buy time while my eyes adapted to the glare, I adjusted the microphone and lowered it to my 5’2” height.  Faces in the front began to emerge.  My partner Ramona, my mom and cousins were in the back. From there, they’d be able to give me a full report on the audience response.  I wanted to learn from my hits and misses.

I spotted an aunt and uncle seated with their good friends at the table to my left and felt a moment of warmth.  Then alarm.  What if they didn’t think I was funny?  What if no one did?  The crowd to the right of the stage were strangers in their twenties. Beer bottles covered their tables and the smell drifted up.  They had laughed loudly at the previous comic’s penis jokes.  Too late to second guess my material now.

I leaned into the microphone and said, unplanned, “I am feeling the love.” Laughter greeted me. “We love you too, Cathy!” someone yelled from the back.  I grinned in response and allowed their energy to seep into my bones, anchor my feet.  The audience was still in darkness, but I acted as if I could see each person.  In my head I heard, Take your time. This is your audience now.

“I don’t know how I feel about same-sex marriage,” I announced.  The audience went silent, unsure. “When I was a young lesbian,” I began, and then stopped because their laughter interrupted my flow.  I continued,  “When I was a young lesbian, my lesbian elders taught me that marriage was a form of patriarchal enslavement. Now those same lesbian elders are reading Lesbian Bride Magazine and hiring wedding planners.  It used to be a lesbian had a truck and a dog.  Today it’s a minivan and an adopted daughter from China.”

By the time I was done, I had poked fun at gays in the military, racial profiling, and the belief in Maine that a meal at the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet constitutes a multicultural experience. My five minute set ran for twelve and it felt like two while the audience laughed throughout. Everyone, including me, was a little dazed when I finished.  Then the crowd was on its feet, clapping and whooping.

This was glorious.  This was better than anything I could have imagined.  This was worth every failed practice session, every failed joke, every tear.  This was almost worth ovarian cancer.

© 2011 Cathy Kidman

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The Kindness of Strangers

Posted in The Kindness of Strangers, tagged , , , , on May 3, 2011 | 1 Comment »

The Kindness of Strangers

Betsy’s first words to me: “How’s the constipation?”

I instantly knew she understood. Chemo, hair loss, fatigue, nausea – these were the usual things people talked about with those of us who had cancer.  Not shit. Not lack of it.  Not the immobilizing, bloated, out of control, backed up, doubled-over painful, I’d-give-anything-ANYTHING-just-for-a-real-poop existence.  But Betsy was up for it. I loved her. I hardly knew her.

We met the previous year.  Betsy was a manager for a community action agency, a member of a coalition that hired me to facilitate several meetings.  After the first meeting began, Betsy walked into the conference room, her head in a scarf, telegraphing chemo to all attendees.

“I just finished a treatment. Sorry I’m late.”  I was the only one surprised.  She was talkative, present, unfazed.  I found myself staring at her, then not.  Then doing it again.

As people filed out of the meeting, Betsy introduced herself to me and apologized again for arriving late.  I asked and she told me, “Breast cancer.”  We talked briefly and that was that.

I received many, many well-wishing cards when the news of my diagnosis spread.  Some were funny, some inspirational.  Betsy’s card said, Call me, if you want. Here’s my number.  When I received it, I thought, that’s really thoughtful.  And then set it aside, in the pile next to the couch. I had lots of friends. I wouldn’t be reaching out to a stranger.

A couple of months into my treatment, when I was feeling every bit as down about having cancer as the brochures in the doctors’ office waiting rooms predicted I would, I grabbed the pile of cards seeking the inspiration and encouragement they were meant to convey.  I got to Betsy’s and stopped, realizing I was lonely in a place I hadn’t known I was hurting. It turned out, I didn’t have that many friends who understood cancer.  And I hadn’t believed I would get this down or get this lonely.  I thought I was protected by my years of therapy, years of moving through my dark places already.  Sure, I struggled with depression, but I had a spiritual base.  I had prayer and meditation and friends and a gratitude for today.

None of which protected me from the impotence of constipation.  After an abdominal surgery, everyone checks to make sure the bowels are working.  Each person who entered my hospital room – doctor, nurse, Ramona, family member, visitor – expressed preoccupation with my bowels.

