By Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Kaiser Health News, October 29, 2019
Dorothy Hammack had planned to wash her thick, dark hair in the kitchen sink Friday morning. She couldn't yet shower, due to the incision on her breast from a biopsy a few days before. Her doctor had already called to let her know the results: She had breast cancer.
She was supposed to be researching treatment options and organizing doctor appointments. Instead, Hammack, 79, was standing in her pajamas in the parking lot of a makeshift evacuation center in Santa Rosa, the urban center of Sonoma County's celebrated wine country. The Kincade Fire was blazing in the mountains above the home she shared in nearby Windsor with her fiancé, Aldo Lovati, 64. Winds predicted to be fast and furious were expected that evening, and the couple was among the 180,000 people who ultimately would be ordered to evacuate as the fire tore through the rugged terrain of northeastern Sonoma County and bore steadily southwest.
Much to Hammack's dismay, her hair remained wrapped in a gray-and-black nightcap. There had been no time to wash it. She was upbeat, though, laughing at the stream of banter and jokes Lovati told to keep them distracted.
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