The Two Baldinis

NF2 Woman and Cancer Girl

It was 6 or 7 years ago that Jen and I decided, all spur of the moment like -- “hey, let’s both have huge, possibly devastating, medical issues at the same time!” You know, we’re tight like that, we like to do things together.

Jen was diagnosed with breast cancer (and she abhors the color pink -- how inconvenient) and was doing the chemo/radiation tango while I was going in for, what turned out to be, back to back (so to speak) brain surgeries. OK, saying “brain surgery” is all melodramatic and not entirely accurate. The cutting is done at the skull base just outside the brain. The docs are messing with those thickly settled nerve bundles which control sight, sound, smell, sensation as well as a bunch of other shit. In other words, they’re dancing a delicate scalpel ballet inside my head.

The best part of all the scary-ass fun we were having was getting to be bald at the same time. Naturally, Jen looked like the babe from that Star Trek movie (sans eyebrows and lashes though). Me? Not so much but we can’t all be Persis Khambatta. 

Our boss at the time was not only tremendously supportive, he also understood our sense of humor. We were christened “The Two Baldinis.” We took the necessary time off but tried to work through as much as we could.  The job, the routine of going into work, gave each of us a sense of normalcy and perspective. Yes what was happening to and inside each of our bodies was some freaky-ass, scary craziness but we would survive it and get on to our next non-medical adventure.

If we let our fears consume us, neither of us would have been able to function. Instead, we got angry. You know "no motherfucking, piece of shit tumor's gonna get the best of me. No way. No how!" This wasn't a conscious effort -- it was a reflex like yawning in church or feeding stray cats.

Being the comic book loving freak that I am, I decided we needed new super hero monikers. I had been referring to us as Paranoia Woman and Neurosis Girl, now we would be NF2 Woman and Cancer Girl.

Names/titles are mutable -- we all hold many in our lives. Jen and I are also the Empresses of Glorious Survival as well as Loquacious Broad and the Kick Ass Kid.