Chapter 5: Hats and Silver Linings

Look at this as an opportunity to get new hats.

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From: Laura
Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 2:03 PM
To: Jennifer
Subject: Hats

Dearest Jen,

Where do I begin to tell the story about the hats? (Love Story music in background.)

Maybe I should start with the diagnosis of cancer, when I realized that I should look upon this not as losing my hair but as an opportunity to buy new hats. And then maybe I'll skip to the point where Emma & I went on-line to look up hats, and found the most beautiful hats I'd ever seen, made by a woman named Christine A. Moore. When I looked up her website, I found she has a studio in New York. She answered my phone call herself. “Christine?” I asked. “Yes?” she replied. “My name is Laura,” I explained. “I’d like to come and see your beautiful hats.” She said, "Are you a buyer for a store?" I told her that I’m a doctor in a cancer hospital who just became a cancer patient, and if I wear her hats and look fabulous, she will sell a lot of hats. She inquired, "What time would you like to come in?" We arranged it for today at 10 am. Just in time. My 47th birthday is tomorrow, the day my beautiful Emma is going on a class trip to Paris.

Yesterday I called Christine to confirm. Her address was near Macy’s on the West Side. Although I had a tough time with the intrathecal chemo yesterday, I slept better last night than I have in a long time. I fell asleep around 10:30, and woke up as usual between 2 and 3 am, but I listened to Carole King’s “Music,” which struck me as incredibly rich and melodious. I fell back asleep until after 7. Then I got up, showered, and was ready when Emma awoke.

Emma was wearing a grey and white striped shirt and ripped jeans. I had on a skirt and blue shirt, and wore a brown hat we picked up at Bloomingdale's last week. We buzzed for a cab and our favorite car service driver, Mischa, was there. He’s a Russian immigrant who enjoys practicing his English—every time we drive with him he has incorporated some new big word into his vocabulary. He drove us to Christine's.

We took the small elevator up, and there were white halls with white doors, each one a different place of business. When we knocked on Christine’s door, a young woman answered who said she was Christine's assistant. Jen, the place was perfect. Her studio was small, about the size of the first office I ever had at the hospital, with hardwood floors and white walls. All around us were a million wall hooks and hat stands, and every available space was covered with hats. There were all the hats I had seen on line and even a few more hats that are for her new spring collection. The hats were in every color of the rainbow, in every possible style and a million different fabrics. I said to Emma, "Oh, Emma, we've come to the right place."

Christine entered. She was about my age, long dark straight hair, tall, nice smile. She told us that she was inspired to go into the hat business by her love for the theater when she was young. Christine also said that people talk to people who wear hats. I said, "That's good, because I want people to talk to me!" and she said "Me too!" We turned our full attention to the hats.

I tried on hat after hat. I had studied the hats online and knew a lot of their names, which impressed Christine. I tried on some of the hats I recognized and others that I hadn’t seen. The hats differed in the crown (shape of the top), material (straw or fabric, including silk, cotton, a fine weave, satin, or a sort of rain-proof material), brim size (small, medium, large), brim direction (neutral, up, or down), and trim (band, bow, flowers, feathers, combination, or none). Some hats sat higher on the head than others; after I lose my hair, the ones that sit lower will be better.

I tried on the Easy and the Davenport and the Roz and the Natasha and the Reese Paisley and the Lucy and the Ruby and the Butterfly, and some cotton hats whose names I don't remember, and the Lachlan and I don't even know what else. Turquoise and rust and brown and black and tan and white and pink and gray. Across the room, I spotted a hat in a beautiful shade of purple with a big flower. I had to get that one. I said to Christine, “With a hat like that, I have to win.”

By the end, I had ordered 15 hats! After we paid, Christine asked if she should ship them, and I said yes. She's shipping them on Monday; they should arrive on Tuesday. When Emma is in Paris on Tuesday, she will know that somewhere in New York I am getting a huge delivery of beautiful birthday hats in huge white hat boxes tied up with big yellow satin ribbons.

