I played the CONGRATULATIONS card today. My eyebrows are coming in. It was like yesterday they were not there and today they are. Short, but really SWEET.
We completely gutted our upstairs bathroom and it’s almost finished.  SO, I christened the shower. (Took it for the team, yea.) I love to just let my hair dry without any toweling or baseball caps. It is warm enough in our house tonight (or the hot blasts are doing the trick), so I’ve got all sorts of whisps and bits sticking out everywhere.  It’s developing some character and I like that.  I contacted my hair cutter and sister-in-the-know to see if I can get a little trim.  People are all over me with comments about my hair growth. It’s pretty funny.
I find that I’m wearing caps much more than scarves now. I have to remember to protect my head from the sun, my hair is there, but certainly not enough.  I’m definitely ready to be done with scarves. Oh, every so often I wear a favorite one, especially the ones that drape onto my back and blow in the wind, but it gets old, you know?  I mean, they did me good and all, but what a pain. I never realized that the sound of the cotton scarves rubbing on my collar would travel to the fabric over my ears. Or that my hot blasts would heat up my head so much I felt like the scarf was suffocating it. Or the ones that had too much fabric and the knots getting in the way on the back of my neck. I never needed anything to keep the scarf from slipping because I always had some stubble to act as velcro, so at least I didn’t have to deal with that. Even so, I remain satisfied with my decision not to wear a wig, even with all the whining.  I look at the scarves in the basket in the corner now and think that it’s almost time to give them a final wash and return many to the angels who shared them with me. They gave me comfort when I wore them. For sure.
The breast booster radiation will not happen until the last week of treatments. The verification the other day was to get everything ready.  Today’s treatment was just like the usual ones. It’s just part of my day, and like I said, it’s as easy to blend into everything else as washing my hands or driving to work. Today was treatment #18, can you believe that one? My skin is tender, when I put my arms in the cradle before treatments, I can feel a familiar tightness in the skin and around the scar, similar but different from the days and weeks after surgery.
This really is the home stretch as far as the intense treatments go. We started on September 9, that first chemo. Surgery was in November. Second round of chemo started in December. Radiation in March. Are we coming to a finish line or the starting line?
Is it pushing it to say that you are completing a pit stop and re-entering the race gassed up and rolling on new tires? It seems like your tolerance for the process is approaching its limit, about as it ends. Probably not a coincidence. Your concerns now seem like small things. Not so a few months back. I think that’s the result of having confidence in the treatment regimen and following through with it. I think you’re doing great.
Thanks brother. I do feel ready to be done with this, and do try to remain focused on today. It will come in time. If I think about when this all started, wow, so long ago. I like your analogy of the pit stop. That’s pretty accurate. I am definitely ready to have no symptoms of treatments, fewer reminders of cancer and cancer treatments, energy, bangs, normal looking hands. I’m ready to get on a less bumpy part of my trail. Thank you for sticking with me. You have amazing endurance.
Rapunzel’s getting a hair cut!!!???…. and I may have to start calling her Groucho now that she has bushy eyebrows??
Well, I never said anything about BUSHY. You can hold on “Groucho” or save it for the days I’m cranky maybe?
Rapunzel,
Through all this you’ve NEVER been grouchy, NEVERRRRRR.
Groucho Marx comes to mind when I read of your eyebrow debut and your fast wit and never a loss for the right words.
Ah sweet lady, ask my family about grouchy. I’ll say something about this in the next entry.