Coping with Cancer - Fashion
This week’s blog is a fashion special. I don’t know about you, but when I’m walking around the house feeling like I need to vomit, I want to look good! So here’s a guide to what’s trending in the world of cancer this winter.
In
Scarves
When not in hospital, cancer patients spend most of their time sitting on park benches or wistfully walking along the beach. Having a good scarf is an essential accompaniment to this. It gives a certain intellectual quality - think Sherlock Holmes with a hangover - and it protects our sensitive throats from the wind. I like a nice long woolly number, it looks good and has chemo-chic written all over it.
Jumpers
Not since Sarah Lund in The Killing have knitted jumpers been at such a fashion height. Every self-respecting chemo patient has one. Its says – I’m ill, but I’m stylish; I’m cold-sensitive but sexy; you can cuddle me without having to feel my pasty, chemo-ridden skin.
The jumper look works best at our cancer wine evenings, where we discuss our favourite books – Cancer Ward, Its Not About the Bike, Junkie - and compare the size of our chemo meds.
Leather gloves
The ultimate way to keep those frozen fingers warm, leather gloves have the bonus of making the wearer look like a contract killer. I like to sport mine alongside a red woolly jumper, for a particularly intimidating look.
A Power Suit
Nothing says fuck-you-cancer like a power suit. The woman opposite me in the chemo ward always wears one and she looks like she eats men for breakfast. They say cancer can affect anyone, but I don’t think its staying around in her for long.
Baldness
People have been very disappointed when I turn up to the pub with hair. ‘We thought you’d be bald,’ they say. ‘You can’t be that ill.’ Its as if my cancer severity is defined by the extent to which I resemble Michael Stipe. I need to go bald!
NB: For all those who’ve said, ‘I see the hair loss has already started’ – its too early for the chemo to affect this, but thanks for noticing!
A classy medication bag
Picture the scene. You’re in the office. It late Monday morning. Everyone’s sat quietly at their desks. You reach down and open a classy leather bag. Inside is a perfectly organised syringe, tourniquet, a line of pills and a couple of ten-pound notes. Without saying anything you take out the syringe, remove the safety gap, then inject it into your stomach. Then you lie back in your seat and take a long exhale. After about thirty seconds you sit up, wipe the syringe clean and place it back in the leather bag. Then you click your mouse and go back to your spreadsheet.
It’s only blood-thinner, but you have office-cool for life.
A well-placed Pic-line
The ‘Pic’ is the line that’s attached to our arm, which nurses use to give us our chemotherapy. Its relatively subtle but still clearly says ‘cancer’ when publicly exposed. Mine is handily placed just under my armpit, making it highly conspicuous through a small t-shirt, but not through a baggy one. I try and keep the pic under wraps if I’m…say, in a restaurant, but if I’m getting a bollocking at work or putting in sub-standard parkrun performance, I like to pull up my sleeve and give it a gentle rub.
Out
Wigs
A part of me really wants to go for the Def Leppard look and pick up a long curly mullet (it’s a wig for cancer – no-one can tell you that’s not okay).
The general rule though, is that natural is always best. For either sex, bald can sometimes be a good look, and at the end of the day, no-one else really cares. You’ve got cancer for fucks sake. It’s unlikely you’ll be out on the pull during chemo and if you are, that wig’s not going to stay on forever!
A full suit
Most people who have cancer are old. And in a room full of old people. I guarantee there’s always one that turns up in a beige suit and bow tie. Seriously, this is chemo ward not Henley Regatta, no-one here cares about social etiquette.
Headscarves
The key with this is to get in character. The traditional headscarf can give a sexy alternative look, but according to my housemate made me ‘look like a chemo pirate.’ A hijab-style headscarf can say ‘chic and bohemian,’ but can also make you look like an over-aged backpacker with a copy of Eat,Pray Love in your pocket. The bandana, while retro-cool, should only be reserved for muscular men or overt feminists.
The general rule with headscarves is that unless you’re already cool, stay away.
Pyjamas
There’s a fashion hierarchy in the chemo ward:
T-shirt and shorts – a first timer, no idea what’s coming
Hoodie and jeans – a mid-level pro, probably on 4th or 5th cycle
Black jeans, black polo neck and a face mask – hardcore
Pyjamas – probably on death’s door
Cancer patients are really friendly, but are all petrified of dying. Pyjamas are not to be worn unless absolutely necessary.
Medication alarm
The classy heroin addict look – cool. Alarms to tell you when you need to take your meds – not cool. Very quickly people will hate you.
Anything pink
People who wear pink are usually over-exuberant types with loud voices who smile a lot and run 5ks to help ‘beat’ cancer. People who have cancer are generally calm, deadpan individuals, who know that their only option is to take shit-loads of drugs and hope for the best. We tend to prefer grey t-shirts, blue jeans and maybe some lucky pants.
When I first walked into the Chemo Ward I was amazed by how normal everyone looked. After years of charity adverts, where cancer patients are depicted as bald, emaciated individuals, I was expecting a scene out of The Walking Dead. I certainly wasn’t expecting a thirty-year-old punk with a mohican, a body builder in an Oakland Raiders shirt and an attractive businesswoman in a power-suit.
The truth is, cancer patients are the same as everyone else. Some of them are old, shivering and ugly, but many of them are fit, good-looking and happy. Cancer doesn’t care if you’re black or white, straight or gay, beautiful or ugly, American or Mexican, Catholic or Muslim or Jedi. All it wants to do is take over your body and kill you.
I’m not letting it do that. That’s why I’m wearing jeans, a New York Marathon t-shirt and some lucky pants. I’m still Ben Evans. Nothing’s taking that away from me.
Stay warm and stay fashionable. I’ll see you next week.
Ben
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