At the end, I gave Christine a big hug and she asked me what kind of cancer I have. I told her it was lymphoma. She asked how far along I was in the treatment. I replied that I'd had neurosurgery already, and had received three of 18 chemo treatments.

I got the hats for a lot of reasons. I did it because I like to look for silver linings. I did it to teach Emma that even when life is hard, you can do things to make it better. I did it because it gave me something wonderful to think about for the past few days as I started chemo. And I did it because it will help me beat this. Because honestly, Jen, how can I lose the battle with cancer if I'm wearing a hat like that?

Love
Laura

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From: Laura
Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 3:19 PM
To: Cindy
Subject: Balloons!

Hi Cindy and "Breast Friends" (Cindy, can you forward this to all co-conspirators?)!

I'm writing to thank you for the incredible bunch of pink balloons that you sent. I have never seen so many balloons in one place. They are a fabulously happy birthday present, and will be even more therapeutic than the chemo. Thanks!

Love
Laura

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From: Laura
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2007 4:23 AM
To: Jennifer
Subject: Birthday balloons

Hi Jen. Happy birthday to me! Yesterday after Emma and I got home from the hat shopping, we were resting in the family room and the doorman buzzed, and came up with a huge bouquet of balloons in different shades of pink, all helium-filled, with long twisty pink ribbons that came together tied to a weight with a pretty bow at the bottom. The balloons (which were from the "Balloon Salloon," I kid you not) could barely fit through our front door! The gift was from Cindy and the other breast folks. They had wanted to throw me a party on Monday but I wasn’t up for it—the balloons were the perfect birthday gift. Emma and I laughed, and even the boys laughed about it when they got home.

Emma is going to Paris today for spring break, and David has been working hard to get everything ready for her. He also had to do our taxes, and is dealing with legal stuff for us. The kids were both out for awhile last night with friends, so David and I had a little time together. We sat and listened to Bill Evans and made a list of things to do, and then we curled up to watch the Hitchcock movie with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, To Catch a Thief.

Keep writing. What music are you playing now?

Love
Laura

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From: Laura
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2007 9:38 PM
To: Jennifer
Subject: Birthday

Hi Jen. Thanks for the wonderful Blue Mountain birthday card! And that’s terrific that you’re working on the Bach Suites for Unaccompanied Cello. I have a recording of Yo Yo Ma playing them on my iPod, and it’s one of my favorites—especially the first part (prelude) of Suite 1 in G Major.

I had a fabulous 47th birthday. I went back to sleep after I wrote to you, and I felt good when I woke up. It was beautiful here, sunny and just a little cool. Emma woke up first. I snuggled with her in bed and she told me about a party she went to with her friends last night. David woke up and we awakened Nate, who likes to be at the soup kitchen where he volunteers by 10 am. We all had breakfast together—David made scrambled eggs and home fries. Thank God Emma inherited her cooking talent from David, not from me. When we were in college, I was a better cook than David, but then he met a guy in his medical school class who was a gourmet chef on the side and taught David everything he knew.

Today, to celebrate my birthday, we separated the pink balloons from their attached weight so that the balloons could fly all over the apartment. We played an impromptu game of balloon volley ball, and David and the kids let me win, because I’m the birthday girl. Emma tied four balloons to the glass at the top of the walls on our terrace. They look festive, especially since it's a little windy and the balloons are dancing in the breeze.

The family did the traditional "Showering of the birthday person with gifts," in which the rest of the family practically trips over each other to keep a secret of the wrapping of presents and the signing of cards, and a bag is brought to the "surprised" guest of honor (who is never quite surprised). They gave me gifts I’ll definitely use: books by Perri Klass, a woman doctor who is one of my favorite writers, and CDs to put on my iPod (Glen Gould playing Bach Goldberg Variations, the album from the Producers, and an amazing jazz guitarist named Nino Josele playing the music of Bill Evans). Nate went to his volunteer gig, and Emma and David finished packing for her trip.

