Dear reader(s):
First, an announcement: the dates have been set! My isolation is to take place between August 12th and 19th. Stupid LID diet starts next Thursday, the 29th, and I am currently in the process of eating every delicious iodine-filled thing I can find in preparation for food hell. I will be blogging extensively during my period of solitary confinement - possibly video blogging as well now that I have an awesome new laptop with a built-in webcam - so tune in in August for my super-thrilling words of boredom and woe.
And now, on to the topic I will be ranting about today: public reactions to my thyroidectomy scar.
Lots of cancer patients have to deal with looking different after treatment - usually the main changes are hair loss from chemo and/or chest alterations from a mastectomy. Luckily for me, my type of cancer (thyroid) involves a treatment that doesn't usually cause hair loss; plus I got to keep my awesome boobs. Unluckily, the thyroid surgery left a pretty visible scar on my neck, and mine hasn't been healing well so it's particularly noticeable. Normally that doesn't bother me - I've had it for a long time and I've accepted the way I look now - but every so often I get asked about it by a total stranger. Usually the stranger is a child, and so usually I don't mind. I know kids don't have much of a verbal filter. But today I was taking the subway (to a job interview) and had a total stranger - an adult stranger - ask me: "What happened to your neck?".
I didn't know this person, and it was none of his business what happened to my neck or any other part of me. Occasionally I will get this question at a party too, after a couple of drinks have been had, or at a bar. What I really don't understand is why I anyone thinks it's acceptable to ask me this question at all. For all they know I could've been attacked by an ex-husband with a knife, or mugged, or had some equally horrible emotional trauma. In fact, having cancer WAS a pretty emotionally traumatizing experience, and the last place I want to rehash it is somewhere crowded or public. Basic common sense would suggest to anyone who meets me that having my neck cut open is likely to have been unpleasant, so why would anyone in their right mind think that I would enjoy discussing it again - especially if I'm just trying to have a drink with my girlfriends at a bar or minding my own business on the stupid train? Would these people ask someone with a scarf around their head how they lost their hair? Or say to a woman whose shirt didn't quite fit right: "Hey, where's your other boob?". Possibly yes - I'm sure that level of social ineptitude exists - but I doubt it.
So what is it, reader(s), about a roughly three-inch long, slightly hypertrophic scar that causes people to, as my roommate would say, "spontaneously combust into douchebaggery"? (That phrase is pending copyright, by the way.) I understand that it is located right between my perfect face and rockin' tits, and given that most of these aforementioned douchebags are male it would follow that its location tends to draw the eye. But if it is really so distracting that one feels the need to completely discard manners (not to mention my feelings) and verbally acknowledge it, then why not simply look either up or down instead? Honestly, I'd rather a creepy jerk stare at my chest than pry into my personal life. Either way you're a creepy jerk and have no chance of any further interaction with me, but at least the first choice means I don't have to talk to you.
Before I met my boyfriend, nearly every boy I met at a party who showed any interest in me eventually worked up a high enough blood alcohol content to ask about my scar. My boyfriend was the only one who didn't. That's probably why he won out, and why he's been the only man who has the gonads to stick it out through all the cancer crap. I think I deserve to be seen as a person, not a disease - or a scar - and it has been shockingly disheartening to discover how many people lack the emotional and/or intellectual capacity to do so.
So in preparation for future encounters with such people, I think I need to come up with a better answer to the "What happened to your neck?" question. Normally I just mumble something about a surgery, but maybe it's best just to fight rudeness with rudeness. Which response, dear reader(s), do you think would be most uncomfortable for the asker:
1) Look them straight in the eye and say, "I have cancer." Maintain eye contact. Look very serious and/or sad. Possibly learn how to fake crying.
2) Make up a long and obviously untrue story, possibly involving ninjas, and then walk away.
3) Same as above, but with a story that seems like it could be true and suggests that I am or was a prostitute or gang member.
4) Ask them what happened to their face/brain/manners.
5) Burst into tears. This would also require learning how to cry at will.
6) Play dead.
7) All of the above. One after the other. Very quickly.
If no one comments on this I'm choosing number 7. You have been warned. Also I'd love to hear stories from people who have had similar problems with scars, post-chemo baldness, or any other physical abnormality. Remember: only YOU can prevent spontaneous douchebaggery (COPYRIGHT PENDING).
Yours,
RG
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