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Fashion and Its Healing Power
There are those who think fashion is frivolous or silly, but I know better. Only a couple of people on Ricochet know this, but I was sick last year. On May 20, 2016, my friend and neighbor threw me into the car and rushed me to the ER when I had a severe attack of abdominal pain. She knew I’d been having these for months because I’d missed parties and dinners, and this time she said, “Okay that’s it! We’re going to the ER.” I made her wait while I took a bath, washed my hair, shaved my legs, dried my hair, and put on makeup and an outfit. My reasoning was that if I showed up looking the way I was, they wouldn’t even try to save me.
When I got to the ER, they did a CT scan. A doctor came into the room and said, “We found a mass in your abdomen. You have cancer. We’re operating right now.” I barely had time to absorb this dire diagnosis because they knocked me out. Lucky for him, because I was about to give him a piece of my mind on the topic of bedside manner. I mean he wasn’t exactly DocJay.
He later told me that when I’d arrived at the ER, I was about six hours from death. My friend saved my life. And I had made her wait an hour while I took a bath, did my hair and makeup, and selected a chic outfit. No wonder they call vanity a Deadly Sin. But I couldn’t help it! One of my favorite quotes from a famous style icon and former editor of Vogue was running through my mind:
“I loathe narcissism, but I approve of vanity.” — Diana Vreeland
Thanks a lot, Diana! That’s the last time I listen to you.
But on to the healing power of fashion. I went through chemo from July 1 till the end of January. It was a mild course for lucky patients like me who are curable. The mass was contained, and they got it all plus 21 lymph nodes. The chemo was just to be on the safe side. I didn’t even go bald or throw up. I didn’t feel good though. It was pretty awful, but it could have been worse.
My last treatment was January 25. The week before it, I woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, and realized that I Iooked dreadful. My skin had aged 10 years since July, and there were little red blotches on my face. I couldn’t believe it. The doctor said, Well you were being poisoned for six months. She said I’d go back to normal. At the beginning they told me that, while I wouldn’t go bald, my hair would get thinner, and it did. And here I was at the end of it, alive but with a blotchy face and much thinner hair, looking like the Wrath of God. So what did I do? I accessorized.
I was determined to at least feel pretty even if I didn’t look it. Even though I work from home and some days never see another human, I got up each morning and put on something cute. And bracelets and a necklace. And perfume (Calèche by Hermès). I slick my hair back into a ponytail. I do this every day, and now that a few months have gone by, I’m starting to look normal again.
*An aside: Boss Mongo directed me to the Etsy shop of a family friend, and I bought some chokers from her. Her stuff is so cute! I wear them every day. Thanks, Boss! You didn’t even know why this was so important to me. Here’s a link: https://www.etsy.com/shop/LooshandCo?
Even when I didn’t look like I wanted to look yet, fashion and style made me feel better about everything. Frivolous and silly? Maybe. But during that awful time, I know it contributed to my recovery. Somehow I know that if I’d spent the last few months in sweatpants, I’d still be that blotchy person looking back at me in the bathroom mirror that day in January.
I had my last CT scan on February 20, and was declared cancer-free. You guys never knew it, but you saw me through one of the worst times of my life. Logging in here every day and laughing and reading all of you, it was almost as healing as clothes. Don’t get all cocky, I said almost.
And now for a few of my favorite fashion quotes:
“Your dresses should be tight enough to show you’re a woman and loose enough to show you’re a lady.” — Edith Head
“People will stare. Make it worth their while.” — Harry Winston
“Trendy is the last stage before tacky.” — Karl Lagerfeld
@docjay @bossmongo
Published in Humor
Kate, thank you for this!
Not to mention the PIT
RA, your courage is an inspiration.
Thank you for confiding in us.
Excellent article, RightAngles, and of course I’m happy that you are better.
Here’s the problem with that. You hear a story like this one and figure you should go see a doctor when you have a problem. The doctor looks you over, shrugs, and says hopefully it will just go away on it’s own. Which it usually does. Or maybe they say you should see a specialist. So you make an appointment with a specialist but since you had to wait three months to get in, by that time your body has fought off the infection and you just have one minor lingering symptom. The specialist looks you over and says you’re fine now. You explain the one lingering symptom and he shrugs and says maybe it will go away on it’s own. And eventually it does. Or it’s something that comes and goes and it’s not acting up on the day of your appointment, so you get the shrug.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t go to the doctor, but I understand why some people don’t go until the problem is very severe.
You dodged a bullet, my dear, even though you had to be dragged kicking and screaming to do it. And with such style! Thank goodness.
Like you, I avoid doctors like the plague. Fortunately, I’ve got my wife to fulfill the function that your friend did for you. We all need someone who makes those sanity checks.
Love, love the illustrations.
Bless your friend and your doctor because we love you. You poor kid. I had no idea.
