The next morning I woke up and looked in the mirror. I still had a shaved head and it was only going to get balder. My hair didn’t grow back miraculously overnight as much as I may-ed, or as much as I might-ed. And now, not only did my body feel cancer, I looked like it. In that moment, as I looked into the eyes of the reflection before me, I faced a decision. Do I wear my brown wig? Or purple? Do I wrap my head in a scarf? Or put on a hat?

What about doing nothing? Oh God. What about doing nothing? Can I? Can I show up to life outside of my bedroom without hair? Do I have the strength?

The fear that morning was nauseating. I was on the edge of a rung on my bridge, fog so dense I couldn’t see even my own toes, uncertain if a rung even existed where I was to step next or if a free fall was coming. Or maybe I was already in the free fall and I just didn’t know it

Then I looked into those same eyes, those same fear-filled eyes, those same eyes that had already had to see too much pain and anguish and I decided: Nothing. If I don’t show up to today, boldly stepping into this part of the story that I am living, I won’t know if I have what it takes to keep showing up to this part of the story that I am living. And I won’t get a re-do. It’s today or nothing. Take the step. Do it. Grip the fear, hold on tight, and see what happens.

And on the other side was freedom.

To be clear, the freedom didn’t erase the fear. Believe me, that was still there. But along with it, a tangible courage. A profound grit. A changed durability. A life lesson sealed into my being, impossible to be un-learned because of just how deep I had to reach in to learn it.

*Post 934

So I Did A Thing Today :: 10/25/17 :: Post 58

I walked a hard walk today.

My heart told me last night to be bold in owning my story. It told me to walk this day with no head coverings and just be. It told me that if I don’t walk it today, I would struggle to walk it ever. It told me to trust that this part of the story has purpose, too. It told me that I can’t redefine beauty and confidence and femininity and letting go without boldness. It told me that if I don’t do it now it won’t ever be an option for me. My heart called me on the carpet, it encouraged rubber hitting the road, it made a case for why to take yet another treacherous and difficult and vulnerable step. God spoke these things to my heart. Because He knew what I needed for today. For this. For myself. And I listened.

It was hard. It was scary. It was vulnerable. It was intense. It was unknown. It was emotional. But I did it.

I went through my day without anything on my head. I showed up at my follow-up post-op appointment with nothing on my head…I talked to the receptionist and a few nurses with nothing on my head… I showed up to work with nothing on my head…I spent the day with colleagues with nothing on my head…I helped facilitate an interview with nothing on my head…It was really hard. But I did it.

And I’m so glad I listened to my heart. To the Lord’s promptings. Because while it was one of the hardest parts of this journey, it was also one of the most necessary.

I felt bravery. I felt courage. I felt resilience. I felt joy in the midst of pain. And by feeling these things, I now know and understand them differently and in a significantly deeper way… And by feeling these things, I can repeat these actions. Again and again. Even when the days feel too hard or too scary. I can listen to the promptings of my heart, I can follow through in blind faith, and I can experience new understandings.

A few final take-aways from my day:

1. It’s hard walking around without hair when I’ve had hair my whole life.
2. It’s hard showing up in a place where everyone knew me with hair.
3. It’s hard introducing myself to someone who doesn’t know me. “Hi, I’m Amber Havekost, I don’t have hair because I’m battling breast cancer…” Ummmm, that’s just weird. So, I introduce myself without the qualifier of cancer. I’m left with wondering what they are thinking…I’m left feeling strange because I want to honor my story and what I’m walking through yet qualifying why I look a certain way is not a necessary way to do so…I’m left feeling vulnerable with someone I have no relationship with…I’m left in the unknown of the judgement of others.
4. It’s cold without hair…even walking down the hall at work. The warmth of the sun feels so different on the back of my head. The water from the shower feels hotter or colder and stronger. The feeling of my head on a pillow is scratchy instead of smooth. There is an intensity to these feelings that I would have never felt before losing my hair. And I wonder how much more intense it will be when the tiny millimeter of hair I have left is all gone and there is nothing but scalp.
5. There is a unique vulnerability that comes with being a woman without hair. Challenging social and gender norms…being counter cultural. Being looked at funny. Seeing people’s eyes go to the top of my head when talking to them or passing them on the street.
6. Walking today out brought with it some intensity that I definitely held in my shoulders because I have a dreadful tension headache. The physiology of emotions is fascinating.
7. Tomorrow is a new day. I wonder what it will bring… I have a lot of options – brown wig? Purple wig? Hat? Beanie? Scarf? Nothing? Weird to have options for my head similar to having options for my body… And yet I didn’t have the option of losing my hair….that choice was made for me.
8. Acceptance is a fluid thing and holding “I did it and it felt good and I’m okay” in the same hands as “I am not okay with this and I still don’t want it” is interesting.

I walked a hard walk today. And I’m glad I did.

Another Anniversary :: 10/25/18 :: Post 407

Yesterday was the year anniversary of my head being shaved.
Today was the year anniversary of going to work with my head shaved.

Over the last couple of days the memories of those two days have consumed much of my brain space. Remembering how emotional that was, how desperate I was to not have to do it, how sweet my husband was through it all, how encouraging my friends and colleagues were as I walked into the unknown of navigating life without hair…..

I never imagined, ever in my life, that I’d have cancer, that I’d have to have chemo kill so much good as it also killed all the bad, that I’d have to watch my hair be shaved off my head, that I’d soon be bald, that I’d have to buy and learn how to put on and take care of wigs…..Never in my life.

The memories are so hard. The whole experience is so deep. The vulnerabilities are so intense. And the transformation, so radical.

October 25 of 31 :: 10/25/19 :: Post 770

Today I have been holding a lot of sadness. Sadness over what cancer has stolen from me and my husband. Sadness over what we have to battle through together. Sadness that it wasn’t just cancer treatment that we had to survive together, but the wretched after-math…as if treatment itself wasn’t hard enough. What an evil reality…that instead of the payout of hard work and dedication and commitment through (what we thought was) the hardest time of our lives, we are left with an even harder battle of finding our marriage identity in the desert of survivorship. It is beyond difficult because there isn’t a roadmap to the oasis of re-connection, instead it is a desolate and arduous, slow trudge through uncertainty.

And it’s something else they don’t really prepare you for. Or maybe they can’t. I don’t know…

Breast Cancer Awareness Month…

…Day twenty-five – What I wasn’t prepared for about reconstruction: That it’s totally normal to stand butt naked in front of a plastic surgeon while he squeezes the fat on my body and grades it as he moves from butt to inner thighs to love handles to belly…and there is just no preparing for what that actually feels like – the insecurities, the inner dialogue that occurs, the intensity of the vulnerability…. The difficult reality is that each post-mastectomy option is hard and it’s impossible to know if one is better than the other. Reconstruction is man’s best attempt at rebuilding what only God can create…and brilliant as those incredible surgeons are, they cannot give me or make me a Hollywood body despite the many people who told me that was what I was gonna get.