Leaving Dorothy Hamill

and returning home to Yul Brynner

By TEAM ANISSA

December 5^th, 2014

WEEK 20

December 5, 2014

It’s been 20 weeks since that life changing mammogram…not that I’m counting or anything. This equates to 132 consecutive days that Anissa and I have spent together. Together, not just everyday but together for every doctor appointment, second opinion, PET scan, bone scan, MRI, every poke and prod, surgery, drain removal (there were three in all) and followup visit. Under the circumstances, they are the best consecutive 132 days I’ve ever had with her. I’ve been told numerous times by those that have been through something like this that Anissa and I will come out of this with a stronger relationship and far more in love. I didn’t doubt it when they told me. I believe it. I see it happening. This 132 day streak was about to come to an end when I leave for San Francisco and I’ve never been more in love with my wife than I am right now.

Anissa’s hair is beyond the thinning stage. The hair left on the brush after one stroke is equal to the amount that would usually be left after a week’s worth of hair brushing. We both realized pretty quickly this was going to be the week that Anissa (and Jonathan) were dreading. Since the moment we told the kids Anissa had cancer the one big question Jonathan had every time Anissa had a doctor’s appointment was “Is today the day they give mom the medicine that makes her hair fall out?” Anissa and I discussed the reality of it all and that I would most likely return home from San Francisco to find a very bald wife. I joked that I’d be leaving Dorothy Hamill and returning home to Yul Brynner.

I had an opportunity to partner with my old firm up north and shoot a commercial up in the Bay Area. I’ve been missing San Francisco since I haven’t been traveling up as often as I used to. I really did think my next trip up would be with Anissa by my side… headed to Napa to celebrate getting through a really crappy year. But this was a solo mission – driving up Monday and returning on Thursday.

I took a very long and dull drive up the 5 freeway to San Francisco. Six solid hours to do nothing but think. In these 20 weeks, neither Anissa nor I have had this many uninterrupted, consecutive waking hours to actually do nothing but think.

On my way I listened to albums from start to finish. I had also had a link to a podcast sitting in my inbox for weeks now. Sent from a friend, it featured Julia Sweeney (from SNL and “Pat” fame). She tells her very bittersweet story of her own dealings with cancer. First with her brother’s diagnosis, and then with her own. One of the characters in her story is a friend and neighbor of ours – so being able to picture him as she’s sharing her story had me laughing out loud. I arrived safely and checked into the hotel – with many pelican cases in tow.

I loved shooting in the Bay Area, but I missed my wife and I wasn’t completely comfortable with being away from home this week. Anissa and I spoke as often as possible, texted whenever we could, and in the middle of my Tuesday I received a text containing a photo with the caption “guess what I got today?” The answer… a wig. Anissa had an awards/sports dinner for Isabella this week at school and that acted as the catalyst for the purchase. Just as I expected, she looked beautiful.

The week both dragged and flew by. Thursday finally arrived and I started my way home in the early afternoon from the city. After two 16+ hour days I thought I would take a little ‘me’ time to enjoy the drive back home and capture some views coming down the coast – armed with a 400mm lens, I stopped by the famed Maverick’s beach to see if I could get some shots of the surfers for use in a surfing magazine I had recently began working with. Instead of trespassing on the naval base that protects and provides vehicle access to Mavericks beach and risk jail time, I decided to drive a little bit more south. I discovered the tide pools and rock formations called tafoni at Pescadero State Beach. Just south of that I found the picturesque Pigeon Point lighthouse.

I made it to Santa Cruz (home of the UC banana slugs) and worked my way over through Gilroy, CA to the still boring 5 Freeway. While headed down the “5”, the song, “You’ll be okay” by A Great Big World came on the radio. From the first chord and first line – I was hooked. I’m sure you can apply these lyrics to a variety of crappy situations – but this one hit home for me. Soon after it played, I searched and found it on iTunes, purchased it and played it on repeat pretty much for the rest of the ride home. Give it a listen and you’ll see for yourself why this message of hope, encouragement and optimism has been playing at least once a day in the car since then (sometimes with tears) cranked up really loud.

It was nice to be able to stop and shoot when and what I wanted. In hindsight, however, I should have just gotten on the road and headed straight home. I took about two hours too long. By the time I walked in the door, the kids were in bed and my wife’s head was shaved. She couldn’t wait or take it any longer. And she couldn’t wait for me to get there to do it for her. The sensitivity of her scalp and hair follicles were too much to take. The discomfort caused by what little hair remained was overwhelmingly uncomfortable and just plain itchy. Anissa wanted me to be there and I wasn’t. Instead, she had the kids and our neighbor’s help her.

When I arrived home Isabella was in bed but still awake. I walked in to say goodnight and she immediately asked, “Did you see Mom?” “Yes I did” I said. “Do you like it?” she asked. I didn’t take much time to respond, “I do – it’s still Mom, just without hair – what’s not to like?”

I’ve never been in denial about Anissa having cancer. Sure, we both would like it to be a nightmare we can wake up from but we’ve always greeted it with a healthy dose of realism… or surrealism to be more accurate. For me, one of the strangest parts to this journey is realizing that it took almost five months and my wife to rock a bald head for it to really hit me that my wife does, in fact, have cancer. You don’t see cancer and you don’t feel cancer… you see the direct affects of surgeries and the side effects of the treatment. And yes, this too sucks.