It Takes a Worried Man

by Brendan Halpin

  I get home and attack Kirsten’s head with the clippers. I have never used them before, so I fit them with the biggest attachment and start trying to cut through Kirsten’s hair. The clippers keep getting clogged, and when that happens, I have to sort of tug them out, which pulls on the hair still attached to Kirsten’s head, causing her to say, “Ow!” on top of being very tired and cranky already. So I start with scissors. I indiscriminately hack off her hair until it is close to pixie length. Then back to the clippers. Now they are working much better, and we progress through the attachments until we reach one eighth of an inch. It is like mowing the lawn–the clippers just sail over her head, buzzing it down to stubble. This is kind of satisfying, but it also makes me kind of sad to see all her hair on the floor. She can’t move very well because of the hose sticking out of her neck, and it really feels like I am removing the last brick from the wall of denial that has served us so well. Up to now she has been feeling bad, but mostly just tired, and she has looked basically normal but for the various hoses sticking out of her. Now she has patchy tennis ball fuzz. Miraculously, I manage to focus on the satisfaction of a job well done and I do not cry. Perhaps even more miraculously, Nan, who is watching the whole affair and who I was convinced was going to start bawling, does not.

  I keep finding myself thinking, You don’t know what love is till you shave your wife bald. Of course that’s not really true, but it also is. I mean, I meant it when I said for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, but I kind of thought that meant, you know, we wouldn’t have any money for a while, I’d buy her lozenges when she had a cold and then listen to her complain about her arthritis when she was eighty. I never really thought it meant shaving her head while she fights for her life at age thity-two.

  When we are done with Kirsten, we start on me. I attack my own head with the scissors, then Kirsten and I go after my hair with the clippers. I go beyond the eighth-of-an-inch attachment to no attachment at all, which cuts me down to one sixteenth of an inch. I then head to the bathroom, lather up my head and shave it with my Gillette Sensor. I am surprised to find that my scalp is much less sensitive than my cheeks and neck, and except for the fact that it’s kind of tough to tell when you miss a spot in the back, it’s really not that bad to shave your head with a razor.

  We settle into bed that night, and Kirsten is sort of in agony from the hose sticking out of her neck. She lies down and I have to pull her up because she can’t use the muscles in her neck to pull herself up because it hurts too much. So I yank her up a few times, give her my pillow to prop her up more, and feel sad while she goes, “Ouch!” rustle, turn “Shit!” rustle, turn, “God! Damn!” rustle turn for about five minutes till she finds a position she can sleep in.

  For all this, I feel good. It feels like we’ve done something.

  My First Day Bald

  I walk to work with my fleece hat on, and I see a few kids on the way in the door, and I reluctantly take the hat off. I am reluctant to take it off because I feel kind of awkward, and I know I am going to have to spend the day explaining, but also because it’s fucking cold having no hair, especially in New England in the fall and winter. I am sitting in my house typing this right now and it is in the high 30s outside, and our house is pretty cozy, but my head is fucking cold. I need a hat before I can continue.

  Anyway, I take off my hat and I know the kids are going to make fun of me, and they do not disappoint. One kid who was my student last year goes into paroxysms of laughter, rubs my head, and laughs that “it’s not even smooth!” It’s true. My head is stubbly. Although I shave my face every day, I have never really needed to, whereas people like my friend Danny look like they need a shave about thirty seconds after they shave, and I now have some sympathy with them, because that’s pretty much what my head is like.

  One wacky aspect of having a stubbly head that it takes me weeks to get used to is the effect I call “Velcro head.” It is now basically impossible to slip a shirt or sweater off or on and have it slide effortlessly over my head. The stubble just Velcros it right in place, and I have to reach in and lift it off my head or it just stays there.

