The Girl With Nine Wigs (2 page)

I'm not supposed to be here, at the hospital. I'm supposed to be at my first day of classes for the semester. Outside, students are running to make it to their lectures, coffee in one hand and newspaper in the other. This world is unrecognizable. Outside, my mother and sister are waiting for a reason to pop the champagne
.

But inside, I have cancer. We are sent to the oncology ward: Cancer HQ. There the nightmare is confirmed and the truth begins to sink in for real. I'm no longer in the pulmonary department, no longer under Dr. K's care. I sit there, comatose, as my new doctor, Dr. L, discusses my body's malfunctioning as if he were a mechanic.
Gross.
His first words are a blur; all I hear is “aggressive,” “advanced,” and “rare.” “Rhabdomyosarcoma,” he calls it.

“The cancer reaches from the lungs down to the liver,” Dr. L says. From the hospital down to the morgue, he might as well say. “It looks like the main tumor is attached to your liver, and it has spread to the pleura.” I wish desperately for him to stop, but the blows keep coming.

“It will be a challenge in itself to get rid of, but the real challenge will be keeping it at bay.” He pauses. “If there is anything we can do to help…”

I knew it. “If.” He said “if”! “If” means I'm going to die. Am I going to die? Is this what dying feels like? I look down at the spot where the wall meets the floor. I keep on staring at the same spot, trying to hold on to something that isn't there anymore. I walk out into the hall. Numbly shuffling a few meters, I then lean to a wall and let myself glide down till my butt touches the floor. On the floor, there's no danger of falling. My father comes out what seems hours later, but that's not possible. There are too many other unlucky ones to be told they are going to die. I don't dare look him in the eyes, scared of what I will see.

Our next stop is the radiology ward, where I'm injected with radioactive fluid so that they can do a bone scan. My father turns to leave the room. Well, that's great. If he can't even handle this, what the hell am I supposed to do? He comes back bleary-eyed, which he unsuccessfully tries to hide. I later find out that he went to call my mother and sister. The change in the eyes of my family will turn out to be the worst part of this whole nightmare: my father falling to his knees when he thinks I'm not watching; my mother crouching on the stairs, crying on the phone in the middle of the night; my sister unable to touch me without tears welling up in her eyes.

The injection requires two hours to take effect, which gives us just enough time to go home for an hour. I can't bear to spend another second in this place.

“This is not good, Dad,” I say. “Not good at all.”

“Sophie, they were just as negative with your mother. This year is going to be hell, but next year everything will be back to normal.”

“That's bullshit, Dad. We both know this isn't breast cancer they're talking about!”

“That's just the way doctors are,” he states firmly.

“And that's just the way fathers are,” I reply.

As we turn onto our street, I make out my sister's silhouette waiting in front of the house. Saskia. I always call her Sis. We have the same dark eyebrows and full lips, but our personalities couldn't be more different. Sis is the consummate older sister: methodical, confident, responsible. Whereas I am the classic youngest child: stubborn, rebellious. The only thing we see eye to eye on is not getting along. After seven years of constant fighting, the rift between us just seems too big to fix.

But, bizarrely, Saskia is the one I most want to see. I sob into her open arms.

“Sis, I'm only twenty-one,” I stammer. “I have cancer. I might die.” She holds me close. I can feel her trembling. We go into the house, both crying. It's the first time in years that we've hugged. It feels good.

When we get inside I go up to my room and sit down in front of my mirror. I stare at my reflection, searching for something strange, something that isn't me, something that doesn't belong there. Something cancerous. All I see is a pale and frightened little girl.
Is that me? Am I a girl with cancer? Is this what a girl with cancer looks like?

I think about my mother coming home on the tram. I'm sure she's found a spot in a corner, staring into the distance through the window. Maybe the tram is packed and she has to stand squashed between all those wet raincoats. Or has it stopped raining? I can't remember. I'm too busy crying, shedding more tears over this fucking cancer.
Why didn't she just take a taxi home, today of all days?
Maybe she needed time to process the news, or to pretend for a few more minutes that it was still just a normal day. First her cancer, and now my cancer. I wish I could be with her, support her, even though I can hardly keep myself upright.

