Book Review: It's Not About the Hair

BOOK REVIEW:


It’s Not About the Hair, Debra Jarvis, 2007
Sasquatch Press
Seattle, WA

There are two parts to each of the ten short chapters. The first part of each is a short e-mail update by the patient to friends and relatives about her cancer diagnosis, treatment, side effects, talks with doctors, tests and various possible outcomes. The style is conversational and first person. The author is a patient!

Jarvis talks with you, not at you. There is nothing preachy about this veteran chaplain whose spirited sense of humor revealed in the introduction quickly dispels any idea that this book is sermon. It is a shot treatise on, as she puts it, how to be your best real self.

The first questions anyone asked are basic. What did I do to get cancer? Is this a death sentence? Why me?

Jarvis asks patients What’s Your Story? She willingly tells her own in a manner that takes the disease seriously, but not so much as to sow the seeds of depression. Laughter is a part of living in the moment, and while feeling crappy is a normal part of cancer treatment, it isn’t what life is about. There is a real need for frank honesty over hard questions with patients, however; a fact brought to light by some teenagers whom Jarvis spoke with: whenever I said I was fine they defined the word for me in a way that cleared the ice for some very frank discussing cancer and death.

Jarvis started a three session program for care giving staff titled The Existential Expedition. The first session deals with their childhood dreams, family beliefs about pain and suffering, and what prompted them to work in this field. The second dealt with spiritual though not necessarily religious beliefs. The third session was about death. How would you like to die? What happens when you die?

Throughout the book, sharing stories among patients by patients not specifically identified and beyond HIPPA regulations (those mythical confidentiality rules designed to protect patients’ secrets) is a good thing. The people here are alive and fighting, living and learning to deal with new and limiting realities. Each patient has a different story; and the wonder after diagnosis is how people manage to understand each other’s feelings at all. Each story, each treatment plan and its side effects are as individual as the personalities of the patients. Having cancer forces one to think about death. And life before that inevitable end.

Self evaluation before cancer is one thing. After diagnosis it is something quite different, and involves a very personal assessment of self that is physical, emotional, and spiritual. There is a difference between venting feelings and being angry, or feeding those feelings to the point of depression. The first is cathartic; the second, self destructive.

Jarvis covers attitudinal feelings about life after diagnosis - fatalistic or plan oriented; cheerful or fearful? You’re not dead yet, and as long as you have your boots on wear them to the end by remaining an active participant in life. Easier said than done, yes, but the alternative is self defeating.

Being honest and candid about treatments and side effects can be problematic. Jarvis discusses this as being chemo savvy; how to discuss issues with your doctors and other healthcare providers while realizing that chemo therapy is similar to fighting fire with fire.

Jarvis notes three final scenarios of treatment. If chemo (or whatever treatment) works unconditionally, full remission without recurrence occurs. If full remission does not occur and subsequent chemo is required, She describes it as the scene in The Shining where Jack Nicholson hacks his way through the door and says in an evil voice, “Here’s Johnny!” Only it’s cancer.

Chemo forever means that the cancer isn’t even temporarily curable. The afflicted will die. The difficulty for friends associated with cancer patients, and knowing that death is an inevitable consequence, is in acknowledging that as a fact of life for everyone.

That fact is hard to accept, and anyone who faces it knows that the first year after the death of someone you have loved is the hardest. It’s Not About the Hair is an excellent read for anyone dealing with either side of cancer.

Ron Scheurer
January 2, 2011




Ron Scheurer