David had rented a car to drive Emma to her school today, because the kids going on the class trip were all meeting there to take a bus to JFK for their trip to Paris. I wasn't sure I'd be up for the car ride, about an hour each way, but it was a gorgeous day and I felt good so I went. Emma was the first student there. We met Emma's French teacher, and then Emma took us on a little walk on the beautiful campus and showed us her favorite deli for lunch where they name their sandwiches after superheroes. We were unanimous—we all wanted the Batman, which has turkey, honey mustard, and slices of green apple. After a quick lunch we walked back up the hill to her school, helped Emma get her bag on the bus, and waved goodbye. She went off to Paris.

I finally get the secret of living a good life. You have to create your magic in each individual day. Today, for example, there was the birthday and the balloons and seeing Emma off; yesterday we got the hats; and last weekend we had David's birthday party. There’s always a lot of shit that will either be prescheduled or will happen spontaneously. The way to make the balance good is to pack in the good stuff too. I bet that advice is in every self-help book I’ve ever read and ignored, but somehow I get it now. Even on the days when I have chemo or something else that sucks, I can build some magic into it. Maybe in this book I can express that in a way that will help people understand. You shouldn’t have to get Stage IV lymphoma to figure it out.

Got to go. Energy is fading. Nate had a friend over for awhile and they watched March madness (college basketball) on TV. Since UCLA beat Kansas, Nate is leading his NCAA bracket now. Life is sweet.

Love
Laura

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From: Laura
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2007 7:41 AM
To: Emma
Subject: To Paris from New York

Hi Emma. It's Sunday morning and I'm in the living room, writing to you from the lap top. I slept well and feel good. Half the birthday balloons are still as high as the ceiling, and the other half have sunk to about my height. A few are almost on the floor. How many days will it take all of them to come down, I wonder? The balloons that you tied to the terrace walls are still there, dancing in the breeze, but now they are just slightly higher than eye level. I like to see them because they remind me of you.

I love you more than the sun, the moon, and the stars.

Can't wait to hear about your trip.

Love
Mom



From: Emma
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2007 12:34 PM
To: Mom
Subject: From Emma in France

Dear Mom,

There's a computer in the lobby of this hotel that I’m using to write you this email. All the computer commands are in French! I should be able to get back here tomorrow, but I’m not sure, and I have no idea whether or not the hotel in Paris has a computer. The flight was good. I slept on the plane for a few hours. Tell Dad that bringing extra contacts was a brilliant idea because I could take them out before I fell asleep and put new ones in when I woke up.

After we got off the plane, we went to a part of town where we walked around, shopped, and ate. I had a brie, tomato, and watercress sandwich on baguette and a waffle with bananas and chocolate. I also took a lot of amazing pictures and I’m worried that I might not have enough space on my camera if I keep taking around 250 pictures a day.

Sun, Moon, Stars
Love
Emma

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From: Laura
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2007 4:47 PM
To: Emma
Subject: Love to Emma in Paris

Dearest Emma,

Thanks for your email! Now you understand how I used to feel when I was traveling a lot for work, and my biggest challenge of each day on the road was to figure out how to get to the next computer so that I could send and check email. Don't worry, I'll assume it may be days before you get to check it; if there's anything urgent, Dad and I can get in touch with you through your French teacher.

It's still a beautiful Sunday. Dad was out for most of the morning to round on his patients at the hospital and then he went grocery shopping. Nate and I talked about a short story he's reading for English by Melville called Bartleby the Scrivener, about a man named Bartleby who works as a "scribe" or copyist for a lawyer, and whenever anyone asks him to do anything, he says, “I would prefer not.” Nate has to write a paper about it, so that’s what he’s doing today.