  Anyway, my advisees know that Kirsten has cancer, as do my classes, and so they are kind of prepped, and I had kind of hoped that they would tell everybody else, but there seems to be something about genuine tragedy that stops the rumor mill cold. I will explain to probably ten students why I have shaved my head before school even starts, and yet I have to keep explaining all day long. All I can think is that whenever somebody looks at someone else’s boyfriend the wrong way, or calls someone else a bitch or whatever, the entire school knows about it in like thirty seconds, they sometimes seem to know about it before it happens, but the kids are just not spreading the word around. I can’t figure it. I like to interpret it in a touching way–like maybe they are just too respectful of the situation to turn it into gossip. Or maybe they just can’t stand to talk about cancer because it scares the shit out of them. I understand. It scares the shit out of me too.

  One kid in particular suffers from the breakdown of the rumor mill. In the midst of about five kids clowning me pretty severely, this one kid says, “Mr. Halpin, do you have cancer?” ha-ha-ha, and I say, “No, but my wife does,” and he says, “you’re joking, right?” and I say, “I wish I was,” and the poor kid looks like I just kicked him in the teeth. I sympathize, because it’s exactly the kind of dumb insensitive thing I would have said at his age and felt terrible, and he is not my student, but he seeks me out later in the day to apologize, and I tell him that he should not even think about it, and I mean it, because I really have said worse things. The worst thing I ever said—well, let’s just say I made up a parody of Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven,” because, you know, I was twenty-three, and I thought that his cranking out twenty years’ worth of really mediocre music was like this incredible crime that pretty much justified me saying any kind of horrible thing I could think of, and then I had a kid, and while I still don’t like the song, I feel like a total asshole for making fun of the tragedy behind it, so I’m sorry Eric, what can I say, I’m a dick, and the only positive thing to come out of that is that I was quick to forgive the kid who made the cancer joke. In fact, it’s wrong to even call it forgiveness, because not for a nanosecond was I offended. I felt bad for him the instant he said it.

  So once people hear why I did it, they are all very supportive. The girls go, “Awwwwwwww…..” and the boys kind of give me manly affirmation, and I feel ok about it all. For one thing, I turn out to have a really great-shaped head, and relatively small ears, so I don’t look ridiculous. I kind of look ok. For another thing, I kind of like wearing this marker of tragedy around. I seem to remember hearing that Buddhist monks and nuns shave their heads as a sign that they have renounced the world, or worldly things, or desire, or whatever exactly it is that they have renounced, and I feel the same way. I have felt different from everybody else for weeks now, and now I have this visible sign of my difference, and for some strange reason that feels good. It’s not that I want pity or anything, though of course I do, but I just like feeling like I am wearing a sign that says, “I’m not like you.”

  On my way home after work I walk by the coffee shop across the street and spy no fewer than three young hipsters with heads shaved bald. I guess I should be glad that it’s some sort of mini fashion trend, so not everyone will look at me like I’m a total freak when I walk down the street, but the thing is, I kind of want to be a total freak. I don’t want anyone to think this is a fashion statement. Oh well. I don’t want a lot of things these days.

  The Roller Coaster

  I think of my emotional life these days as kind of a roller coaster, which is not incredibly accurate, because roller coasters are fun, especially The Beast at King’s Island in Ohio which I grew up with and which is really great. You should ride it if you get a chance.

  I recommend, on the other hand, that you stay the hell away from the Spouse With Cancer ride. It is like
a rollercoaster in that there are ups and downs, and I have to be honest that there are still ups, despite what I said to my co-workers, joy and fun have not abandoned me, but the downs are really really down. Subterranean.

  The weird thing about this ride is that it has really long flat stretches. Not up, not down–just flat. Some days I feel happy and full of energy, and some days I feel like I’m about to cry all day, but most days I just feel numb. I guess this is really a down in disguise, but it doesn’t feel bad. In fact it doesn’t feel at all. It is just blank. I am usually able to muster up some enthusiasm at work, but then it becomes time to come home, and I just think about how I have five hours until I go to bed, and I am not feeling at all enthusiastic about anything that’s going to happen between now and then. People ask me how I am on days like this and I say, “Alive.”