“Have you passed gas yet?” they asked.

Mortification ebbed to numb acceptance of my exposure as I lay in bed, waiting, waiting, to pass gas.  I could not go home until I could answer yes to the gas question.  But the bowels were not moving. No gas came.  My first bout of constipation had set in.

The surgery had caused “adhesions,” some kind of internal scarring, complicating the normal course of recovery.  By day four, I was crying out for a doctor, sobbing from a pain worse than the surgery.  Ramona could only pace the room, undone by my distress, as I lay on my side, yearning to crawl into a fetal position and cradle my wounded self.  A resident showed up, talked to me through the side rail of my bed, meeting my eyes.  “If I give you a pain killer, it will cause more constipation. I know this hurts, but we have to wait it out.” I looked at his young face and thought, there is no “we” right now.

There was no “we” as the adhesions collided with the cumulative effects of my treatment regimen.  Every chemotherapy treatment resulted in constipation.  Every pill prescribed to alleviate the side effects of chemotherapy caused constipation.  I became crazed waging an anti-constipation war.   Senna, Mylax, Fiber One, bran, prunes, Colace.  I returned to drinking caffeinated coffee, placing faith in caffeine’s ability to move bowels. I drank more water than I thought I could hold.  My bathroom became a ready room.

I will not discuss what happened when my efforts were successful.

Constipation-induced depression had humbled me.  I dialed Betsy’s number and stepped into connection with someone outside my circle, someone in the know, someone who understood powerlessness. How’s the constipation?  Betsy wasn’t looking for the plucky cancer survivor response and I didn’t give it.

“Oh, thank you for asking!” I laughed, before downloading my despair.

© 2011 Cathy Kidman

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Lord of the Rings

Posted in Lord of the Rings, tagged , , , on October 19, 2010 | 4 Comments »

Lord of the Rings

Eight-year-old Tim stares up at me, blue eyes bugging out of his head.  What are you doing here, my nephew is thinking.  It is the middle of the school day, a teacher has pulled him out of recess, and I am standing in the hallway.  I am also hairless, which is just plain weird for both of us.  As his gaze takes in my hat and searches my bloated face, I briefly wonder if this was such a great idea.

“Do the words ‘Lord of the Rings: Return of the King‘ mean anything to you?”  I ask with blustery grand confidence.  The movie has been out since Christmas and he has been begging to go, but until now I haven’t been well enough.

“Are we really going?!  Just you and me?”

“Uh huh.  Right now.  Dude, you are getting sprung.”

“What about Matt? Shouldn’t we go get him?” Tim’s words end on an I-hope-not note.

Matt is Tim’s younger brother by fifteen months, of whom he is both protective and disdainful.  Matt is close enough in age to always be around, but sometimes one-year-too-young for something fun.  Like today.

“Nope.  You, my friend, are it.”

“We gotta get my stuff!”

Recess abandoned, Tim heads to the classroom where his school gear is stored.  We find his teacher cleaning the room for the post-recess crowd.

“Hey Mrs. D,  I’m going to the movies.  This is my Auntie Cathy.  She’s been taking some medicine that makes her sick and made all her hair fall out.”  Tim’s words are rushing out and he is half whispering, as if he’s trying to ease me into the room while explaining to his teacher why his aunt is bald.  I smile awkwardly at Mrs. D.  She returns the same.  We watch Tim gather his backpack and papers. We think he has completed his courtesy.  “And she had a surgery that cut her up from below the belly button to above it. Then there were staples holding it together and it looks like a zipper.  Auntie Cathy, why don’t you lift up your shirt and show her?”

My nonexistent eyebrows raise.  Laughing, I decline the suggestion.  I look at Mrs. D.  She is not laughing, her face pained.  “I’m sorry,” she says.

I decide not to bore her with details or to let Tim know that the zipper has been replaced by a bandaged wound.  “I’m good, great prognosis,” I assure her. “I’ll be fine. We’re going to the movies.”

Tim hikes his backpack over his little man shoulders and marches out the door, headed to the parking lot.  I try to keep up.  When we settle into the car,  I peek at him through the rearview mirror as he buckles up in the backseat.  Weepy well-being washes up from my toes, a lump clogs my throat.  I sniffle discreetly.

