An Update on the Hair

And this is why I am so glad I have this blog.  My very best friend, Beth, has an Aunt who took it upon herself to write me a message in response to my last post, "Bravery".  Because her message really made me think again and gave me back my confidence, I would like to share it with you all:

"Hi Kelly -- 

(Then she said a lot of really nice stuff about my blog and writing, which made me smile and blush and feel really good and I think that is just for me so I am not going to copy it here.  Then she said...)   

Now, on to what really made me totally angry -- and I mean really angry, postal/road rage angry. That woman you went to who just clucked and coo'd over your hair did you a terrible disservice making you feel that way you did when you walked out of her salon.  You should NOT have felt that way.  She was just a bad, lazy stylist.  I mean, of course your hair will just keep getting better and better, but why didn't she even try to work with what you have already....Looking at your photos!  I think she had some hair to work with and didn't even try.  I mean heck, I even see stray strands peeking over your ears for heavens sake.  Even with just a quarter of an inch difference she could have really given it some shape. She could have shaved up the sides a bit and then totally spiked the top with tons of gell (the hardening stuff some of Ian's 19 year old friends use) and then.....gasp, tried to talk you into a wild blond color so you could have strutted out pf the place with a "Kelly meets Miley Cyrus" look. Yup, she didn't even try.  Also, you have that color hair that just begs, Begs, BEGS to be blonder. You should have walked out of there feeling like a rock star!   Anyway, there is NO REASON you should have had to feel brave to walk into a salon..and no reason you should have walked out of there feeling the way you did. That woman had no true artistry or styling imagination.  Check out Miley's sides....Shorter than yours!!! Give yourself a few weeks and then go to someone decent and start rockin' it girl! 

PAX - Your fan Ann G."

Wow.  So ridiculously cool.  So here is what I wrote back to Aunt Ann:

Hi Ann,

Oh my goodness, how nice of you to write that message to me!  You made me feel so much better.  And... YOU ARE TOTALLY RIGHT!  Now I am looking in the mirror at the length of my hair and I can clearly see that there is length there that she could have cut off and made into something.

Everyone has been right all along - I could get it trimmed!  She convinced me otherwise with her ridiculousness.  I shouldn't have listened to her with all of her coo-ing and clucking.  I just should've gotten the hell out of there as fast as I could and found someone who knew what they were doing.  I just felt so humiliated.  I should not have doubted all my friends and acquaintances.  How silly of me.  I am going to find someone who can do this right.  In the meantime...all I did today was fluff it up when I got out of the shower - no gel or anything - and even that seems to have made a difference.  I wasn't confident in what I was doing before, but now I am just going to go with it.  Already I like it so much better.  Why couldn't she just have showed me what a difference that could make?  She was a dork.  I feel so so much better - thank you so much for pointing that out to me!

Grateful!
Kelly

Not quite Miley Cyrus, but at least I made it fluffier and have a bit more of a style!

I felt kinda bad when I wrote that last post, but venting out my frustration allowed me to get over it and move past it.  Now, I am glad I wrote it.  I had several people come up to me at church today and tell me that they enjoyed it and Ann's feedback made me re-think my own thoughts and come up with a different conclusion.  Today is a much better hair day.  Thanks Ann!

Bravery

Throughout my cancer journey, many people have said to me, "You are (have been) so brave."  My internal response is, "Well, I don't know about that?"  To me, being brave is to be afraid of something and then to do it anyway.  So, yes, I guess in some ways I was brave to go through Chemo, surgery, radiation, and more.  I was most certainly afraid to have horrible chemicals poured into my veins; to allow people to cut me open; and to be in a room with radioactive materials; I didn't want to wear a gown all the time, and have needles stuck in me, and lie on tables.  But, on the other hand, when there is no alternative it doesn't really feel like bravery, it just feels like doing what you have to do, even though you don't want to do it.  


