From the first moment my wife discovered she
had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even ones
whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have received a
gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than mumble
about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started this blog…That
was four years ago – as time passed, people searching for answers stumbled across
my blog and checked out what I had to say. The following entry first appeared in
November of 2011.
It’s been my experience
that men don’t usually care that much about their hair. It’s also been my experience
that hair is VERY important to women.
That’s why the
most obvious result of chemotherapy – alopecia – has such a profound impact on
women and the men who love them. Women who lose their hair are OBVIOUS to
everyone who looks at them. They are noticed; they stand out in public in a way
a bald man will never stand out. We admire the men even – Kojack, The King of Siam,
Captain Jean-Luc Picard are all heroes and we don’t even notice their shiny
heads. But bald female cops, Queens, and starship Captains would be so odd that most of
us wouldn’t even remember the rest of the record, reign or voyage.
As men with wives,
girlfriends and mothers who will or who have lost their hair because of breast
cancer, we stand in an unusual place.
We have to be
honest encouragers.
“Honey, how does
this wig look on me?”
“Is the scarf the
right color for my skin?”
“If I wear a
baseball cap every day, will you still think I’m sexy?”
“If I don’t wear anything
on my head in public, will you be embarrassed?”
The first response
to each question is initially: “It looks fine, dear”, “It looks fine, dear”,
“Of course I will”, “Nothing you could wear or not wear would embarrass me”.
The problem with the
response is that our loved ones are our loved ones and a diagnosis of “stupid”
does NOT go hand-in-hand with a diagnosis of breast cancer. They know when we
are patronizing. I learned the hard way not to patronize my wife. When she
asked one of the questions above, I had to take my time and think. I had to
consider my answer not because I wanted to be right, but in order to battle the
deep-seated desire to avoid inflicting any more pain on a person worn out from
the constant fight against cancer.
So I studied her
as she modeled the wig, scarf, hat or bald pate.
Honestly
responding, I gave my opinion. When it was honest, it gave her FEEDBACK and
while the ultimate choice was still hers, she most likely felt that my response
– especially before her hair started to grow back – was honest and another data
point in her effort to decide what to wear that day.
Ultimately, I
could do nothing more important that to be consciously HONEST!
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