Lila Chided Me Over My Obsession With Minutes When We Talked

Friday, for just over 30 of them. Each one as precious, and as sustaining, as a unique breath. I measure the good parts of my days by the minutes logged on my Skype account...

It sounds like she had a great day. Before going to therapy, she went to school and visited with a couple of here former students. An "auslander" herself (she's German, still), Lila was/is an advocate on her campus for the interests of the so-called 'international students.' These are the academic cash-cows who attend US universities from overseas, mostly on full tuition, or on scholarships in non-revenue sports. Often they are only of limited English proficiency--spoken/listening--though they read and write tolerably well. They often have no real representation in the councils of power at the schools they attend. Lila tries/tried to represent them at her school, as I did back in the day when I was a faculty person. You had to feel sorry for 'em, in a way. They were so smart (could you take advanced courses in a second or third language?), but often so out of place, and crippled by language.

Then she met for an hour or so with her old friend and dissertation advisor. I guess they told war-stories, as academics do. Later, she had radiation therapy, after which she and her daughter went to lunch and thence to a scarf-tying workshop, where Lila learned to tie a scarf that more suits her gamine face and style. She says her face isn't angelic enough to wear one of those Madonna-style halo-cloud wraps. She was always drawn to the art-deco/art nouveau, flowing, sweeping scarf look which, I suspect, suits her elfin features perfectly. She said she'd get her daughter to take a fone-foto of her in one, and in her new wig, which had arrived, she said, while she was in the hospital for observation during the week.

As we talked, Lila enumerated a lot of things she'd learned at the scarf-tying workshop which, for some reason about which she was puzzled, had not been included in the instructional portfolio offered by the Cancer Clinic, especially regarding hygene and hair. For one thing, the clinician at the session warned women against shaving themselves to the skin, either on their heads, pubicly, or anywhere else. Better, the person said, to leave stubble, if possible. Shaving opens up the skin for unexpected nicks, ingrown hairs, and therefore to possible opportunistic infections. If you are on these Chemo drugs, one thing you do not want is infections. The cosmetician also said, even when the hair falls out, folks in treatment need to continue to apply shampoo, etc, to the scalp, just to keep it toned and healthy. Left alone, as you might with hair thereupon, the skin and pores of the scalp can become clogged. (To the amusement of my then-partner, I one-time about 20 years ago, had an idea for a product i would then have called "Silk, the shampoo for every hair on your body.")

I suggested she write to the Cancer Clinic management with a list of the things she's noted in the management of the program, including gentle suggestions for improving, or amplifying, the care they now provide. My gal's 'critical,' in the 'critical theory' sense of the word. She thinks, connects dots, finds links, sees flaws. Given, for instance, the medical/health implications of shaving, per se, shouldn't that be a matter presented by the clinical staff? Wouldn't it be a good idea to provide the consultancy of a cosmetician with extensive experience dealing with cancer treatment patients?

(Non Sequitur Alert: I always make sure the last thing I write or say to her, anytime, is "I Love You.")