In the movie theater, four other patrons sit in middle rows.  Tim makes like a rocket for the last row of the stadium seats.  I dutifully follow.  We get comfortable, lots of over-priced candy between us. The lights dim. Tim leans over, says with quiet pride, “Now you don’t have to be embarrassed about your head.  Nobody can see you back here.”

Nobody can see us, I think, but don’t say.  We are both figuring out this new bald auntie gig. He wants to protect me, I want to protect him.  I sniffle again.

Then the movie starts, a big screen story with fantastic creatures and epic battles.  We munch our candy, Tim offering up prized sour gummy worms, and we get lost for a few blissful hours in someone else’s world.  I sneak occasional glances at Tim, enjoying the movie through his expressions. This really was a good idea.

© 2010 Cathy Kidman

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Beyond Basic

Posted in Beyond Basic, tagged , , , on August 15, 2010 | 3 Comments »

Beyond Basic

When we bought our oversized, many pillowed couch – the couch I now spend my recovery days on – the furniture saleswoman described it as “aubergine,” a fancy name for eggplant and an even fancier name for purple. A visitor has yet to enter our home and comment, “What a lovely aubergine couch you have there.”  They’ve said things like, “Purple is such a strong color – it’s great you girls aren’t afraid of color.”  Or, “Well, purple is the new neutral.” Lately, “Purple is the color of healing.”

This morning, Ramona perches between my hip and the edge of the couch, careful not to jog my abdomen.  She adjusts my blanket, tucks me in.  She is looking mighty serious.  I assume she wants to check to make sure I will be okay, lying here all alone, healing and contemplating issues of illness and mortality while she heads off to the gym.

“Cath, I think it’s time we get the enhanced cable package”.

Ramona misinterprets my silence and rushes on, “Don’t decide yet, but I’ve been thinking.” She gestures to the couch. “You’re going to be here for awhile, you know, home, and I think you’ll want to watch more TV.  The basic package just won’t cut it.”

I want to laugh, but she is so earnest I go with it.  “Wow.  This is a big step for us.  We only installed basic cable to get reception. Are you sure you want this? You know, once we move beyond basic, there’s no going back. People don’t go back.”

“Oh no,” Ramona assures me. “When your treatments are over, we’ll go right back to the basic package. We don’t need that much TV.  You won’t be stuck on this couch forever. This is just for you, just for now.”

The following week, cable arrives.  It’s true. The multiple channels are indeed a savior during my treatments. For Ramona. The enhanced package offers viewing options I never dreamed of:  ESPN, ESPN2, Fox Sports, a fishing and hunting channel, an outdoor channel, golf… Every sport that can be caught on tape can be viewed through the enhanced package.  This includes sports that I don’t think of as sports, like NASCAR and poker.  I’m spared NASCAR, but in the absence of a sport that involves some form of round ball, Ramona will watch poker.

Sports do for Ramona what reality TV shows do for me: provide a break from reality. While I was in the hospital after the surgery, college football championship games filled the week. Waking between naps, I would find Ramona in the chair next to me, eyes on the television high above the bed.

“Hi sweetie.”

“Hi hunny bunny. How was your sleep?”

“Good. What’s the score?”

I had no idea which Fiesta-Orange-Oreos-Cheetos-Banana-Bowl Game it was, nor did I care.  Our “what’s the score” call and response connecting us over something besides the surgery, besides the fear of what my prognosis might be. Later, Ramona told me she couldn’t remember a single game.  It was all one blur of testosterone, blocking out the surgery.

A few weeks into chemotherapy treatments, I shuffle downstairs in my flannel pajamas to find Ramona watching the television, curled up in the big chair that matches the so-called healing couch, a cup of coffee in hand and a contented smile on her face.  I turn to the screen, expecting a morning game of poker or perhaps some Sunday morning fishing.  It’s too early for what I am seeing.  A professional basketball game is in progress,  green and white uniforms running next to purple and yellow.  I think for a second.

“Ramona, isn’t that Larry Bird? And Magic Johnson? Isn’t this a Celtics-Lakers game from, like, a hundred years ago?”

