Better Off Bald

“Wow. It looks great. How bold,” he says as he gestures toward her head. “I love that you shaved your head. What made you decide to do it?”

Adrienne looks the bus boy in the eye. “I have cancer.”

Today was honestly one of the best days of my life. I cannot describe in words how incredible of a person you are. I have never before met someone who was so wise, down to earth, intelligent, talented, and humorous. Throughout most of my childhood, you were that one string of hope that held me together after years of abuse from my mother. I do feel strange telling you that to me you are a dear friend.

Still flushed with excitement, Adrienne greets him by exclaiming in a singsong voice. “DAVE Navarro KNOWS who I am! DAVE Navarro KNOWS who I am!”

Not missing a beat, Dr. Fenn mimics her tone. “WHO is DAVE Navarro?”

Adrienne bursts into giggles and explains the phone call, her wish, and meeting Dave Navarro.

Until I see a drop of water fall on the keyboard, I don’t even realize I am crying. I touch my face. it is soaked. As the printer churns out each page, each person who had stage IV liver cancer and survived, I weep. Hope floods back into my body, and I welcome it because I need it the way our mother needs her drugs, the way some people need a god. I feel reborn as the papers pile up in the printer feeder; my faith restored by UFT, a miracle drug doctors cannot yet explain.

I kinda brought this upon myself. A lot of stuff happened in my early youth, and I repressed it for years and I think that’s what caused it (cancer) for some reason. I just have a gut feeling about it. I’ve been going through a breakdown now, because I’m trying to let go of everything that happened and forgive the people that caused it. I don’t think the chemo is doing its job; so I’m turning to anything I can to start healing.

Who will go with me to the Topanga Canyon haunted house on Halloween? Who will stain the entire bathroom blue with hair dye? Who will argue with me I have seen that episode of Law & Order when I think I haven’t, but she is always right? Who will ask me to proofread her paper so “it’s perfect because I need a 4.0 to get into a good college”? Who will insist I watch the USC vs. UCLA football game with her because “you should have school spirit” even though we don’t like the sport? Who will test me on music I don’t even listen to and expect me to know all of the answers and then roll her eyes when I don’t?

When Adrienne exits her bedroom, I gasp. She appears … so ethereal with her blue Monarch butterfly wings and blue bobbed wig Marilyn bought for her. I’m looking at a blue fairy from another world. Adrienne is also wearing her brand new blue tie-dyed shirt from Ross along with a blue scarf tied around her neck. On another person, so many shades of blue would be overwhelming, but Adrienne manages to pull off the monochromatic style.

I picture us sitting in a car at an intersection in the middle of the night. The world feels empty like right after a storm ends. The darkness presses down on us, and we see only a red stoplight blinking: on, off, on, off, on, off. We can’t turn the car around and go back where we were, but we can’t seem to move forward either. The red light taunts us: stop, go, stop, go, stop, go. But we remain stuck. I crack the window for fresh air.

Adrienne has the pleasure of meeting Nurse Bitchy before I do. I step out to use the restroom down the hall since parents are not allowed to use the one in the patient’s room. During the five minutes I am gone, Nurse Bitchy walks into Adrienne’s room and takes away her oxygen mask.

Like the California wildfires, there are so many hot spots in Adrienne’s body right now; the doctors don’t know which one should be treated first. They are focused on what happened over the weekend, and now there’s the orange pee, the funky rash, and the constant nausea.