Who We Are

by Nicola Haken

  “Heeeeey, beautiful!” Tracy slapped my knee before pulling up a visitor’s chair and sitting down. Her latest cycle finished four days ago but she still came down from her ward upstairs to keep me company on the days Seb couldn’t make it until later. “How you doin’ today?”

  “Not too bad. My mouth feels a little better.” I’d been plagued with the worst mouth ulcers I’d ever had in my life – a side effect of the treatment. I’m not talking a little sore that could be quickly eased with a dab of Bonjela either. I had a mouthful of open blisters coating the edges of my tongue and the insides of my cheeks. Talking was painful, eating practically impossible.

  Still, I focused on the positives. I hadn’t been sick or felt nauseous at all since my cycle began, which is the first thing everyone associates with the word chemotherapy. You hear cancer and see someone doubled over, throwing up, crying from the stomach cramps. Be it because of the anti-emetics, my body’s reaction, or simple potluck, I hadn’t experienced that once, thankfully.

  “My scalp feels worse though,” I continued. “I’m kind of afraid to touch it.”

  One of the things I valued most about Tracy, apart from the fact she was a frigging awesome person, was her advice. She’d been going through this longer than I had and she was always upfront with me. She not only told me what I could expect, but gave me tips and tricks on how to cope with things too.

  She'd caught me looking at her hair, or lack of it, during my second session. I truly hadn’t meant to stare. Hair was my profession after all. She wasn’t the first bald person I’d seen. Over the course of my career I’d shaped wigs for cancer patients, women with alopecia, and of course I’d watched my mother go through this too…but the difference is during those times I never thought it would happen to me. So reality slammed me hard in the face when I saw Tracy. It shocked my system, showed me what was coming. She was lovely about it, laughed at me actually. She made a joke about how my fella might not be too impressed if he found me ogling other women and then went on to tell me how it happened when her hair started falling out.

  For her, the first strands began coming away twelve days after her first chemotherapy session, and she said her scalp started to feel sore and extremely sensitive a few days before that happened. That’s where I was at right now. It tingled, almost like the flesh was trying to crawl away from my skull, and I’d been finding it difficult to sleep because even the soft pillow aggravated the tender skin. So it would be happening soon, and I wasn’t quite sure how I felt…especially since Janie informed me I’d likely lose it, or at least experience thinning, in other areas as well. On reflection that seemed obvious, yet it hadn’t crossed my mind before.

  I’d hoped I could avoid it after reading about cold caps on the internet – special caps filled with cooling gel that apparently helped prevent the chemotherapy drugs reaching your hair follicles and therefore reducing the likelihood of your hair falling out – but apparently they wouldn’t work on me. The drugs in my system were too powerful. They weren’t threatened by a little cold. Fuckers.

  “Pfft, it grows back.” Tracy waved her hand, and I knew she was right. It was awfully vain to place such importance on something as meaningless as hair. My life was without a doubt worth more. “Plus, folk stand up for you on the tram. Every cloud and all that. Although, you’re a guy, so they might just think you want to rob their phone.”

  She made me laugh, as she often did. I don’t think I’d ever met such a positive person. Her optimism, her outlook on life was inspiring. She wasn’t always right - unlike me, her diagnosis had come as a surprise. She’d convinced herself she had gallstones and everything would be fine. It wasn’t, of course, but instead of allowing the news to shatter her, she accepted it as a setback and vowed to beat it instead. That’s the one thing we all had in common here, that determination. We all had different stories to tell, different diagnoses, different reactions, different prognoses. Others, like me, knew, somehow, what was coming. Some, like Tracy, were met with the biggest shock of their life when the dreaded C word slithered from their doctor’s mouth.

  But we all wanted to live.

  I didn’t have much to thank cancer for, but I’d always be grateful it gave me the opportunity to meet this lady by my side, and so many of the other people I’d met along the way too.

  After my session was over I took myself off to bed, drew my curtain, and had a nap before afternoon visiting began. I needed as much rest as I could get today if I was going to survive Rhys and the abundance of energy he’d bring. I woke up who knew how long later, time faded into insignificance in this place, to the feeling of my blood supply being cut off in my arm.