I don't know, I think maybe we lack the word for this in our language - when you do something you don't want to do because you plain and simple have to...Maybe it's "moxie", but I think that more implies having the strength to do what you have to do.  Maybe the word is resolve.  It takes resolving yourself to something and you can do that with bravery or you can do it with resignation.  Ha!  I just found the word - Resignation - ""The acceptance of something undesirable but inevitable."  

Of course, that still isn't the proper word, because it isn't about just accepting, but also about embracing it, whether you wanted to or not.  Huh.  I think I am going to call it "ravignation" - one part bravery, one part resignation, one part raving - as in it will drive you stark, lunatic crazy (raving), literally causing you to lose your hair, and not just because of the Chemo.

So, for the past nine-plus months, I have been full of ravignation.  Today. Today I was brave.

For a few weeks now I have been hearing, "Your hair is really getting there."  And, "You could almost use a trim now!"  And, "You've got a pixie cut!"  People, I wasn't that into my hair before I had cancer.  You may recall, it was stick straight and the most I ever did for it was go and get it highlighted and cut like once every eight weeks just to make certain I looked presentable, even though I was never certain if I did.  If there is an area of my life I lack confidence it is in the beauty department. Probably because I have rarely felt the need to look "beautiful" and have generally been utterly content to be "cute". 

So, when I hear people tell me that I need to trim my hair - and it is not just one person, no it has been many.  Many.  What I hear is, "Go and get your hair trimmed, already.  It looks awful, even if we are telling you, you look like a pixie."  Which, to me, looking like a pixie has no down-side.  It is like the ultimate in cute-ness. Something I am completely content to be.  But, I have been feeling all of this pressure to get my hair trimmed, so I thought, gee, I must really need to get it trimmed.

Linda took the boys this morning to play and the girls went to their camp at Elmbrook Church and so I found myself with the rare and precious few hours of alone time.  So, I decided to be brave and walked into a hair salon (I had never been to before) to see what they could do about my hair.

Shaving my head took less bravery then this did.

I walked in and asked if there was anyone who could "trim up my hair" and show me how to use some mousse in it or just do something to it to give it more of a style.  I got pity eyes and a "hold on a second" and then a woman came out and said she could fit me in now (the place was like completely empty, so I am confused by this statement.  Like, of course, you can fit me in now), and then I was led back to a chair and she fussed around about me for a bit and looked at my hair and coo-ed and clucked and made like three snips and then said, "You just have to be patient".  It will continue to grow back.

Uhhh...yeah...duh.  Then she got out some mousse and the hairdryer - the actual hairdryer! - and fussed some more. (This took all of five minutes.  Total.)  And then she told me again that before I knew it I would have enough hair for a haircut and that (again) I just needed to be patient.  

Umm...holy embarrassing, Batman.  I am not sure I have ever felt so humiliated in all my life.  And, not because of her.  Because I have all these people fussing over my frickin' hair.  It's just hair. I think I would feel more confident in myself if I were back to being bald and wearing my hats again. 

To make it worse, she said, "No charge."  At first, I was going to fight her on it.  She spent some time with me, after all.  But basically she spent that whole time coo-ing and clucking and fussing.  And, I just hate being fussed over.  And, so I held on to as much of my dignity as I could and thanked her and walked the heck out of there as at-a-normal-pace as I possibly could, with my hair looking essentially the same way it did before, but now with some mousse in it.

Bravery is not doing chemo or surgery or radiation.  It's not getting a port placed or taken out.  Bravery is not shaving your head, or going bald.  Bravery is walking out of a hair salon without crying first. Bravery is going to baseball games in your huge sun hat to cover all of the places you have been radiated. Bravery is asking someone for help carrying something because your lymph nodes have been removed and your arm is sensitive now.  Bravery is trying to go back to life-as-normal when life will never be "normal" again.

And so, after months of being full of ravignation, I now begin a new chapter in my life with bravery.

This is what bravey-filled hair looks like. Ooh, so different. 

14 Years

Happy 14th Anniversary to my most amazing husband.  To name all of the cliches, Matthew is my rock, my champion, my confidant, my supporter and my best friend.  This year we added some new ones to the list, however.  I have discovered that Matt is a fantastic caretaker, amazing at acceptance and perseverance; loves me no matter what I look like, what type of scars I have (bodily or internal), what kind of day I am having (happy, sad, scared or irrational); and can even handle loving me despite the person I may have become.

