Knocked out cold

“You better wear my jacket. I won’t let you go home without it. It’s cold!” my friend chided as I propped myself up gingerly over my Scooty. I was all set to go home after the dance programme and I refused to wear her brand new jacket for I knew how much she loved it. Well, she had her way and I rode along looking awkward wearing that denim jacket over my Mangalgiri sari with bright gold ‘zari’. But, she was right. I was cold, thank God for the jacket. 

I remembered this incident while reading a book on chemotherapy, which brought my attention to cooling caps. The docs had mentioned that the medicines would be strong enough to destroy not just the rapidly growing cancer cells, but even the cells of hair follicles and nail cuticles.

These are more like helmets that are placed in freezing temperatures for a while and then wrapped around the patient’s head, while the chemo meds are on. The blood carrying the meds may not reach certain parts of the body that are frozen. This is the theory behind protecting chemo patients from losing hair. Similarly, having ice chips inside one’s mouth can prevent a chemo patient from having mouth ulcers, which is one of the key side effects.

You can’t miss her in a crowd; her ‘messy’ hair stood up while she stood out. Some in her office even called her as the one with the lion’s mane. “I have always been proud of my hair, my asset! Will I lose my eyebrows too?” my friend asked. 

Her sister and I researched for two days and we laid our hands on those cooling caps, each costing over Rs 30,000 through Hairline - hair and skin clinic in Bengaluru. Despite knowing that it has a 50% chance of being useless, we wanted to pin our hopes on the other 50%.

Chemo session is generally harrowing. The meds are toxins running through your system making you miserable as it is. And here was my friend enduring the freezing cap over her head and biting into those ice chips. “Ow!” she screamed, shivering like an Eskimo. We all turned immediately to help gently remove the ice chips that were stuck on her tongue. How could we be so careless to not let those chips thaw for a while. Her tongue was bleeding. As the doc said, she looked like a “war veteran”, both literally and figuratively. She felt like she was trapped in a crevice atop K2, just like in the film Vertical Limit. 

Despite enduring the avalanche-like trauma, she was worried about the rest. “Careful with the dry ice baby. Wear the bloody gloves,” she’d bellow, while watching me draw out another freezing helmet from the cooler to replace the one she was wearing. Every helmet would return to room temperature in a span of 45 minutes. We had 3 helmets that were used in rotation to last through those 6 hours of chemo.

My friend’s mother hails from the beautiful city of Palakkad, which borders the two states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. She is a strong lady, who has overcome many challenges - arthritis to hip replacement surgeries to more. Having willed herself to get off the clutches of being bed-ridden, here she was ready to sacrifice her long tresses for the cause of cancer. She wanted to stand by her daughter, who was willing Tilotama to go into hiding. “Will you help put me on to the right person to donate my hair?” my friend’s mother asked me.

Incidentally, I came across a 27-year-old guy, who saw his best friend’s mother fighting cancer and set up a foundation to help with hair donation. He came home to help fulfil the wish of my friend’s mother. 

Unfortunately, for us, the cooling caps decided to play truant. “I’m losing hair. I don’t like this life. How could I get this?” my friend cried in distress. “Nothing seemed to be on our side. Not even the cooling caps,” I thought, aggrieved. Tilotama looked at me tauntingly, “Did your witness turn hostile my darling?” 

I simply felt butchered.