Pink Ribbon Review | Raising Breast Cancer Awareness

“What Kind of Girl are You?” … A Guest Post By Jami Bernard

by Karen Lynch on June 16th, 2008

If you had asked me — and who would have thought to ask — I would have said I was a bandana girl. But when it came time to choose, I chose a wig. And didn’t wear it.

Neither would I wear a hat, though I tried a few. And I had little luck with baseball caps and scarves that refused to cling to my newly naked head.

If you had asked me, I’d have said that the one thing I definitely am NOT is a TURBAN GIRL. To me, turbans are for storefront charlatans who read your palm and predict that you’re going to hand over some more money so they can read your other palm. Not one of them would have foreseen me as a turban girl.

Lana Turner wore turbans, yes. But I was not exactly the picture of a ’40s pin-up queen. Nor was I blonde, slender or prone to fire-engine-red lipstick and midriff blouses tied at the waist. At least, I wasn’t any of these things back in 1996 when I was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 39.

Come to think of it, I’m not any of those things now, either. Definitely not the chic-turban sort.

Also, I had a little problem. Cancer was just the half of it. My real problem was that I didn’t know how to tie knots. No scarves draped just so over one shoulder, no obi-wrapped belts, no frou-frou in the hair, no swimwear sarongs with gracefully fluted bows.

I guess what I’m saying is that the Boy Scouts wouldn’t have me, so I entered the time of chemo-baldness clueless, not a knot-tying trick in the entire repertoire. Tying a scarf around my head was likely to fall into the same aesthetic zone as when, not knowing how to sew, I stapled the hem of my pants in eighth grade.

But yes, I bought a wig. An expensive one. No cheap stuff for me, thanks! Only the best wig I will never wear that money can buy.

Her name was Ricki. This was the wig store’s idea, not mine. And not hers. Ricki and I had little in common save for a medium brown and the style of my most recent haircut at the time, a haircut I hated.

There are two things I’m afraid of. (Well, there’s a lot more than that, but let’s just say, for argument’s sake.) One is being caught by someone I know while eating a candy bar on the subway. (This has actually happened, and it’s not pleasant—especially when I’m not finished chewing.) The other is gluing or taping a wig to my head and having it end up askew or blowing off entirely while leaving bits of tape and glue clinging to my pate.

I could not face the possibility. I could not risk wearing Ricki. I never wore her, not even once.

I’m a free spirit, you see. I picture myself as brave enough to bare my bare chemo-head and say to the world: I am not ashamed.

But I wasn’t quite so free a spirit in 1996, and had not yet formed and articulated this vision of the daredevil me. Going out of the house bare-headed was still out of the question. So I knew I had to choose something.

Let’s see: We’ve ruled out Ricki, in case of stray tape on the scalp or children pointing and saying, “Look Mommy, that’s fake!”

We’ve ruled out baseball caps (they make my nose look bigger and that’s all I needed when I already had no eyebrows, no pubic hair, and no self-esteem). I tried a special baseball cap that had a fake fringe of hair sewn in, as if I had a shock of bangs (despite having nothing around the ears). But I could just imagine the children pointing and saying, “Look Mommy, it’s getting worse!”

We’ve ruled out scarves (couldn’t tie them) and bandanas (ditto).

So it was Lana Turner time. The thing is, the turbans they make for people who lose their hair to cancer are not the kind of turbans I had feared. There was no Carmen Miranda fruit and sequins sewn into the folds. They didn’t coil upward as if modeled on the Bride of Frankenstein.

I didn’t have to come prepared with Boy Scout merit badges to learn how to tie them.

My favorite of a wardrobe of turbans turned out to be the gold Lurex. On one side it was a soft gold with metallic threads that caught the light. On the other, silky white. When the two ends were wrapped and twisted artlessly, there would be the rippled, layered look of gold reflecting off a sun-washed beach.

And that suited me just fine. It turns out I’m not a bandana girl at all. I’m golden, reflecting off a sun-washed beach.

Copyright © 2008 Jami Bernard

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ABOUT JAMI BERNARD

Jami Bernard is a writer, film critic, editor, book doctor and media consultant based in New York. She has published seven books, a Lois Lane comic, thousands of newspaper and magazine articles (no, really!), and is a keynote speaker and frequent TV and radio guest. She is the founder of Barncat Publishing Inc., a website (www.barncatpublishing.com) dedicated to helping writers find their voice, finish their books and get published.

Jami is a 12-year survivor of breast cancer. She had a diagnosis of invasive ductal carcinoma, Stage 2B. She underwent a lumpectomy, chemo and radiation at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York.

February 2008 is the first time she totally forgot her cancer anniversary; her sister had to remind her!

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POSTED IN: Guest Posts, Treatment Side Effects