  “Sorry.” Janie’s lips twisted into an apologetic frown as she watched the blood pressure cuff inflate. “I was hoping it wouldn’t disturb you.”

  “Are you kidding me? These things are evil.” I was surprised she’d managed to get the cuff on without waking me, but there was no way in hell she’d have been able to inflate the thing without me knowing. I swear each reading felt like my arm was being amputated.

  Obs taken and Janie gone, I hauled my weary body into a sitting position and stayed there for a few minutes until I felt ready to go and take a shower and rinse my mouth with the special mouthwash they gave me. That’s when I saw it. A small clump of hair stuck to the pillow. Not much, but such a stark contrast – red against white. I may have been expecting it but that didn’t stop my heart sinking as I reached up to see if I could feel where it came from. I patted gently with tentative fingers. My head felt the same, sore, but still covered in hair. Yet, somehow, I still felt conscious of those missing strands.

  Grabbing my towel and a clean set of clothes, I trundled off to the bathroom with my head down. I don’t know why they had to put such a large mirror in there. It served no purpose, other than to allow me to witness my body slowly fade away. I’d actually gained weight due to the water retention caused by the chemotherapy drugs but I looked thinner in places. I’d lost definition in the muscles around my chest. My arms looked a little scrawny, my face gaunt beneath the artificial light. My skin was dry and almost grey, except around my eyes where it’d turned an ugly bluish colour. Honestly, I looked practically dead already.

  The mirror depressed me.

  In the shower, wisps of hair came away with my fingers as I rinsed the shampoo as gently as I could. I watched it fall to the floor of the wet room, swirling mournfully towards the drain before gathering into a clump. I bent down and picked it up, staring at it in my hand, rubbing my thumb over the first lost strands of many.

  “Fuck this.”

  Shutting the water off, I plucked my towel off the rail and strode over to the bin, tossing the lump of damp hair inside. It was only hair. I didn’t need hair. What I needed, was to survive.

  As I dried myself off and dressed in fresh joggers and a T-shirt, I decided I wasn’t prepared to sit around and wait for the rest of it to follow. I wouldn’t watch my hair fall out strand by strand, picking up the clumps from my pillow and the shower floor every day, or walk around looking like a patchwork quilt. I was in charge here, and I would decide when it came off.

  Tonight. I would shave the damn lot off tonight.

  Later that evening, I heard my visitors arrive before I saw them. I was pretty sure the entire hospital could hear Rhys’ rendition of Copacabana echoing off the corridor walls, in fact, and as I stuffed the last of my dirty clothes into a bin liner for Seb to take home, I cringed with embarrassment.

  Seb reached me first. His hand curled around the back of my neck as he pressed a kiss to my forehead and then he stepped back and simply stared at me for a few seconds. “You look pale today. Have you eaten?”

  “A little. My mouth is still too sore to manage more than lukewarm soup.”

  Rhys still sang as he rounded the corner and I shook my head, scrunching my nose. “Keep it down!” I whisper-shouted when he reached my bed. “People might be trying to sleep.”

  “Just tryin’ t
o bring a little sunshine, sweetness. Everyone looks so miserable.”

  “They have cancer, Rhys. It tends to bum you out a little.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Stop playing the victim. It doesn’t suit you.”

  Rhys pulled up one of the visitor chairs, scraping the metal legs across the floor, while I just shook my head again. Turning to Ty, I fist-bumped his shoulder…and even that made the muscles in my shoulder hurt. Everything hurt. Ached. Everything was such a damn effort. “Did you have a good day at school?”

  He shrugged, setting the carrier bags in his hand down on the table. “It’s school. We brought the stuff you asked for.” He looked…sad. His head dropped low, his shoulders were hunched, and he kept his gaze locked on my bed rather than on me. “What do you want ‘em for anyway?”

  Ah. So that’s what’s wrong with him. “Well, I want my make-up because I’m sick of looking like crap. I need to hide these eye bags and start looking less ghost more human again.”

  “‘Bout time,” Rhys interrupted. “You know, they say however you look when you die is how your ghost will look forever.” His eyes roamed up and down my body, narrowing in disapproval at the sight of my plain grey joggers – that hung a little looser on my hips than they used to - and boring T-shirt. “Do you really want that to be your ghost outfit?”

