Give me a head with HAIR, long beautiful hair...

Hair is always an issue with women, isn't it? well, I guess it is with men too, after all, its seems that the cure for baldness is like the Holy Grail (I think I just saw something like that in a movie...).

At any rate, hair- I'm in smack in the middle of peach fuzz phase and it ain't pretty. I shed the wiglet and hats that I have been wearing since April while at Omega and am now venturing out onto the streets with my fuzzy noggin exposed for the world to see. I've learned a lot about hair, I remember before I started treatment that the doctor told me I'd lose mine about 2 weeks into chemo and I thought "whatever, that's the least of my concerns", little did I know how much of an effect it has on you. And it's not a simple vanity issue (although I was sort of astonished to see just how vain I could be), the biggest impact it has is that being bald is a constant reminder of cancer. You are no longer able to have it slip your mind, not even for a minute; you catch a glimpse of yourself in a mirror or reflection, develop the habit of constantly touching your bald head, your head is incessantly switching from hot to cold, you're putting on a cap to stay warm, yanking it off because you are sweating, you find yourself putting together one odd getup or another before you leave the house, it's all just weird, and what it manages to do is make you feel that much less "you". And then you lose ALL your hair. There are upsides to that one here and there, no waxing or plucking needed, you can save a ton on shampoo, but then there is the loss of eyebrows and eyelashes that makes you look like an alien. I joked with my husband all the way thru it about how I used to used to gauge things by whether or not I was having a good hair day and then it became whether or not I was having a good brow pencil day. Boy, eyebrows... don't get me started on eyebrows, I don't know exactly how I got to be such an expert but I am able to draw a mean eyebrow, I'm an eyebrow virtuoso. I kept threatening to paint them in showing a different emotion every day- the surprised brow, the furrow, the sad droopy brow... and then there is the lovely experience of being out of the house and inadvertently wiping your brow and taking half an eyebrow with you. But I have to say that all those years of reading vapid beauty magazines paid off in a most unexpected way, I suddenly remembered all the tips on correct brow shape and I have to say it helped. When I get the C-Tribe website up and running there will be a link specifically dedicated to eyebrows :) I guess guys are a little out of luck when it comes to brow pencils, but hey, they can get away with baseball caps 24/7.

On a serious note, the loss of your hair looms large during this process, I would advise anyone not to discount the effect. It's another one of those deeply isolating and lonely things that cancer brings with it. Either you cover it up as best you can, as I did until now, mainly in an attempt to not bring cancer with me into every conversation, or you show your bald self to the world, and the world doesn't know where to avert their eyes to quick enough. And your friends will try to help by suggesting you embrace the wig and hat routine and "have fun with it" (bless their hearts), without realizing that the mere fact of having that conversation makes you feel like more of an oddball.

But what has happened in the last week is that I have been walking around feeling quite liberated with my fuzzy head out in the open air, and I have actually managed to have cancer slip my mind a couple of times, that's been a sweet relief. I have quite a way to go before I start to have my real hair back, and I think that maybe somewhere in the back of my mind getting my hair back gets equated with getting my identity back but that's not going to happen. Life is in the middle of making me forge a new identity, I'm a work in progress.