One chemotherapy down, and the rational approach to keeping my hair where it belongs - attached to my scalp - is working. I’ve done everything right: the short, sharp crop, the no-expense-spared wig, rehearsal runs wearing bandannas, embracing the medically devised cold cap - these actions will forestall hair loss. I know this, because I come from generations of Lithuanian Mitnagdim.
Among us Ashkenazi Jews - we who carry the gene for breast cancer - there is a dividing line: Chassidim versus Mitnagdim. Chassidic Jews cornered the emotional; we Mitnagdim are logicians. I grew up knowing that mine is a Judaism of ultra-rigorous thinking, demanding scepticism. Superstition belongs to the others. So I feel confident my hair will stay put - coming from the stock I do, it’s just using my head. Act like your hair will fall out, and it won’t. Otherwise posited as, “inside every rationalist huddles a wild-eyed amulet-wearer facing cancer”.
Being rational is really helping with everything else, too. For example, I only feel mildly sick until I take the numerous tiny anti-sickness tablets prescribed for three days after the chemotherapy, and then I start to vomit.
It’s a familiar form of sickness, like being pregnant - the sort where you go into the kitchen, take one look at the fridge, and have to walk right out again. Which is the great thing about chicken soup: provided you have the ingredients, all you do is put them in the pot, and it cooks itself. The chicken goes in with my eyes shut, then the swede, the celeriac, the eight carrots, the bay leaf, salt and pepper. By tonight I will have something I want to eat.
That only leaves Anthony’s birthday present to organise. This rapidly descends into farce. Anthony’s family are religious about birthdays, like mine are about rational Judaism. Once I gave him a handmade card and it was nearly second divorces all round.
I don’t have time to get into town, before picking my son up from nursery. That means finding something in Hendon - not exactly destination shopping, unless your loved one wants a bagel for his birthday. Then I see a shop I have never noticed before. “We fit car navigation systems.” It’s perfect. Anthony has a terrible sense of direction, and a new car he really loves. And they can fit it in one day. I phone Anthony to say my car’s acting up, and can I use his tomorrow. Of course, he says, anything.
The birthday. I take the car in for its whizzy navigation system. By 4pm, the chap is phoning with excuses. By five, I realise I’ve made a terrible and very expensive mistake. Thank God I have cancer. Meanwhile, it turns out the little white pills are appetite stimulants as well as sickness suppressants. So, starving and nauseous. Excellent combination. This is where community really kicks in. Food arrives in a steady stream, almost intravenously. Anthony’s old friends, Dennis and Gillian, bring gazpacho so fresh you can taste every vegetable. For three days, I eat nothing else. (As it happens, chicken soup you make with your eyes averted doesn’t taste that good, after all.)
Guests turn up on Anthony’s birthday, more friends for supper, and people again for meals all day Sunday. So many callers have come in with food, I find myself inviting others to share it with abandon. Big mistake. After Anthony and I have cleared away for the 19th time, I’m in bed with every limb trembling.
Next morning, I sit at the table very still. The children make lunches, and Anthony does the school run. All I have to do is interview Robert Winston, who turns out to be both solicitous and a gadget boffin, making me a great coffee for about 10 minutes using a steam engine, I think. He knows all about navigation systems. “They’re not that developed yet,” he says.
Walking to collect my son from nursery, I come back soaked in sweat - still overtired. Back home, I change, and try very hard to look cool, calm and, above all, wholly rational, while I take my son round the corner to continue negotiating with the auto-store about how they will now remove the super-duper in-car navigation system, which has completely mucked up Anthony’s music system and crucial hands-free phone system, from his car.
Previous discussions with the fitter have not gone well. Predictably, the last one ended with me shrieking, and him snapping: “Keep your hair on, lady.” It takes no kind of intellect at all to prefer lying around in hospital, veins coursing with drugs that nuke your cells.
This column appears fortnightly.
18 March 2021: this article has been edited to remove some personal information.
