The Two Kinds of Decay

Intimacy

One day in Oncology Outpatient, I sat with a woman who was having a bag of blood transfused. She beat me diseasewise — she had cancer — but I beat her linewise, because she had a slim little Hickman and I had my double-lumen monster.

She showed me her bald head under her brown wig and said she liked to shampoo the wig in the shower as if it were her hair.

Her husband had planned to buy her a mink coat on the occasion of their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, but when she got cancer, she got the coat. She called it her cancer coat. It was dark and glossy, like her wig.

And she shared that she had lost her hair four times and been in many kinds of pain, but she agreed with me that the worst part about being sick was not having enough energy to feel powerful and fast. Not enough energy to run away.

After we’d been talking for an hour or two, the woman asked me what my name was. I was glad I hadn’t suggested it first. We were ready to do it now.

Her name was Barbara.