I had three (dear Lord, three!) C-sections, and after one of them, I was feeling rather low and tired. My husband popped into the hospital room and said, “You look great!”
“Get lost,” I said.
“No, really, you look great.”
“I feel like c**p!”
“Don’t you know that it’s better to look maavelous than it is to feel maavelous?” (He got this from some classic skit on Saturday Night Live, I guess.)
I felt better. Laughing was good! And there was some truth to it.
A while ago I read the most moving story about some women who survived the Nazis’ concentration camps and lipstick. My mom was so much like this. She was very beautiful, and always got “dressed up.” The funny thing about this is that she also made everything around her beautiful. Beauty really is something that starts inside a person.
A great comment, Marci! “Get lost” hahaha!
Whoa, Righty! Thank you for major motivation: OOHRAH! For me, it’s earrings and necklaces. Baubles make me feel fab! You were prayed for, though you didn’t know it…HUGE BATCH OF PANDA HUGS! (Rechargeable by request – indefinitely.) So glad you’re here – and that I am, too! Love this post so much!
Yeah, the last 3 times I went to a doctor for some nagging annoyance, not only did I never see an actual doctor ( just the nurse practitioner ) but the response was ‘you are getting older now, so get used to it’.
But, as RightAngles story shows, just because the last 3 visits were not necessary, doesn’t mean the next one won’t save my life. Arrgh. I do hate going to the doctor…
Billy Crystal, I believe.
it was clean when I put it on…
We can tell the difference between “fresh” and “nasty”.
I broke my ankle years ago, and I went home to shave my leg before I went to the ER!
Too funny.
Everyone was so ticked off at me.
But I’m sorry, too bad. I’m not going until I have shaved this poor leg. :)
My husband went on one occasion to the ER wearing the clothes he had just worn on a farm call. At the farm he had been stomach-tubing a feisty cow, so some rumen fluid splashed onto his coveralls and soaked through to his blue jeans. That’s no problem in a nice cool dairy barn. But in a quite warm ER treatment room? – Oy, that was distressing. It was not the best PR!
Glad you got through all that and are still here with us, Righty! Ricochet (and Texas) just wouldn’t be the same without you!
One of the best books I’ve ever edited was Investor’s Business Daily‘s Sports Leaders & Success: 55 Top Sports Leaders & How They Achieved Greatness.
IBD has a little inspirational column in its daily newspaper, maybe 800 words tops, about people who have achieved greatly. (One guy wrote a letter to the founding editor of IBD, William J. O’Neil, to say that he had his middle-school-aged son read this daily column to him every day as he drove his son to school. What a great idea and a great dad!)
This was a collection of some of the sports columns. Nearly all of them tell a story about an athlete who had physical issues to overcome. It was so inspiring to me that I thought that if I ever won the megabucks, I would buy a copy for every doctor’s office and hospital and clinic waiting room in the world.
If you know of someone who is facing a long battle with ill health, you should give them this book to encourage them. It’s a short but powerful book.
When I was young, my mother always said ‘be sure to wear clean underwear, in case you have to go to the hospital!’
My brothers response was always ‘Don’t worry mom, I’m not wearing any underwear’.
Mine was ‘If something bad enough happens that I end up in the hospital, my underwear won’t be clean anymore anyway!’
Had a sixteen year old come to the ER in Wisconsin drunk. Really ,really drunk. Spent the night getting sober.
In the morning his dad came to pick him up and he had a pungent cow barn odor about him.
Goes up to his kid and says ” Come on lets go, we got cows to milk”, with the kid gagging all the way out the door.
All I could think was, “that will teach him”….
Sure, it’s an inspirational, moving story told by, and about, one of my favorite cyber-people. Like everyone else on the thread, I’m deeply grateful you caught it in time. It’s an honor to know you, RA! But if truth be told…I’m here for the artwork!
Oh my goodness RA. No one would have ever guessed! You surely know how to put on a brave and happy face. While walking through a dark time yourself, you lit this place up with fun.
What a happy result. Here’s to your continuing good health, which I will be praying for.
Thank you! :)
Wow. Right Angles! I’m late to this celebration of your life and journey through healing, but as you look around you . . the love and happiness your existence here has generated . . A beautiful gift to us all.
Thank you, thank you. On a grey day you’ve given us all so much to smile about. Wow :)
Trink, you’re the best.
Both, always both.
I printed this out for the Mrs.
She was always one of those natural beauties who never had to try very hard. Since chemo her hair is thinner, her eyebrows never really grew back and her looks bother her. I keep telling her she still has all the parts (except the one they lopped off, of course, . . . but we went off plan to get that rebuilt by one of the best). I think a little makeover would go a long way for her overall attitude.
OH I’m so sorry you both had to go through this. My eyebrows got thinner too. I hope they come back. I agree it really helps the morale to get gussied up! It’s also great if a truck driver smiles and waves at you at a red light.
Yep, you still got it! ?