I love that you’re taking so many pictures. When we went on our family trip to Paris a few years ago for Aunt Laura’s “end of chemo celebration tour,” I took a million digital pictures too—do you remember? I had to spend hours downloading them each day so I would have enough memory on the camera to take more pictures the next day! Thank goodness for those electrical adapters.

I'm so glad Elena is your roommate. I know you hoped she would be. And I really love her parents—they’re always so nice at school events, and I liked talking to them at your recent basketball game.

I’ve been listening to French music in honor of your being in Paris. There’s a beautiful sonata for clarinet and piano by a Parisian composer named Poulenc that I used to play in chamber music class with my friend Susan, who was a wonderful clarinetist. The sonata has three movements: allegro tristamente (fast and sadly), romanza tres calme (romantic and very calm), and allegro con fuoco, tres anime (fast with fire, very animated). We can listen to it together when you get home.

G2G (see? I listened when you taught me that G2G means Got To Go). Going to take a nap. I love you so much.

Sun, Moon, Stars
Love
Mom

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From: Laura
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 1:07 AM
To: Jennifer
Subject: Liberation

Hi Jen. Don’t worry that you and Sophie had to interrupt your shopping and leave the store because Sophie was fussing. It’s OK that Sophie is not an Olympic shopper yet. Emma took awhile to grow into her profound love of shopping, and now she is everything I could have dreamed of in a shopping companion and more.

Monday was fine. I went to the office. Cindy organized a birthday lunch for me with all the techs—chicken vegetable soup and vanilla frozen yogurt, two of my favorite foods. I went home to Nate by 4 pm, and we made a game of guessing how many days it would take for all of the balloons to fall down. The person who guesses closest without going over is the winner—no prizes, just the satisfaction of success. Some of those balloons are still hanging up there by the ceiling! The ones that fall we either throw away, puncture, or "liberate”—meaning that we go onto the terrace and release the balloons into the heavens. The balloon liberation was Nate's idea—at first I was going to discourage this practice because I was concerned about its impact on global warming, but then I thought hey, it looks like fun

Love
Laura

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From: Laura
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 11:26 PM
To: Jennifer
Subject: Cornell trip

Dearest Jen,

Let me tell you about this amazing adventure Nate & I had today. Last week we had to fill out some forms for Nate's college applications, and on one of the questions they asked if we had any personal ties to specific colleges. David and I wrote about where we went, but then Nate asked me, "Mom, aren't you a professor at Cornell or something?" and I realized that yes, I am! Along with my faculty appointment at Memorial, I have a medical school appointment at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. Here I am, always advising the women faculty to be aware of all of their appointments, and I don’t even remember my own! That got Nate thinking about Cornell.

We planned a day trip to visit Cornell. It had to be today. Tomorrow (Wednesday) I get intrathecal chemo at 3 pm and Thursday I'm admitted for inpatient chemo, so this is my narrow window. We arranged to take a flight from LaGuardia to Ithaca that was supposed to take off at 8:30 am and land at 10 am. We planned to take a tour at either 11 am or 1 pm depending on exactly when we get in and stroll around the campus. I also booked a hotel for the day (they have a hotel school at Cornell, so they actually have a real hotel called the Statler right on campus) so that if I get sick or tired I could sleep. We booked the return flight for that evening from Ithaca to LaGuardia.

The day deviated from the plan. We got up on time and made it to our flight, but the plane sat on the runway for 45 minutes before it took off, and then they couldn’t land in Ithaca because of fog. We circled in the sky for over an hour, and finally they landed in Syracuse at 11 am. So much for the 11 am tour. By the time we got to the Cornell Admissions Office in Ithaca, it was 1:15 pm, and the 1 pm tour had already left. Nate and I were both tired and hungry by then, so I suggested that we just go to the hotel, dump our stuff, have lunch, and explore the campus ourselves.