  “Rhys!” Seb’s voice was harsh, almost a screech. “He’s not going to die!”

  “Well no, I know that. But if he did, his ghost would look like crap for eternity. That’s why I always look damn fine even if I’m just nipping to Tesco for some bog roll. If I was to slip on a spillage on aisle three, crack my head off a shelf and split my skull open, I’d go peacefully in the knowledge I’ll look fabulous in the afterlife.” Rhys turned to me. “I’ll bring your skinny jeans and heels in tomorrow. The make-up’ll help, but it won’t erase those godawful pants you’re wearing.”

  “I…you…” Seb shook his head, half smiling, half not knowing how to respond to my insane best friend.

  Ignoring Rhys, which wasn’t uncommon, I continued replying to Tyler. “So anyway, I need the clippers because mine are better than the ones they have here at the hospital…and because my hair is starting to come out. I’d rather get it over with than watch it fall out in patches.”

  “Oh.” He looked up at the ceiling, and then at the floor, but never at me. “Guess you’re luckier than most because you have like a bajillion wigs already, right?”

  “Ladies wigs. Outrageous wigs. Do you really want to walk around the supermarket with me in one of those?” I forced a chuckle in an attempt to lighten the mood, help him feel better.

  Composing himself, he cleared his throat and straightened his back, looking me right in the eyes. “I don’t care. I just want you home so we can go to the supermarket together. I don’t care what you look like, Olli.”

  Well damn if it didn’t feel like someone had started jabbing pins into the back of my eyes. “The, uh, my nurse, Janie,” I mumbled, my throat tight with emotion. “She said there’s a free side room we can use.” I picked up the carrier bags from the table and started walking, itching to get this over with. “Personally I think she just wants to keep Rhys away from the other patients.”

  “Damn, girl, just wait till you’re better.” Trailing alongside me, Rhys patted my back. “Obviously I can’t retaliate now while you’re all sad and cancery and stuff, but I’m storin’ all these snarky remarks up in my head. Just you wait. The second you get the all clear I’ll make you wish you didn’t, bitch.”

  “Rhys!” Tyler’s shriek was so high-pitched it bordered on only being heard in the animal kingdom. I hadn’t heard his voice waver so much since it started breaking when he was thirteen. The memory made me smile. What a fun year that was, especially when he got angry and his words would crack mid-yell.

  “Just tellin’ it like it is. He’s messin’ with the wrong queen.”

  We passed Janie in the corridor, sitting behind the nurses’ station, and she gave me a silent nod in response to my own silent cock of the head towards the side room she told me about earlier. I went in first and set straight about removing the black case that contained my clippers from the carrier bag. There was a bed in here, but also a small shelf attached to the wall in front of a mirror, with a hard plastic chair in front of it.

  Taking a seat, I unzipped the bag, removed the clippers – which I hoped Ty had remembered to charge after the last time he did his hair – and just…sat there, staring at my reflection. I loved my hair. Even when kids at school used to tease me for being ginger I couldn’t bring myself to hate it. “You ginger prick!” made a refreshing change from, “You prissy bender!” every now and then, I supposed.

  Now, as an adult, women paid tonnes of money to get my colour, and I’d been gifted it for free. It was rich and vibrant. It stood out. It was short, now, but I’d had it longer over the years. I was lucky to have a naturally smooth wave that would curl or straighten or hold whichever style I wanted it to. It was perfect…and I’d miss it.

  The room had fallen eerily silent. I felt eyes watching me but I didn’t turn to look at them. I’d known this moment was coming yet I had no idea it would be this difficult. I didn’t even know why it was, really. It’s just hair, I inwardly reminded myself. It grows back.

  Rhys’ tall frame appeared behind mine in the mirror and, reaching down, he took the clippers from my hand. “Quit dilly dallying. It’s not hard. Look?” Flicking the switch, he raised his arm and ran the clippers in a straight line along the centre of his head, chunks of blond hair falling to the floor.

