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Wishes

Posted in Boston, Cancer, chemotherapy, Denial, Dreams, family, hair, London, prayer, recovery, work, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I am making a wish on each eyelash that I catch as it falls out. All those wishes have to add up, right? I refuse to waste a wish on anything pointless, like wishing that my eyelashes and eyebrows wouldn’t fall out, although I really don’t want them to. So what am I wishing for? Like birthday wishes, I don’t think you’re supposed to tell or they won’t come true. But I bet you can guess – they’re pretty much the same things that I pray for…

So I guess I can tell you more of the things that I wish but don’t waste the eyelash wishes on:

  • I wish the hair on my head would either all grow or not grow at all – it is so annoying having these patches of hair growing on my head! I really feel like a chia pet. Luckily, Nick is home from London and offered to shave my head again. I think I will be taking him up on that…
  • I wish people wouldn’t worry about me so much. Tonight I told Nick I was going for a run and he looked all serious and said “Really? Ok, but be careful. What time will you be back?” It is sweet. But I really do feel fine, these in-between weeks, after the initial week of hell and the next infusion. I can run, I can babysit, I can work, I can drive. I am good. And I feel bad wishing this – I am so, so thankful so many people care about me. I just wish they wouldn’t worry so much… 🙂 And yes, I am blocking out the incident at Training Camp, but that was also because I was stupid and rushed being better – I was still in that first week post-chemo. I will try to be smarter this next round…
  • I wish I could go to my cheap nail salon and get my regular mani/pedi’s again. Oh how I (and my hands and my feet) miss them…
  • I wish I didn’t have chemo brain. I hate it when I am not at the top of my game. And according to Sue, chemo brain lasts for months and months after the chemo stops. So I won’t be back 100% until well into 2013. Ugh. Good excuse for why I won’t be winning at trivia though. 🙂
  • I wish I had unlimited funds so I could buy more wigs. Now that I’ve started wearing them, they’re not so bad. But I don’t like to wear the same one all the time, I like to mix it up between wigs and hats just to try to have fun with it. Now to buy the electric blue one…
  • And then the most pointless wish of all: I wish I wasn’t sick! I know, as people keep reminding me, I am officially cancer free since the surgery, but the fact is the chemo makes me more sick than I ever felt with the cancer! I do understand why it had to be cut out and why I now have to go through all this chemo to kill all the cancer cells (especially after talking to my friend Laura who had it come back again, even after having a mastectomy!), but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.

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Run Away

Posted in Cancer, chemotherapy, Decisions, Denial, hair, work, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 23, 2012| 3 Comments »

One of my friends posted on Facebook today: Some days I just really wish I could just run away. I commented: me too. I actually woke up thinking that, as soon as I realized that tomorrow was Round 3. (I am so sick of being sick!!!!!!) I put the thought aside and went to work, immersing myself in all I had to do, and having fun watching people do double takes when they saw me as a blonde. Hey, I have to have SOME fun with this!

But when my friend Phil asked me this afternoon if I was ready for tomorrow, I deflated. I shook my head and said no, I’d rather run away and avoid it completely. He nodded and, as usual, gave me some pretty good advice. He said to think of it as after tomorrow, I’ll be 75% there. It’s like thinking about the last mile when you’re running: you can always do that final mile. And thinking about it that way, I know he’s right. I can do it – even though I really don’t want to.

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Being bald

Posted in Boston, Cancer, chemotherapy, Denial, family, hair, Planning, recovery, work, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 9, 2012| 10 Comments »

Yup – that’s me, today. I went to work today bald. No hat, no wig, no scarf. And it actually wasn’t even that hard, even though I swore I would never do it. I’ll never forget – what seems like a lifetime ago but was probably just a month – sitting on my couch with Mike, who was helping me pick out a pre-bald short haircut from a magazine, and talking about going back to work during chemo. “You mean you’ll go to work bald?” he asked. I said, of course, when I’m feeling well enough, but never actually bald – I’ll wear hats and wigs – I would never go bare-headed. I guess some times you really don’t know what you’ll do until you do it!

To be honest, it’s not that I am taking a stand or anything, or suddenly felt comfortable with how I look. I just hate wearing things on my head. I am not a big one for hats and the wigs just feel weird. So I just stopped wearing them at home, and finally just said screw it, why wear one out, either? Of course, I will be smart and continue to wear a hat at least outside so I don’t burn my poor scalp, but otherwise have simply given up on vanity and worrying what other people think. I did consider whether to actually go to work without anything on my head, simply because I didn’t want to make anyone else feel uncomfortable, but I talked it through with Nick and he assured me it would be fine. And he was right. Everyone at work was fabulous, encouraging and supportive, as usual. I am very blessed to work there!

Being bald isn’t as bad as I thought. In fact, I never really thought about it at all before all this. A few people, after being very sweet and complementing me on the shape of my head (at least it’s not completely deformed), mentioned how they imagine their head. I really never imagined mine – and hoped I’d never find out! But here are some pros:

  • I never worry about if my hair is messed up.
  • It is much cooler (temperature-wise).
  • It takes one second to wash my head.
  • It takes one second to dry my head.
  • It takes no time to style!

I do practically jump every time I look in the mirror or see my shadow, because I constantly forget I’m bald – it’s just not how I see myself in my head. I still have long brown hair in my mind. And I know I will again someday… well, who knows if it will be brown, based on how many people have told me stories of hair growing back totally different! Yet another thing that we’ll have to wait and see.

But for now, I will embrace the bald, and hold my head up high, as advised by my wise son. And when people give me those strange looks on the street and I can tell they are wondering if I’m sick or a skin head, I will smile reassuringly if they seem nice or give them a glare if not. And when I’m feeling up to it, maybe I’ll try the blonde wig or the long brown one. But who needs hair? It takes so much time! 😉

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