Ramona’s smile gets wider.  She beams. “Yeahhh. It is. Championship.” Happy sigh. “ESPN Classic.” She settles deeper into the cushions, the replayed game only in its first quarter.

Basic is history. There will be no going back.

© 2010 Cathy Kidman

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New Clinical Diagnosis

Posted in New Clinical Diagnosis, tagged , , , on July 23, 2010 | 3 Comments »

A New Clinical Diagnosis

There really are no hairs on my head.  Every hour the bathroom mirror confirms this.  My scalp is shiny smooth.  Vanity brutally surrendered.

When I graduated from college, a fellow student gave me a new hairdryer.  “You must have worn the other one out by now.”  My hair obsession was a community joke.  Friends laughed at the hours in front of the mirror, hairspray and blowdryer wielded in combat against short, mousy brown strands.  Each morning an anxious battle was fought.  Humorous to my friends.  Disabling for me. One hair out of place resulted in paralysis.  If my hair wasn’t perfect, I couldn’t be competent. If I couldn’t be competent, I couldn’t be good enough. If I couldn’t be good enough, why leave the dorm?

On the mornings my hair and I reached a stand off, emergency barrettes, bandanas, clips, or headbands were applied while I recited anemic self affirmations into the mirror. “My hair does not define me.  My hair does not define me.”

A career that paid for good cuts and expensive color did not bring salvation. My moods continued to be dictated by the exact wispiness of my hair; Ramona’s patience tested by frequent emotional breakdowns.  I often arrived late for appointments, work, or meetings.

“We were just talking about you!” a colleague exclaimed as I walked in late to another meeting.   “About what?” I asked, thinking it had something to do with the agenda.

“Your hair!” she grinned. “I was telling everyone that when I was up in Augusta talking with the Commissioner of Mental Health, she and I discussed how your hair always looks great.  The Commissioner asked, ‘How does Cathy get it to do that?’ I told her, ‘I have no idea.’  How do you get it to do that?”

The others chimed in, echoing hair compliments. I smiled, stammered some comment about product and a good hair stylist while in the back of my head, mortification burned. They are discussing my hair. My hair takes up too much of my life.

I confessed to Vicky, my therapist, “I can’t function unless every strand is in place.”

She was bemused.  “How often do you check your hair?”

“All the time.”

“Give me an example.”

“In the house, every time I go near a mirror.  At least every half hour.  When I’m in the car, every stop sign, stop light, intersection or road construction delay.  When the bridge is up, that’s an extra bonus.  Hairspray, I keep on the passenger seat.  Walking down the street, I check at each window reflection.  When I had an office, I kept a blowdryer in the file drawer…”

“I get it.” Though I detected a small sparkle in her eyes as she ruminated, Vicky observed me with slightly less amusement, my hair paranoia more extreme than she had assumed. “Hmm…curious…interesting.  You know, this is similar to patients I treat with eating disorders. They struggle with distorted, out of proportion body images.  It’s called ‘body dysmorphia.’  They are so preoccupied with an imagined fault that it results in decreased social, academic or occupational functioning.”

A prickling sensation moves from my toes to the top of my head.  It’s the feeling I get when a truth is around the corner.

“Cathy,” Vicky leaned forward, hands outstretched in the universal therapist-about-to-impart-diagnosis manner, “you distort hair.”  She smiled, her eyes telegraphing with a solid warmth that I was not a freak, just, perhaps, a hair freak.  “You’re ‘hair dysmorphic,” she pronounced.

I sat with this. Absorbed the parallels. In the light of day, it was all a bit ridiculous.

“Vicky, oh my God, this is a new diagnosis!  We can write a book.  Go on talk shows together!  Do the Today Show!”

We laughed.  Joked about an interview with Ann Curry, on whom I had a crush.

An era of peace with my hair seemed possible.

© 2010 Cathy Kidman

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Preparation

Posted in Preparation, tagged , , , , on July 5, 2010 | 2 Comments »

Preparation

Wigs are a nonstarter.  Acute surgical menopause hit almost the moment my ovaries departed and the thought of a wig on my scalp, perspiration from a raging hot flash pooling underneath, turns my insides queasy while my fingernails reach up to scratch phantom itches.  It’s been six days since the first chemo treatment and fall out is imminent.  I pull at my hair constantly, tugging the roots, wondering if the next pull will drop soft tufts of dyed blonde between my fingers.