  I guess the flats are a defense mechanism to stop me from feeling down all the time, but it is so strange. I feel disconnected, like I’m missing something. I know there are these intense feelings lurking around, but I don’t feel them. I know that I love my work, but I don’t feel excited going in like I usually do. I love my family, but I don’t feel excited about going home. I love food, but I don’t get a thrill from eating. I hate cancer, I’m terrified of losing Kirsten, but I don’t feel the fear. I’m just numb. I guess lots of people medicate themselves with excessive amounts of drugs or alcohol to try to achieve this state, so I probably shouldn’t complain, but it just feels like my life is on hold right now. We will return to our regularly scheduled life as soon as we figure out whether your wife is going to live or die. But when will that be? Suppose we only have five years, or ten. I need to find a way to enjoy most of that time. Do I do that by just ignoring reality, or is there some way to live with this?

  I guess this is really everybody’s problem. How do you live knowing you could die at any time? I think for most of us we just pretty much deny the possibility that we are ever going to die. But once you face it, how do you ignore it again? Or can you become the kind of person who enjoys life because you know you’re going to die?

  I don’t know the answers. Maybe I’ll figure it out when I get off of this ride.

  Thich Nhat Hanh My Ass

  It is a beautiful Friday afternoon three weeks after Kirsten’s first chemo treatment. She has been feeling really good for a couple of days. Bald, yes, but more energetic and positive than she’s been for weeks. I leave work a little earlier than usual and decide to walk home instead of taking the subway.

  The sun is shining, I have had a good week at work, and I feel happy. I wonder if I am in denial again, and then I think maybe I am just getting to be some kind of Zen master. A few days earlier Carol from church, who is spearheading the cleanup effort, said to me on the phone that Thich Nhat Hanh says that life is almost always bearable moment to moment–that it is anticipating and remembering that are really painful.

  I have read some Thich Nhat Hanh and have always felt that he basically holds the key to happiness, and that I could achieve it if I weren’t so lazy. Basically he is all about is living in the moment–being constantly grateful for your life, aware that you are alive and enjoying just the wonderfulness of breathing. I really do believe that this is the key to being happy. There is only one problem: it’s really really hard.

  In order to get to a place where you can believe this deep in your bones you have to practice it all the time. You have to meditate or pray every day, and you have to stop many times during the day and remember to breathe. I have tried this. I am too distractible. Like Homer Simpson, I find myself humming “Turkey in the Straw” with stupid little cartoons playing in my head when I should be thinking about the beauty of the moment. I frequently end up thinking about sex. In short, I am just not spiritually advanced enough, or at least disciplined enough, to make myself sit quietly for half an hour a day. Which is a pretty sad statement, but there you go.

  Anyway, so I am walking home on this gorgeous Friday afternoon, and I am thinking that I know Kirsten is sick, I know things are tough, but I feel happy. And I start to congratulate myself. Maybe I have become a Zen master! Maybe, without any work at all, I have come to a point where I can appreciate a beautiful day just because it’s a beautiful day, and I can be aware that Kirsten’s life is in danger but still be completely happy to have her for today.

  Well, needless to say, I soon pay for this spiritual hubris. I go home, and Kirsten is depressed. As we walk to Rowen’s preschool to pick her up, she tries to tell me what’s wrong, and, like a clod, I say, just as she’s starting to speak, “Ooh, look–looks like they sold one of those new condos!”

  She glares at me and I fall all over myself apologizing for being such an oaf, and she tells me that she had a follow-up appointment with Dr. J today, and it was not a good apppointment.

  “Why not?”I ask. “What happened?”

  “Well, she did the examination, and she was like, ‘I’d like to feel those lumps softening up a little more. Maybe we’ll need to switch medicines for your next dose.’ ”

  “Uh…meaning what?”

  “Well, she said she wasn’t sure, and that they’d have to wait for the bloodwork–the woman who stuck me today was a total butcher, by the way, it totally killed–anyway, she thinks maybe this dose didn’t work.”

  If you’ve been following me this far, I’m sure you can guess that the bloodwork came back indicating that, in fact, this first medicine, the one that works for seventy percent of breast cancers, that seventy, mind you, seven-oh, or ten percentage points higher than the percentage of people who get a complete remission from the whole treatment protocol Kirsten is in, did not work. This sucks. It sucks because Kirsten is bald and spent two weeks feeling really tired, and her cancer is still going strong.