I'm on the toilet when I hear her walking up the stairs toward me. She has this way of walking up and down the stairs: It will never go unnoticed. I quickly zip up my jeans and flush away my nervous pee. My jeans hang loosely around my butt—now I know I can thank the cancer for that. She comes bounding up the stairs and grabs my arms. Her eyes are moist but she isn't crying as she stares into my eyes. “We are going to get through this,” she says over and over.

I just nod.

“Repeat after me, Sophie: We are going to get through this. We are going to get through this.” She makes me say it countless times. I hold on to the words as tightly as I can. I don't stop repeating the mantra, even as we go back to the hospital for the bone scan.
Bone scan
. It sounds so ominous.

My grandmother has joined the brigade—she, my dad, and my sister are waiting downstairs in the hospital's depressing cafeteria while my mom, who was under the same machine not so long ago, takes me by the hand and leads the way. I have to take off anything metallic but am allowed to keep on my clothes. The room we're in is enormous, but the machine itself somehow seems even larger.

As I hand my mother my jewelry and bra, she presses her lucky chestnut into my hands. Keeping chestnuts is a family tradition, one that started with my grandmother,
oma
. Come autumn, we each pick up the most beautiful chestnut we can find and keep them in our pockets for good luck throughout the rest of the year. Anytime I slip my hand in my mother's pocket to keep it warm as we walk together, I know I'll find a chestnut. The one she's given me is the same one she carried through her own cancer treatment. She doesn't let go of me until she is convinced I have adopted her second mantra to chant during the scan: “It's not in my bones. It's not in my bones. It's not in my bones.” If the cancer isn't in my bones, it means I have a chance. I repeat her words while stroking the chestnut so hard I'm afraid it might crack.

The scan takes about twenty minutes. During that time, everyone else has to leave the room because of the radiation. I enjoy the sudden peace and quiet and somehow end up falling asleep, which is as heavenly as waking up is difficult.

When it's over, my mother and I sit down in the row of chairs lining the hallway. I don't really know why; we won't even get the results until the following week. Maybe we both need to exhale.

The technician in charge of the scan comes outside. My mom looks up to him, her face as tense as an elastic wire. He holds his step and breaks the silence. “It looks good.” I don't understand. Isn't that for the doctor to decide? I assume he means the pictures have turned out well. You know, like good positioning and no blurriness. Luckily, my mother is a bit more alert than I am. The tension must have been so visible on our faces that the technician decided to informally bring us the good news straightaway. He has to repeat himself three times before it sinks in. My mother jumps up and starts hugging him. I follow suit. Two cheeks, two women, two sets of lips. He hardly knows what to do with himself.

We run off in search of the rest of the family. My father is just turning down the hallway. I run toward him down the long, empty corridor, shouting: “Dad! Dad, it's not in my bones! My bones are clean, I'm going to get better!” I fling myself into his arms and he falls to his knees. Later he tells me that this is the moment he most vividly remembers from those horrible early days.

But this is hardly the end of the tests. The next day I'm scheduled for a bone marrow sample. Going back to that awful hospital is the last thing I want to do. My knees start to tremble the moment I walk in. I hate my new doctor and everything about him. He pulls out a long needle and what looks like a screwdriver and goes to work in the neighborhood of my hip. He warns me it will hurt, but by this point pain is my last concern. The fear has numbed me so much that I barely even notice as he drills into my bone.

Mom holds on to both my hands and looks me straight in the eye. I'm twenty-one; I'm supposed to be an adult, a grown-up who can take care of herself, but I'm scared shitless. I'm so afraid, I can't stop shivering. Afraid of doctors and their words, a language completely deprived of empathy and nice vocabulary. Afraid of cancer. And, most of all, afraid of what's still to come.

