Another dreaded day. I remember it well.

I woke up with a defeated feeling in my heart. The same way I woke up on the morning of my bilateral mastectomy, the morning my port was placed, the morning chemo started, the morning of every other chemo round, the mornings of radiation, the morning of my hysterectomy, the mornings throughout reconstruction… the heaviness of final resignation and obligatory compliance to show up, be present, and trudge through whatever followed.

I washed my hair, the entire time thinking about each strand, thinking about how I’d never wash this hair again, the tears mixing with water and shampoo as I rinsed it clean. As I styled it for the last time, I thought about how I’d never style it again, tears streaking my makeup and leaving my eyes puffy and red, the evidence of deep sadness. I specifically drove with the windows down to feel it blowing in the wind. I put it up in a ponytail and took it out several times throughout the day because I knew that would no longer be a thing in a matter of hours. I woke up and looked at a reflection in the mirror that I knew would look drastically different by bedtime—a practice I was getting far too used to. Wake up…show up…encounter permanent change…go to bed totally different.

The sentiment of ‘it’ll grow back’ un-comforting because I knew I’d never see this hair again, the hair I was born with, the hair that had memories attached to it. And the reality – who knows what will come back and what it will look like coming back and, well, actually there was no guarantee it was going to come back at all. Time stood still that morning and all I knew to know was that baldness was imminent. Wretched shame plagued me all day, vanity and authenticity causing me to vacillate between ‘it’s just hair’ and ‘it’s not just hair’ and ‘it could be worse’ and ‘this is the worst’ and ‘get over it’ and ‘I’ll never be the same.’ My stomach in knots over the emotions tied to my hair, the reason I was having to lose it and the unknowns of what lied ahead.

I went through my day, I saw some difficult clients, I held their heartbreaking stories in the same room with my own. I counted down the hours and my stomach only found itself in tighter knots, the seconds inching closer and closer to that fateful buzz.

And then I was there. In that chair. Lord Jesus, be beside me.

Three years later, you’d never know. But I do.
It did grow back.
Different. Strange. Foreign.
Beautiful.

Tainted.

*Post 933

Another Step Taken :: 10/24/17 :: Post 57

Today was hard. From start to finish. Waking up, showering, doing my hair for the last time…. Hoping I wasn’t going to go through the shower and come out with masses of hair missing as I then wasn’t sure how to go to work with whatever was left over..

Those are hard emotions to manage at 6am. Those are hard emotions to manage at all. Dreading a daily task because of the unknowns. Washing my hair so gently, combing it and drying it with such care. What a weird space to be in…. something I’ve done for years without a second thought about it and this morning, how very intentional I was at every touch. Intentional about searing into my memory this morning’s ritual as now it will have to look significantly different.

The morning was stressful…it was tough getting all of us out of the house. I asked Chris to drive me to work and take me to my appointment and mostly it was all to drive me home because I was not sure what state I’d be in after having my head shaved….That said, we live a lot of life before we even leave the house. This morning was one of those harder mornings. And I was relatively worthless for any help as I was an emotional basketcase. My sweet husband carried us all…got us all out the door…and all of us where we needed to be. And then I felt the guilt. If only I was stronger………

I know that’s a lie that satan wants me to believe so Chris and I talked it out and I didn’t stay there very long, but this whole thing…this whole cancer thing…brings out some really tough stuff. Conversations that only happen because we are fighting, as a family, for my life against an awful disease that wants to take it.

Then I got to work…for a crazy busy day. Many appointments, expected walk-ins, and me, my intern and a volunteer advocate to divide a conquer the busy-ness of the day. I knew I’d be seeing clients…what I didn’t know was what the clients would bring in with them. Walking with clients on their bridges while I’m on a rickety one myself has been an interesting experience. I feel strong in that I can remove myself from mine for a time while I’m with clients and then return to mine when they leave but today was a different story. Today was the first time, since being diagnosed, that my story was triggered by that of a client. “’Cancer’ is a hard word to hear…” says the client in response to hearing she needs to follow up with a doctor about an abnormal test result. “Yes, ‘cancer’ is a hard word to hear….” was my response today as it would have been any other day. But today, the words pierced my heart as I validated her statement and her feeling. Because I know just how scary the word is. And I know how dreadful the journey is. Because I’m in it. On the day my head is to be shaved. Because I have cancer.

Lord?

