The Other Blog

I’ve been posting a lot of my cancer feels on my main blog this week. Part laziness and part just finally settling in to the idea that I can’t just.. separate my Cancer from my life.

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I think that even though the whole point of this was to keep my cancer-related whining away from MOST of the rest of the people I interact with- the real reason I separated it out was because I could pretend that it doesn’t infect my everyday life.

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But this week shattered that in a way I didn’t really expect.

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When I was first diagnosed, and we realized after seeing Dr. Kehoe that Chemo was going to be involved, I said immediately that I was going to shave my head. I didn’t feel like I could handle watching my hair fall out. So, June 1st, a bunch of my friends rallied around me and I got my hair buzzed down to almost nothing. It felt amazing. Empowering, courageous, hopeful… it had this illusion of control.

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And then of course, my hair didn’t actually fall out. But I became nearly housebound during daily radiation, trapped by the gastrointestinal issues that came with all of that. Still, for some reason, I kept separating my cancer from my regular life. At least here.

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My hair grew back, slowly. It was a different color, a different texture, thinner. And I started getting used to it. I didn’t really like it, but I was getting used to it.

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This week though—

It started to fall out. Just in strands at first. But then, running my hands over my head produced small piles of hair. Today, I’m about half bald, half hair. I spent the last 2 days buying hats and scarves. Hiding my head from my family… even from myself sometimes.

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And all the while, I’ve been posting about it on the main blog. Because I think I’m finally realizing that cancer isn’t something I can separate. I don’t know why it was the hair that finally changed that. But it was.

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There is something really horrific about watching your scalp appear in a 3 day period. About seeing hair flutter down constantly onto your desk, in your bed, at your feet.

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I knew it would be hard to handle. But I didn’t have any idea how hard. Tomorrow, I’m having my head shaved. And I know it’s the right decision, and it will be so much better than continuing to watch this horror film to it’s inevitable conclusion. But at the same time, I am having almost as hard a time adjusting to the idea of the shaving as I have been to the falling out.

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I’ve never cared about my hair. Ever. I was actually kind of glad when she told me it would fall out during treatment. I’ve threatened for years to shave my head just for fun. And maybe if I’d shaved it ahead of this round too I’d feel differently about it than I do now. Maybe not. Maybe I’d still feel the same, but just about losing my eyebrows, my eyelashes. :shrug: I don’t know.

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I’ve never cared about my hair. Never been attached to it. Frequently found it more obnoxious than anything else. But now that I see it, stacked in my palms, making dark lines on my desk, trailing behind me on the bathroom floor- I find myself traumatized by the act of losing it.

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A friend said that maybe part of it is that it’s so recognizable. It’s this absolutely irrefutable sign that I really am “sick.” And I think that’s probably part of it. Through this whole process, all I’ve heard is, “you look amazing,” “You look a lot better than I thought,” “you still look really healthy” “you’re the healthiest looking sick person I’ve ever seen.”

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But now— with the hair of an abused baby doll, sparse and stuck up, uneven— now, I look the part. I look sick. I look like I have Cancer. I can’t hide from that anymore.

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I can’t pretend that Cancer isn’t my life right now. Because it just is. It’s not permanent. It’s not even really long term in the grand scheme of things. But right now- Cancer IS my life.

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And I don’t have words for how much it hurts to finally see that. To feel it.

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This will pass. I’ll finish treatment. I’ll go into remission. My hair will grow back. My body will stop aching. I will be done with this.

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But right now, it is my life.

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Tomorrow I shave my head. And I accept that Cancer is my life.

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For now.