The Statler Hotel was right next door to the admissions office, and it was like a quaint country inn. I had booked a room on the 9th floor with twin beds so we could both lie down if necessary and have our own space. Jen, the view of the campus and mountains from that 9th floor window was breathtaking. It was worth the whole trip just to see that view. Nate and I pulled up two chairs to the window and looked at the map of Cornell, and Nate figured out which building was which. We ordered room service for lunch. I got tired after lunch and took a nap while Nate went off to explore on his own.

When I woke up two hours later at 4:00, the sun had come out. The first thing I saw was the panoramic view of the campus, including an old clock tower with bells that chime like a European cathedral every 15 minutes. I got up and splashed some water on my face and at that moment, Nate walked in. He had explored and procured us ice water and fresh fruit. I asked him to take me on a tour, and he gave me the short version: two stops and three breaks. We went to the James Olin library and the Cornell store, and Nate bought Cornell t-shirts for the whole family. After a quick dinner at the hotel, we went back to the Ithaca airport and took an uneventful trip home.

The trip meant a lot to me. I was touched by the way Nate looked out for me. It was great to imagine him in that pastoral setting and to see his life opening up with possibilities. I liked helping him get familiar with the process of the college visit, so he can make some future visits on his own or with friends. Best of all, I loved the fact that we seized the moment between two chemos to do something special. I’ve since found out that my white blood cell count was essentially zero when I went. Breathing recirculated plane air is not a great idea when you have no white blood cells with which to fight infection, so I’m glad I didn’t know my white blood cell count at the time—I probably would have been scared to go, and I would have missed it.

Got to go to sleep—out of juice. More tomorrow.

Love
Laura

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From: Laura
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 7:30 AM
To: Jennifer
Subject: Third time’s a charm

Hi Jen. Great news. You know how I’ve been vomiting like crazy every time they give me the intrathecal methotrexate? Well, today I didn’t throw up!

I was scheduled for my third dose at 3 pm. I had been taking a nap, and I forgot to ask Carmen to wake me up, so I almost overslept my doctor’s appointment. Luckily I had arranged to meet Cindy at the oncologist’s before 3. Thank God for Cindy—when she couldn’t find me, she called me on my cell phone. I was the last appointment of the day, but Cindy convinced them to stay to give me the chemo. Good thing I only live ten blocks from the hospital. I jumped in a cab to Memorial.

This time, the intrathecal methotrexate was much better. As Phil had suggested last week, I took some anti-nausea meds beforehand. There is a wonderful pill called Zofran that tastes sweet and melts in your mouth—which is perfect, because when you’re nauseated, you don’t really feel like swallowing anything. Unfortunately, Zofran costs about $40 per pill. Remember the episode of Seinfeld where Elaine is worried that the Today Sponge, her favorite form of contraception, may be discontinued? She buys a case of Sponges, which may be the last in existence, and before having sex with a guy, she has to decide if he’s “spongeworthy.” Well, when I’m nauseated, I have to decide if the nausea is “Zofran-worthy” or if one of the many cheaper nausea pills (like Compazine) would work. Intrathecal chemo is definitely Zofran-worthy.

When Phil came in to give the intrathecal injection, Cindy jumped up to spray my head. Phil had trouble getting the needle into the Omaya, and encountered a fair amount of resistance to injection, so he had to inject very slowly. An injection that usually takes seconds now took a couple of minutes. I waited for the nausea, but it never came. I felt so fine that I asked Phil afterwards, “Are you sure you gave me the chemo?” Yes, he was. Maybe it was the Zofran, but I wonder whether the injection rate also has something to do with it. Could it be that a slower injection of intrathecal chemo is less likely to cause nausea and vomiting? I have to ask Sam, my neurologist.

First admission tomorrow. I’ll write from “inside the house.”

Love
Laura

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From: Laura
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 9:35 PM
To: Cindy
Subject: Thanks, and hats

Hi Cindy. Thanks for calling me today to wake me up to get chemo, and for making them stay to give it to me.

And guess what? The hats came!

Love
Laura