Cancer...I hate it but it's kind of funny sometimes

I have cancer. It's kind of like having a distant relative who shows up for a weekend visit and won't leave. Remember when Cousin Ernie showed up at Ricky and Lucy's apartment and wouldn't leave? She finally had to dress up like a "wicked city woman" and vamp Cousin Ernie to get him to go back to Bent Fork. That's what I'm doing. Just like Lucy and Ethel, me 'n my friend chemo are going to vamp cancer and trick it into leaving me alone. It's a great plan. Besides, I've always longed for an exciting, mysterious life filled with espionage. I just never thought I would be held captive by my own body. I was thinkin' more like Pierce Brosnan or George Clooney than cancer, okay? Still, I'm ready to embark on this great new chemo cruise of sorts, if only I could figure out this whole diet and wig thing. That, dear friends, is what we're hear to talk about today. Let us now start off with the phenomenon that is....the wig.

So, I took my husband with me to the wig store. BFF's and sisters-in-law are incredibly wonderful. Mothers are unimaginably essential. But, for this mission, I needed someone who I could guarantee would tell me the God's honest truth, someone who would live in fear of what I might choose to withhold from him should he lie to me to make me feel better. We girls can do that, ya know? Anyway, as we stood outside the "salon" and formed our game plan, me as the quarterback and Kev as my center who would launch the unsuspecting wigs my way for the saleslady to plop on my head, I was a bit uneasy. Wig stores are a little creepy. They slap you in the face and make you see what is about to happen to you, like it or not. And, they put ridiculous pantyhose things on your head. I didn't know if I was supposed to rob the store or what? Still, I tried on wigs, and tried on wigs, and tried on wigs. Amazingly, the wigs that you think look EXACTLY like you'd want to look and would make you absolutely indistinguishable from Kate Beckinsale, in actuality, make you look like a Fraggle or like Priscilla back when she first married Elvis. There was one wig that made me want to croon an off-key version of "Coal Miner's Daughter" whilst accepting my 1972 CMA Female Vocalist of the Year award. There was another one with blond tips and black roots that prompted the chorus only from Rod Stewart's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy." Still another made me a doppelganger for Janet from "3's Company". It was a daunting task, so I developed what I like to call "The Church Test." Me: "Kevin, does this one look good?" Kevin: "Yeah, those little spriggly things that quiver when you turn your head are very realistic." Me: "Kevin, that's my real hair poking out of the bottom." Kevin: "Oh??" Me: "Kevin, can you really see me walking into St. Martin's with this thing quivering on top of my head?" Kevin: "I see what you mean. NEXT!" And, so it went. We did finally settle on a stunning little number named "Codi". Yes, in an unprecedented showing of personification, the saleslady insisted on referring to the wig as "her". Would you like to purchase some wig shampoo for "her"? I'm going to throw in a free wig head for "her". After all was said and done, however, and I think what it will be like to walk into church with "Codi" atop my noggin, I may just love "her". And that, my friends, is the story of how Dina met Codi. But, about my diet......

I am so confused. Eat meat. Don't eat meat. Yes dairy. No dairy. Soy is good. Soy is very, very bad. Soy is the Anti-Christ. Be a vegan. Eat any veggies. Eat only organic. Eat anything you want, you have cancer. Eat nothing. Eat everything. What is a sick girl to do? Where will I go? As Scarlet O'Hara said to Rhett Butler while Atlanta was burning, "What will become of me?" I THOUGHT I had it all figured out, smart little/sly little me! I thought I knew my cancer diet. I read and read and read and read - just to be sure. But, out of the 15 cancer books I'm looking at this moment, with about 12 of them being geared right toward breast cancer, I see that they all say something slightly different! To make it worse, apparently no self-respecting cancer doctor or oncologist is willing to stake their reputation on any one certain diet. So, we read. So, we research. After months of this (I should have a PhD in cancer, let me tell you!) I develop what I think is a fail-proof plan. I will do the vegan thing. After all, though I've been eating meat again for several years, I did spend several years and two pregnancies as a lacto-ovo vegetarian, only stopping when my family thought it best to break the news to me that, alas, chocolate is really not a meat substitute. The morph to vegan-ism should be easier for me than the average Joe, right? Yes! It's been an almost effortless though interesting transition from supposed normalcy to becoming the only non-carnivore in my household. But, what does a vegan put in her coffee? What do good little vegan girls pour over their Kashi in the mornings? Why, soy milk, of course! So, I've been swimming around in "Silk" heaven for the last 3 weeks. That was until Friday night. That was until Aunt Sue found it necessary to tell me that studies have linked pro-estrogen cancers, like mine, and soy consumption together. Aunt Sue knows her cancer, too! I looked it up. I researched it nine ways to Sunday and there is a link between both pre and post menopausal cancer patients that would suggest we stay the heck away from soy. Oh well, that at least leaves me with organic veggies and fruits and whole grain breads, right? Yum, yum! Besides, did you know that Pamela Anderson is a vegan? I'm getting on that bandwagon, fo sho! I'll have whatever Pam is having....then I'm off to vamp some cancer!