And then more work happened after that…and the minutes ticked by…and then it was time to leave. I said a few good-byes. I got some hugs. I cried some tears. I was leaving the office one way and I’d return the next day forever changed. What is my life right now? What life am I living? Is this for real?

We walked into Hana’s Studio. The familiar smells from our previous visits. The tears running down my face knowing today will be very different…today isn’t just consultation day or selection day…today is the day. Today I sit in a chair and have my head shaved. Strip by strip the hair comes off.

I asked if I could donate mine. They measured it and Hana was so excited it was long enough and didn’t have too many grays. Wigs for Kids will get my hair. Hana said it was beautiful hair and it would make a perfect wig for a little kid who has to be bald, too. I’m not so sure how I feel about it all but I’m glad it will help someone else…some sweet little fighter.

So, up went my hair. In little ponytails. 5 or 6 of them. And then before I knew it, the scissors came. Hearing the sound of the shearing of my hair, cut by cut, was a devastating sound. And then as soon as the little ponytail was freed from my head, she’d lay it down on a tray next to me. And they piled up. 6 bunches of hair later and then she turned me to the mirror and I saw what was left. The tears…the grief…the memories.

Then she turned on the clippers, the buzzing sound of a tool that would take off the hair I was born with. Set on the lowest setting she began, just like I had envisioned it, strip by strip, shaving off the remaining hair until it was all gone.

The bravery it took to look at myself……. Just like the day I looked down to see scars and not suture tape…. And I cried. Again.

Devastated. Relieved. Pissed. Glad to have it behind me. Not okay with where I am. Confused as to how to feel.

Then having to move into “learn” mode as Hana had to teach me how to care for my new wigs, how to put them on, how to adjust them, how to take care of my scalp…

And then we got home. The girls seeing me in the purple wig I left the salon with. The girls asking if I got a brown one that looked like me. The girls wanting to see my shaved head but also being unsure of what to say. Keeping my purple wig on because I was not ready to look at myself again. Finally, then, to take it off and spend time looking in the mirror, taking the time to soak in this new reality, this new normal. Because I have cancer and I’m fighting for my life.

Exhausted. And still sitting in the unknown of how I really feel. And having to get up tomorrow, get ready, go to work, and help conduct an interview. Figuring out a whole new routine yet walking into the old and familiar.

There is so much more to this and I will have to walk it as every moment will be different. Will wind be a factor, and will I need to be worried that my wig will blow off?? Will I want to go to work with a wig? Or a hat? Or nothing?

I certainly took one more big step today, one more massive and huge and astronomically hard step. And I survived. In a way it’s a new beginning. I had named each of my gray hairs after my daughters…as those were shaved off along with all of the others, I suppose it symbolizes a new beginning for us all.

But what does this part of the journey look like? The only known I have in this is that each day will continue to have a story to tell……….

Written :: 10/24/18 :: Post 406

Today I felt thankful for my story. As hard as it is, I am choosing to experience it as deeply as I can. I’m not hiding from the pain, I’m not distracting myself from the things to be learned.

The depth of the story is what is so beautifully hard….And in a strange way, I love my story. I hate the pain and anguish but I love what’s being written into my heart and soul. How’s that for a wild tension….

October 24 of 31 :: 10/24/19 :: Post 769

Two years ago, today I washed the hair I had since birth, for the last time.

My long, beautiful, straight, dark brown hair was falling out in chunks as I washed it because chemo had already killed it. I stood there sobbing knowing that later that day it was going to be completely gone. The damage was done, there was no turning back.

I remember thinking, all the way up to that day, even up to the minute, that this wasn’t really happening. I had had surgery, I had had a port installed, I had even had my first round of chemo and it wasn’t until I sat in that chair at Hana’s, watching her shave my head, that it hit me like a ton of bricks that I was really walking this road. Tears streamed down my cheeks; my heart soggy with grief. It was in those moments that the reality of what cancer LOOKS like reflected back to me in a not-so-nice-not-so-magic-mirror.

Interesting that on this difficult anniversary day, I also got to share a small part of my story on Channel 7 News, in a live interview. What an honor to be given the opportunity and what fun it was to spend the day with some of my sweetest cheerleaders, Marcia and Kathy, from MyLifeLine.

I am grateful that there are small moments of beauty amidst the pain….more often than not.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month…

…Day twenty-four – It’s not just hair.