  It sucks because it is forcing me to face, once again, the possibility that she might die soon. I really have not allowed myself to think this at all, but this whole positive thinking turns out to be a house of cards based on Kirsten always being on the good side of these percentages because she is young and healthy. And yes, this is early in the treatment, but here she is in the bad thirty percent. What if we go through all this and she still dies? In our initial meeting with Dr. J, she told us that the lead patient out of her study is eight years on with no disease. I have been convinced that Kirsten will put this woman to shame, that she will undergo this treatment and beat her cancer like a rented mule until every single cell cries for mercy and then dies, and that we will be able to grow old together. What if she doesn’t? What then? How will I live? The last time I lived without her I was nineteen years old. I have no idea how to be an adult without this woman. I have no idea who I am without her.

  Fuck.

  Happy Birthday to Me

  Kirsten is supposed to start her second round of chemo on my birthday, but it ends up being postponed from Monday to Thursday. My birthday is pretty uneventful, except that Kirsten makes me a yummy tray of brownies. I let it slip to my advisees that it’s my birthday, and my advisees are all mad that I didn’t tell them sooner. I tell them it’s because, you know, I am the adult, and a lot of other advisors make a big deal of their advisees’ birthdays, but I don’t, and it would feel weird to me to have them make a big deal of my birthday. And it does feel a little weird, the next day, when they bring in chips and soda and a giant sheet cake decorated with “Happy Birthday Mr. Halpin,” but I am really touched. It is one more example of people’s tremendous kindness. It is especially nice because the ringleader is this girl who, I kid you not, got suspended 14 times last year but managed to have the highest GPA in the school, and you may recall what Kirsten said to me about how I like smart troublemakers best. I spent at least an hour in meetings for each suspension in addition to numerous other meetings with her and/or her teachers, and it was hard work, but I always felt like she was worth it, and this year she has become this model citizen. So this is probably the nicest thing that happens to me on my birthday.

  And I think, well, a lot
of my advisees have some tough stuff going on in their lives and they’d probably like for the advisory to make a big deal over their birthday too, and I’m kind of a selfish shit for never arranging it. Oh well.

  Kirsten has chemo on Thursday, and on Friday we head down to her parents’ house for Birthday Fest 2000. Basically, Kirsten’s uncle, aunt, brother, grandfather and husband all have November birthdays, and so last summer Kirsten’s dad got the idea to get everybody together for a big fiesta, and it was supposed to be in Florida where Kirsten’s grandfather lives, but then Kirsten got diagnosed, so now it’s in Massachusetts instead.

  We get there and Kirsten almost immediately goes for a nap which lasts a couple of hours. I somehow find myself alone in the living room with Kirsten’s uncle, who’s a republican, and her grandfather, who’s…well, you know, fascist is a term that is really overused, but I do think it applies here, and he’s also like eighty-five, so he can say whatever outrageous thing comes into his mind without fear that you’ll tell him to shut up.

  Kirsten is snoozing, and the topic of the election comes up, and Kirsten’s uncle says some predictably Republican things, which are annoying, but, ok, and her grandfather says something incoherent about Palm Beach and “Old Lieberstein, or whatever his name is….I guess Gore wanted the New York people….” and Kirsten’s uncle, who is a Republican but not, as far as I can tell, a bigot, tries to steer this in a more acceptable direction by saying, “Yeah, I guess Gore wanted to appeal to the northeast or something,” but Gramps parries with, “Yeah! Northeast Israel!” and I get up and have to leave the room.

  I find something to occupy myself, and this is a very nice thing her parents have done–I even got a customized souvenir hat for the occasion–but I am sort of on the outside looking in, because I’m not a blood relative and know Kirsten’s aunts and uncles only about as well as you can know people you’ve met three times at various weddings, and also because all I want for my birthday is a healthy wife, and I can’t have that, so I feel grumpy and not at all festive.