Ramona and I visit Sally’s Beauty Supply to pick up an electric shaver.  There will be times, especially during hot flashes, when nothing will be hiding my scalp or my illness. I will be bald. I am haunted by television images of St. Jude’s cancer children, strands of hair across their tiny scalps, and those women who comb over the stubborn wisps that refuse to fall out.  What I see: Gollum from Lord of the Rings.  “My precious, my precious.”

We prowl department stores searching for promising scarves, wrapping them around my head in front of full length department store mirrors.  I lack the ability to make the scarf look effortless, unlike the triad of Somali teenage girls in Burlington Coat Factory, their own hair beautifully covered.  They make several not-so-discreet passes to observe us before moving, giggling, into the hand bag section.  Ramona and I know we are on the exact wrong path. White Girl Does Bad Ethnic.  We dissolve into laughter, Ramona wiping tears from her eyes, her first belly laugh in weeks.

Wigs out, scarves out, we try hats.  A store in the weathered arts district of Portland, Queen of Hats, is a winner.  Triumphant, I score a black, frumpy but classy cotton hat, wide satin-ribbon detailing around the two-inch floppy brim.   I also purchase one black crushable soft turban for home wear only, because I already know that Turban = Chemo and I’d rather just be straight up and bald about it.

Next is the Life is Good Store.  Here, we load up.  I believe in the power of positive thinking. A blue fleece ski cap, a black fleece soft pill box, and a red baseball cap.  Three long sleeve tee shirts (in colors that will bring attention to my eyes rather than my bald head), two coffee mugs, and two stickers (one for my car, one for Ramona’s truck) accompany the hat purchases.  Each Life is Good item asserting my resolve.

The store clerk throws a couple of Life is Good stress balls into my bag as a gift, “You might want these.”  She tells us she talks with people everyday who are buying hats and shirts for sick relatives and friends, or,  like me, for themselves.  The week before, a businessman came in whose wife was diagnosed with late stage, terminal cancer.  He wandered around the store, touching various shirts and hats, weeping.  She closed the store.  The two of them chose items for his wife while he talked.  They sat on the floor for an hour.  Ramona and I wipe tears as we leave, clutching our shopping bags.

We have one more store to hit. The chemo center nurse suggested I purchase a specific shampoo for my scalp, which seemed a bit crazy but I listened anyway.  The pores on my scalp may become irritated and sore during chemo and this shampoo will calm my skin, keeping the follicles healthy for optimal hair regrowth. I will do anything to ensure my hair returns, so Ramona and I go in search of the specialty shop that sells items specifically for women with cancer.  We find it in a worn-out building along an ugly stretch of a commercial street, next to a gun and taxidermy shop.  Inside, prosthetic bras (or are they breasts?) hang from the walls.  Behind glass cases, mannequin heads display wigs.  Various products, including the shampoo, are dispersed among plastic and silk craft store flowers. The woman behind the counter is talking nonstop at a turban-clad customer about why she started the business. This shop is her personal mission in life. When it is our turn, I don’t make direct eye contact, ask for the shampoo, pay for it, and leave.

Errands complete, we meet Cara, my hairstylist and friend.  Just two weeks ago I wrote the check for my bi-monthly cut and color, but now she is here in my home on a  preventative mission of mercy.  She stands in the kitchen, chatting away like this is any other hair cut in our fifteen year relationship, and chops my hair to a crew cut length.  When my hair falls out, it will fall in clumps.  My mind numbs at the idea of long clumps of blonde hair passing through my fingers or lying on my pillow or swirling around the bathtub drain.  Shorter hair will be easier to remove.

© 2010 Cathy Kidman

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Inside Job

Posted in Inside Job, tagged , , , , on June 16, 2010 | 4 Comments »

Inside Job

Ten days after the surgery, six days after returning home from the hospital, and one day after the zipper of staples spanning my abdomen from the pelvis to above and around the belly button is removed, the incision bursts open.