  My jaw dropped open, my gasp lost amongst the buzz of the clippers. “What the hell-”

  “See? Easy.” He lowered the clippers to my head and I felt the vibrations in my skull as he glided it from the back of my neck towards my crown.

  As I watched my hair fall free from my head, all I could do was laugh. He’d shave a little from me, and then from himself, and while it was happening we both looked utterly ridiculous.

  “You’re insane.” I laughed even harder when Seb came up to us and started stroking along the bald side of Rhys’ head with the tip of his finger.

  “What d’ya say, sweetness?” Rhys waved the clippers in front of Seb’s face. “You wanna makeover too?”

  Seb raised his hand and arched his back, leaning away from Rhys and his clipper-happy hand. “No way.”

  “Look at his face.” Rhys pointed to me in the mirror. “Look how happy he is. Don’t you want to make him happy? The man’s got cancer! What’s the matter with you? Take one for the team!”

  Grinning at the pair of them in the mirror, I tried to intercept. “Rhys, don’t-”

  “You stay out of it,” Rhys cut me off. “Nothin’ to do with you.”

  “Um, I’m the cancer patient you keep waffling on about.”

  He waved his free hand through the air, dismissing me.

  “Come on, Seb!” Ty encouraged. “Do it! I dare you!”

  Seb huffed, stomped his foot, and finished his little performance with a growl. “Goddammit.” Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he bent forward. “Do your worst.”

  “That’s my girl!” Rhys wasted no time cutting into Seb’s dark hair, the clippers buzzing and whirring as they moved across his scalp. Eventually, we all took turns in the plastic chair, making sure no spots had been missed, until a pile of multi-coloured hair littered the floor – red mingled with Rhys’ blond and Seb’s dark brown.

  “You guys look beast init.” Tyler strolled up beside us as I sat back in the chair, and I took a moment to stare at the four of us in the mirror, not a single hair to be seen on any of our heads. The sight was hilarious, somewhat scary, and would definitely take some getting used to.

  “Hey,” Tyler began. “You can’t tell me I look like a yob anymore. That’d make you a hypocrite.”

  Snorting a laugh through my nose, I nodded. “I guess it would. Now we all look like criminals.”

  “This calls for a selfie.�
� Rhys pulled out his phone and summoned everyone closer with a swish of his wrist. Bending, he pressed his cheek to my left, Seb did the same to my right, and Tyler sat his chin on the top of my head.

  These people were the reason I’d get through this. They’d lift me up when I fell. They’d fight for me when I was too weak. They’d guide me, support me. My days may have been filled with pain and sickness, exhaustion, fear, and the stench of disinfectant…but they were also filled with love from these wonderful people. They brought smiles to my face and hope to my heart…and that is how I knew I would win.

  As Rhys pointed the camera towards the mirror, I looked at my family, my bald family, and I felt like the luckiest man in the world.

  Chapter Eight

  ~Sebastian~

  IT WASN’T A cold night yet the breeze felt cool against my naked head as I stepped out of the hospital. I’d never had a shaved head in my life. It felt strange, and I kept reaching up to run my fingers through hair that no longer existed.

  Tyler and I parted ways with Rhys outside the automatic doors before crossing over the giant car park. After climbing inside, Tyler started laughing as he pulled the seatbelt over his chest. “I can’t believe you shaved your hair off.”

  “Honestly, neither can I.” Pulling my visor down, I took another look at myself in the small mirror. I never realised how uneven my skull was before, and now all the lumps and bumps were on show for the world to see. “My mum’s gonna kill me.”

  Tyler snorted. “Is there any of her stew left in the fridge? I’m starving.”

  “There’s still half a pan, and she’s bringing sausage casserole tomorrow too.”

  I’d not had to cook a single meal since I told my parents about Oliver’s diagnosis. In all honesty, my mum had been supplying Tyler and I with so much food I could’ve fed my entire street…but I didn’t, because I wasn’t that sociable. I told her she didn’t have to make our meals, that nothing had really changed in my life. I’d been living alone for years and managed to keep myself fed, and Scott had survived all the times he’d spent with me too so I was sure I could keep Tyler alive, but I think she needed to feel involved. She wanted to help, and this was the only way she knew how.