I knew 17 years ago when we went out on our first date that he was something special; something rare.  But, I truly could not be more proud that he is mine, all mine.

Thank you, Matthew, for loving me through it.  I am also yours - forever and always.

And....DONE!

We did it!!!!!  Four A courses FEC chemo, Four B courses 5-FU chemo, 12 weeks of Taxol, a lumpectomy, a re-excision, and 30 sessions of radiation, and....DONE!

Here is my kinda smug look:

Wha-bam.  Take that cancer, you little bitch.  Who's crying now?!

(Sorry, couldn't help that.  Cancer needs to be taunted at a moment like this.)

And, another possession to prize - my certificate of completion of radiation, signed by many of the girls who worked on L1, but sadly only two of my L1 gals (Courtney, dude, what happened?!  :-)  ).

My sister-in-law, Cathy and brother, Casey (though I know it was all Cathy - I stand corrected!  I have been informed it was all Casey.  Wow!  Thanks, Case!) sent me flowers...

So sweet.  And, my sister, J.J. called on some of my closest friends to have a little shin-dig to mark the ending of a long journey.  An awful, wonderful, blessed, crazy, scary, remarkable, amazing, journey.

Suck it, cancer.  Kelly's Army can't be beat.

Boosts

So, for the last five radiation appointments, they have switched from the regular radiation of my breast and lymph nodes, to only radiating the area along the surgical scar.  They call this a "boost".  Since the goal of radiation is to kill off any microscopic cancer cells that may be lurking, I assume this is to be doubly certain that there are none lurking near the surgery site.  Good idea.  The great part about the boost is that it takes, like seriously, thirty seconds.  Okay, sure, it takes a few minutes to get the machine set up and calibrated the right way and all of that, but then once they are ready, it is one thirty second (actually, I think it may be thirty-four seconds as the crow flies) boost and then it is finished.  For the boost, they use something they call "the cone" to direct the radiation right at the scar. It comes down and almost touches me - kinda creepy, but also interesting...someone actually had to cut this thick piece of metal in the shape of the area that they are radiating.  It is an oblong oval shape that goes around the entirety of my scar.  The girls told me the name of the man who does the metal-work, but...I forgot.  Whoops!  Anyway...how interesting that there is actually a job out there to cut metal for radiation machines.  I am fascinated by it, anyway.  Here I am with the lovely cone boost.

And, I couldn't let this pass me by.  The receptionist to radiation posts a calendar on her computer daily.  Here is what today's was.  Love it!

29 DOWN!  ONE MORE TO GO!

28 Down!

Twenty-eight down, two more to go!  Can you believe that?!  And, here is the woman who made all of this possible, my mom.  How could I have made it through all of this without you???  Thank you, mom.  You are the real hero and the true miracle.

PT and MT

Physical Therapy and Musical Therapy (is that a thing?) - they kind of go hand-in-hand, don't they? Well, my day started with radiation as usual (almost there!), but afterward I stopped up at PT to see if I could change my appointment for the week.  I was supposed to go in on Friday, but Kyrie's camp was doing a show at the exact time of my appointment.  Not cool!  But...turns out Diane had an appointment...right then.  It was awesome!  Surprise PT is the best.

There is no down side to PT.  Diane is fun to talk to, it is pain-free, stress-free, relaxing, and just plain awesome.  I know the goal is that we get everything back working like it is supposed to so that I don't need PT any more, but I am going to have a hard time letting go of this one.  Sigh.

Here is a picture of Diane and I for my daily selfie:

I love PT

And that was followed later by the musical therapy.  For my birthday, J.J. and Cathy gave me tickets to Sarah McLachlan.  We had a scrumptious dinner at Mo's Irish Pub beforehand and then enjoyed a wonderful low-key concert afterward.  It was a very nice night and a great way to celebrate nearing the end of a long journey.