Rolling off my bed, one hand protecting my tender, zipper-free abdomen, I notice something not-quite-blood seeping through today’s “Life is Good” tee shirt.  Lifting the shirt reveals a watery, pinkish-orange substance gushing from my now open scar.  The fluid looks familiar, but I can’t place it.

“RAMONA!  RAMONA! PLEASE COME UPSTAIRS NOW!”

Ramona is on the run.  A hard clatter in the kitchen informs me that our dinner has been dropped on the counter.  I hope she was careful.  Our friend Layne left us wild rice salmon cakes with a wasabi sauce.  I have been obsessing about them all afternoon.

Ramona is up the stairs and by my side in seconds. “What!? What!?”

“Look!” I point to the leaking incision.

“Oh my.  What the hell is that?”

“I don’t know. Blood?  It doesn’t look like blood.” Ramona nods in agreement. “This shouldn’t be happening, right?  Did they tell us this would happen?”  I am seeking reassurance.

“No.  This should not be happening and no, they did not mention this.”

A familiar loud knocking signals the unexpected arrival of our immediate next door neighbor, Skeek.

“COME IN!” We both call.

“HelLO NEIGHBORS!” Her standard greeting.

“SKEEK!  SKEEK!” We yell. “COME UPSTAIRS!”

I show Skeek my belly while Ramona gets a towel to clean me up and staunch the fluid.

“Oh my.  What is that?  It looks like tomato soup.”

“That’s what it looks like!” I’m calming down.  I don’t seem to be dying or bleeding out.  The fluid has slowed.

“Have you called the doctor yet?”

“Not yet.  You came just as we noticed it.”

Ramona calls the doctor, but it’s after office hours on a Friday night and we have to wait for the on-call physician to call back.  Skeek goes next door to retrieve our neighbor on the other side of our house.  Mary’s a nurse.  She focuses on brain injury, but we believe she will know enough about blood and guts to be helpful.

Mary arrives, examines, and pronounces, “It’s serosanguineous fluid. Not fatal, no worries.  But you will probably have to go to the emergency room.”

I guessed as much, but I am still deflated.  The on-call physician tells Ramona the same thing. The clock says 6:00 pm.  I consider the length of time we are about to spend in the emergency room.  Decide it’s dinner time.

“Ramona, let’s have dinner. You guys want to join us?”

Skeek and Mary decline our invitation, probably dissuaded by the idea of eating next to an oozing wound, although Skeek does eye the salmon cakes with undisguised envy.

Ramona warms our dinner in the microwave and we eat standing up in the kitchen, a towel between my abdominal wrap and the now wide open incision. The wild rice salmon cakes with wasabi sauce are as yummy as I thought they would be.

In the emergency room, we are not an emergency.  It’s still early on a Friday night, but it’s still Friday night.  I’m glad we ate.  How do you make a wasabi sauce, I wonder, as the emergency room fills up around us with a few drunks and a mix of families with children in varying degrees of distress.  “I bet no one here but us,” I comment to Ramona, “has ever had wild rice salmon cakes with wasabi sauce. We are so lucky.”  She pats my hand.

When the doctor examines me (after I am probed, questioned and pondered over by several nurses and one earnest resident, all of whom are mildly amused by my tomato soup description and a few who ask for the wild rice salmon cake recipe), I learn they can’t “just sew me back up” as I had requested.  Had the incision held, the doctor explains, it would have all healed together but now the healing will have to go layer by layer, from the bottom up.  I don’t ask what layer is what layer, like I am thinking, because the concept is grossing me out.  She tells me, “Basically, you will have to heal from the inside out.”

Healing from the inside out will require twice daily cleaning, which necessitates the twice daily scheduled appearance of a visiting nurse in my home.  The  hospital arranges for visits to begin the next day.  I am also informed that due to the upcoming chemotherapy regimen, I should expect the healing from the inside out to take longer.  Longer than what, I ask.  Longer than it should, I am told.  But don’t worry, it will heal.  Just keep it clean.

After a month of visits by nurses, Ramona takes over the cleaning routine. In the morning and in the evening, I gather the cleaning kit, lie on the couch and remove the bandages. Ramona leans over my belly with a focused frown, saline solution and sterile gauze in hand.  She inspects, cleans, re-packs and re-bandages.  An iron intimacy is forged.  We rarely talk during the cleaning.  Occasionally, I ask, “What does it look like?”  “Pink. Better,” she always responds.

