Slightly over a day late due to sleep. Don’t get your hopes up.
Today I would like to ask:
Is there a link between male vanity and cancer?
Or rather, does male vanity reduce the risk of cancer?
Or does cancer just kill male vanity?
Today (or rather, yesterday) [or rather, the day before yesterday] D9 Diary will be wrestling with these important scientific questions through that vast and most infinitely reliable source of information – What Elliotcan remember from the last month.
Really, hopes should remain subterranean.
Finding myself sans cheveux, follicly challenged, dometastic, all bald like a really old man, kinda monk-like and ‘like one of those weird ugly cats’, (just some of the terms provided by my loving mother) I set about the task of getting my pretty on.
One of the first and most important jobs is shaving off any stragglers so that the baldness looks like a style and not a symptom. Done. Check. Sorted.
Next is a visit to the nice people of Wallace House. It’s sort of like Addenbrookes Hospital’s own Macmillan’s Manor parked across the road. I wandered in and said ‘I’ve got cancer, I’m on chemo, my hair’s fallen out, I wanna look good.’ Suffice to say, they reacted significantly better than the Post Office Worker (‘eerrrrrrrr……….’) but only marginally better than the Bank Cashier (‘so…….will you be closing your account or just making a withdrawal?’).
I asked about ‘bald beauty’ tips as I’ve never been bald before and I wasn’t sure if I should be waxing my dome or buffing it or buying Mr Muscle or all of the above, and I also asked about wigs.
The two very terribly friendly women that I talked to were terribly excited at first because they had never before had a man (or boy) show an interest in ANY of the beauty support groups. Apparently my attendance will be ‘terribly good for the women’. The last time someone said that to me I soon developed an intense allergy to divorced women in their mid-thirties with a penchant for French maid’s outfits.
Having established that I was showing an unusual vanity for a man in my position they proceeded to handover all the materials for ‘Dealing With Chemotherapy Related Hair Loss’.
It contained: Advice for women dealing with hair loss. Turbans, for women. Wigs upon wigs upon wigs. Hundreds of them. All designed for….women. Wig Cutters/Stylists ‘For women of any age’.
Everything was designed and targeted to women. There wasn’t a single thing that considered the possibility that a man might want any support or product when dealing with chemo-related hair loss or beauty in general. Apparently men on Chemo don’t care about their looks. Apparently I am unique in living memory by the virtue that I’m on chemoand have testicles and yet want to control my image.
I had a poke around the internet and found that hair loss support forchemo patients is all directed at women. Further digging got the response that ‘there is little or no demand for these services from male cancer sufferers’.
Hence the questions at the start. The fact of the matter is that vain malechemo patients are not catered for by the services available. This suggests a lack of demand (especially from reactions from the Wallace House staff), which suggests that open male vanity and chemotherapy are near mutually exclusive.
I see 4 possible conclusions:
1) Vain men don’t get cancer. I am an anomaly. Perhaps I’m not vain enough. Think about that.
2) Men, unlike women, lose their vanity in the face of the oncologist’s diagnosis. I am therefore an unusually vain man, who can fall into narcissistic obsession even when faced with ‘apparently’ more significant concerns such as cancer, chemo and karaoke. My ego likes this theory.
3) Most men, regardless of vanity, are not willing to shark out outrageous sums of time and money on beauty products. Women are women.
4) Most guys on chemo have already lost their hair.
I suspect that there may be other theories out there or maybe some of you support one of these 4 theories.
#3 reminds me that I haven’t mentioned the price of wigs.
Ouch.
Synthetic wigs designed to look natural start at £50 and rise into the hundreds if you want something good.
Real hair wigs cost A LOT MORE.
In the end, I went to the only Joke Shop I know of in Cambridgeshire and bought ‘90s Boy Band #2’ for ten quid. Looks good and sparkles just like real hair….
The range wasn’t amazing, although I went in there the other day and discovered the much more extensive ‘Fun Wigs for Women’ section, which is where I found my happy place. Typical.
On an entirely unrelated note, since this is round 3 of 6 I’ll be on the lookout for the Mid-Level Boss. I know there’s one around ‘cos there are health packs everywhere.
El ChemoNarcissus
Addenbrooke’s Next Top Model
There would be more peepot pictures but I’m bored of that now, especially after an Elliot Spaz Moment (TM) where I booted a (full) peepot across the bathroom. I feel that, for a 25 year-old, I have had to take part the resulting conversation far too many times in my life.
P.S. I just made you read through over 800 words about my vanity. You either get that punch line or you don’t.
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