I'm left with a small hole in my side, which the nurse covers up with a big white bandage. “There we go, all done. You did really well.” She's sweet, with a short, trendy haircut and flashy earrings. For a little longer than necessary we share glances. I recognize her. She treated my mother a few times during her chemo. How sweet life can be.

 

SATURDAY, JANUARY 29

I
STARE INTO THE CAMERA
and stick up both of my middle fingers in defiance, telling my cancer to go fuck itself. It's Saturday and everything is different now. Different from yesterday, different from last week, different from last year. I didn't go to the market this morning or drink coffee on Westerstraat. On Monday, instead of going to class, I'll be checking into the hospital for my first week of chemotherapy treatment. For the next two months, I am expected each week for a dose of vincristine, etoposide, and ifosfamide and God knows what else they're going to pump into me.

But today I've decided I don't have cancer. I'm at my friend Jan's studio, with the Rolling Stones blaring through the speakers. I love Mick Jagger's raw voice and the rip of Keith Richards's guitar. I asked Jan to document me without cancer. Because after Monday, I'll be different: I'll be a cancer patient.
Who knows what cancer will do to me?

I'm smiling, pouting, making all sorts of faces for the camera; I'm free. It's the furthest I've been from tears since I got the news. This is the first time since last week that I'm not being comforted or trying to comfort someone else. In front of the lens, I feel myself growing bigger and stronger. I don't feel sad and weak.
I am going to get through this.
With every click of the shutter, I grow, I let loose completely. My eyes glisten. I'm still afraid, but here, in front of the camera, my fear changes into anger.

 

MONDAY, JANUARY 31

VITA BREVIS READS THE GABLE
stone on the building across the canal from our house. I've stared at those words from my bedroom window my entire life. It's the tallest and broadest building on the block, reaching up far above the other houses. It's hard to miss, but today those words speak to me in a way they've never spoken to me before.
Vita brevis:
Life is short.

I gather my things and walk outside, packed and ready to go to the hospital for my first week of chemo sessions. I've got so much stuff it looks like I'm going on vacation. My mother, sister, and I watch as my dad packs the car. From their faces I can tell that this is all just as frightening for them as it is for me. To be honest, they seem as sick as I do. The only thing that seperates us is that the cancer is inside my body, not theirs. But it's only when we get to the hospital, where there is one bed waiting, one bed with my name on it, that this separation is made.

When I arrive at my ward, C6, I am assigned to a shared room. Next to my bed there's an old woman crawling around on the floor by her bed, making strange screeching noises. She makes me question the ward I'm in. Oncology or psychiatric/neurology? The two other beds are taken by men old enough to be my grandfather. My heart sinks—I don't want to be surrounded by three old folks who already have one foot in the grave, even without having cancer. Looking at them, all I see is death. Teary-eyed, I plead with Dr. L, aka Dr. Prick, to be given a private room, just for my misery and me, but he doesn't budge. Luckily the nurse on duty, Bas, takes pity on me. He immediately starts running around switching bed assignments. If I'm in a room of my own, looking at my own white walls, maybe I can fool myself that I'm just passing through.

Bas doesn't look like a typical nurse. He has a shaved head and his arms are covered in tattoos. A thick silver necklace hangs around his neck. Not the type you would think to bring to your family's Christmas dinner, but I have let myself be fooled by appearances again: He's one big teddy bear. On the way to my new room we pass an office with nurses and a few doctors milling around inside. They look up and take note of the newcomer. We exchange a hesitant smile.

My new room is nothing to write home about, but it's all mine and I'm thankful. Bas doesn't waste any time and tells me in a single breath that I have my own bathroom and that I will lose all my hair after about three weeks.

“All my hair?”

“Yes.”

“Even my eyebrows and eyelashes?” I ask.

“Those as well.”

“And my pubic hair?”

“Yes, that, too.”

“Great. A prepubescent pussy.”

“Isnt that the fashion these days?”

“True.”

I run my fingers through my hair and wonder what my head underneath looks like. My hair has never been glamorous, but today I am more than happy with what I've got.