Except “better” is deceiving.  Just when we think the incision has healed, binding my abdomen with a tenuous red line, another small rupture reveals the unhealed layers beneath the skin.

Tiny fragments of clear fishing line, with just a hint of tomato soup, begin emerging from the holes.  I call my doctor.  I get his nursing assistant.

“There is fishing line coming out of my belly. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t there before the surgery.”

“No worries. Those are sutures, dissolving.”

Or not completely dissolving, as it turns out, and the remnants are working their way up and out from some unnamed layer I hadn’t known had been sewn.

Ramona doubts herself.  She has been vigilant, despite conflicting directions.  One camp (the doctor) wants the wound packed tight with gauze.  The other camp (every visiting nurse) is firm in the loose pack methodology.  How can it heal from the inside out if there is no space for the healing? Ramona yields to the nurses, says she can see the difference in healing and, besides, nurses are the ones who tend wounds everyday.

I am doubting myself, too. I am careful with showers, bathing. What are we doing wrong?  Why is my body rejecting the suture threads?  Once a week a visiting nurse checks the wound, inspects Ramona’s work.  Each week she assures us we are doing things right. This happens with other patients.  She repeats that chemo interferes with healing.  She repeats that we need to be patient, not to worry.  Continue the twice daily cleaning.

Nine months of striving not to worry will pass before the inside layers fill in and my abdominal wound closes for good.  In the end, what remains is a thick, red, eight-inch scar stretching up from my pelvis, curving around the place where there used to one belly button but now there are three.  Sometimes I can’t remember which is the original.

© 2010 Cathy Kidman


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Afternoon Shift

Posted in Afternoon Shift, tagged , , , on June 3, 2010 | 3 Comments »

Afternoon Shift

When I wake up again, Ramona has gone to the gym and Mom is reading in the hospital armchair next to my head.  The afternoon shift.  A florist bouquet of gerber daisies has appeared on the bedside table.

“Hi, Mom,” I smile.  “Thanks for the flowers.”

My mom’s face, which had softened at my wakening, freezes.  Her lips form a disapproving thin line.

“They are from Martita,” she states, annoyed.

Martita is my Dad’s second post-separation girlfriend, the almost age appropriate one. The first post-separation girlfriend is younger than my brother and me, and has a daughter.  I don’t know how my brother Bruce responded, but my fingers were dialing a therapist and I heard myself say, “My dad is involved with a woman younger than me and it’s freaking me out.”

Occasionally, I consider organizing a conference for adult daughters of divorcing parents.  I’d offer a workshop on the “Do’s and Don’ts for Daughters of Dads on the Prowl.”  Mainly, “Don’ts”.

  1. Don’t suggest or allow your Dad to move in with you when he has no place to go.
  2. Don’t stay up waiting for your Dad to return home, even if he is usually in bed by 8:00 p.m. and it is now 3:00 a.m. and he hasn’t called.
  3. Don’t encourage or allow your dad to talk about his date or how young she (or he) makes him feel.
  4. Don’t provide meals.
  5. Don’t ask, “Have you told Mom?”
  6. Don’t, under any circumstances, get in the middle (see 5.), no matter if you already are in the middle and it is excruciatingly uncomfortable to have information about your Dad that your Mom does not.
  7. Don’t tell your siblings anything about your Dad’s dates; they will tell your Mom. Count on it.  (See 6.).

The conference would be held at a luxurious spa venue in Santa Fe or Palm Springs.  Daughters would share stories while technicians minimized crows feet and emerging age spots.  We’d return home feeling mildly righteous and rejuvenated.

The first girlfriend didn’t work out. Dad tells me that “she did the math” and realized he would get older and she would still be younger. Much younger.

In her fifties, Martita is pleasant and a Peruvian hottie.  She has three sons, mostly in my age range. At the time of my surgery, I had met her twice.  A thin claim to a relationship to warrant a florist bouquet, according to my mother.

Martita’s flowers, now my flowers, sit between us and we pretend they don’t.

© 2010 Cathy Kidman

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