At first you might be able to maintain mystery. Just have people only just wonder upon seeing the slow stiff movements you make after surgery. Although it's clear as light of day you are in pain, which you are, but they can't really SEE cancer or confirm it unless they outright ask you. Or happen to be psychic mind readers. I sure hope I'm not hanging around physics mind readers and they can read "my mind". That would be bad.
No, you can have people thinking you have a pulled muscle and get by fine. You don't actually wear the "hi-I have cancer" sign around your neck until you are bald, wearing wigs, cancer scarves and have 5th grade boobs.
There's a saying in Spanish:
Cado uno sabe donde le aprieta el Zapato
Which basically means each person knows where his shoe hurts. It's only when the shoe might be filled with painful sharp annoying pebbles that causes you to limp and walk in funny ways it becomes obvious for all to witness that you might have to talk about it.
You see I know pain and discomfort can be covered up as there are lots of things that have happened in my life, not outright tragedy, but tough stuff. And people had no idea. I would walk around all normal like but really inside I was a straight up country song. I mean the really bad country song where the guy lost his wife, the house, his dog and truck. But I could pretty much go about my day with no one noticing at all or commenting. And that was fine with me most of the time.
Previous to my cancer diagnosis I wasn't a fan of answering the phone while sick because even the mildest stuffed up nose causes immediate alarm and concern. Phone rings and there my hand would hover over it while clearing my throat so I sound better than I actually felt. It never worked. Of course I know my family loves me and wants to know how I am. But if you are really sick (you know the kind-the once every two years bohemian flu) the only real true answer is -weeellll..... I feel like absolute shit on a shingle. Except you can't say that, because people get confused. And they start to get weird images in their head. So you don't say that. Instead you make up big fat lies and say things like: oohh, I'm feeling better. Or please don't worry, the worst of it is gone, I'm sure. Or my favorite was: really I'm fine, I sound worse than I feel. It's not that I like lying, it's that I just want to skip over the I look and feel like crap, I have tissues stuffed up my nose to stop the constant leakage of mocos (boogers in Spanish) running outta my nose convo part and just get down to what you were going to talk about before you knew I was sick.
Except in cancer situations where your appearance will alter for all to see, you simply can't do the walk around like NOTHING has happened dance. You can't. It's too obvious. And as you start the walk fuuuurrtther down the "cancer is a punk azz and I'm gonna kung fu it's punk azz" road you have a lot more things happening. Like on your body, like that's real obvious.
To not talk about it or even tip your hat in that direction is to completely ignore the giant multi colored elephant taking a dump in the room. It's called awkwardness. And I'm not a fan of it. More important I haven't perfected that -lets ignore the straight up obvious what's going down right in front of both of our eyes and carry on as normal small talk-conversation. I must of missed that class in school.
Anyone who is a women of curves (or any kind of body really) can tell you they know exactly when they have conversations with a person who doesn't make eye contact and the person conducts the conversation all the while looking down at their breasts, the entire time. Its happens to almost every women. And I'm here to tell you there is NEVER a time it happens when you don't know it's happening. I'm not saying it's bad, it's good or otherwise. Im just saying it's awwwkkkaarrrddd.
Same exact thing when you are having a wild bad, and I mean bad hair day. Then you have run out of time to fix it and simply face facts you gotta leave the house like that. Then all day long you can see people looking "up" at your hair. Once I felt that my hair might have been a little too puffy up top like my old 80's jersey days but simply had to leave the house or risk being late. Lemme tell ya the last thing you want when you have really bad hair and don't want people looking at you is TO BE LATE and then-everyone looks at you. In the car I could see my sister was constantly looking "up" at my hair. I told her if she didn't stop that I was going turn around and go home to fix my hair. She said "well, I can't help it, it's just too big." There you have it. Someone pointed at the elephant instead of ignoring it.
And right now at this time in my life that's fine by me. While I'm not encouraging those "so what size will your new boobs be?" conversations or questions. Remember from my previous FAQ section of the blog---I ain't coming to the "lets talk about the size of our boobs party." I will say there's nothing wrong with allowing some kind of conversation around the obvious. Sorta like this:
You: so I see you must have cancer and are bald and wearing wigs now
Me: Yup
You: well that sure sucks
Me: Yup
And there we both go, carrying on with our lives as normal. No elephants around to be found.
Salivdor Dali
There's nothing as surreal as reality
Nada hay mas surreal que la realidad
