Team DeAnne

Today I had my third chemo treatment.  All’s well.  The oncologist was delighted to see that I’m doing fine…perfectly fine for today’s treatments.  I agreed!  Yes, let’s do this thing and get it over with!

I don’t know why I was so toubled by the loss of my hair, but I’m over it now.  I no longer scare people at the gym and the pool.  (One of the benefits of living in a small town is that once everyone knows your business, nothing shocks them anymore!)

Maybe because now I look like a sick person!  People equate bald head with sickness, especially on a woman.  Though one young dude at the pool thought maybe I’d joined a skinhead gang.  (!!!)  When I explained that actually, my oncologist styled it himself, we all had a good laugh.  He smoothly back-peddaled by saying that I don’t look sick enough to be fightig cancer.  I thanked him, then swam much faster than usual for the remaining 15 minutes of my workout.  (I had to show that chemo or not, I’m still in business.) 

During this lovely time of year, it’s weird to look funky!  It’s even weirder to have no control.  Though there have been times that I’ve looked funky, even without a “life-threatening” illness!  Heck, whole decades of my life have been spent under a duvet of dorkiness!  So really, Ijust need to have perspective, and remember that a few months of dorkiness will not be the end of the world, (though if the world is coming to an end, I’d like it to wait until my hair has grown back!),  and it’ll be a time of character building.  Inner beauty!  ROAR!!

Yesterday, in my little auburn bob wig, when he asked how I was doing, it just slipped out that “Well, I’m back!  And I’m redder than ever!” 

Jenny and I laughed and chortled our way through the day over that one! 

But for today’s chemo, I felt that wearing a wig would somehow be a misstep!  So I wore a goofy little pink and orange fleece hat, sort of Dr. Seuss character like.  So much more comfy!  And as soon as we got there, Fran (my nurse), and Angela were both nodding and smiling like I’d finally joined the club.  Two other women who were also there, on the same treatment schedule as me, were much more friendly.  At one point, Carol waltzed into my room with her IV pole, and introduced herslf.  We’d seen eachother a few times there before.  We both have had a pretty easy time of it so far!  I told her that yes, my hair had been cut, but finally my Dad took the rest of it off with his clippers, much for the better!  But my Gawd!  I’ll never get used to how big my ears are!  She said, “That’s nothing!  I feel like Yoda without my hat on!”

We all laughed uproariously.  None of us like “support groups”, we prefer to laugh instead of comiserate.  So we all have a standing date to laugh our way through the next treatment too!  Of course, my sister is the Queen of laughter. 

Tomorrow I go for my Neulasta shot.  It’s to boost my blood cells up.  I thought it was funny when I asked the doctor wh I needed that.  He responded, “You live a very dangerous life.  This will keep you safe.”

Dangerous, me?!  Maybe in my little wig, I could pass for “une femme dangereuse”.  But I work with kids!  I spend my days running and singing pretty songs!  Oh well, all the medicine he’s prescribed seems to be working!

The nurse, Fran, was mystified as to why Jenny and I were taking pictures again!  “I’d never want pictures of when I’m going through a rough time!!!”

But I don’t see chemo as a rough time, more of an inconvenience.  It’s necessary, but totally temporary!  It has a way of tearing you down to the basic core of yourself.  When you re-build, you can choose to be bigger and better than ever, sort of like a re-birth.

Hey!  Mile 6.4 is over.  After tomorrow’s shot, it’ll be about mile 7!  This is the 6.4 to 9.6 mile stretch.  It’s all about finding the equilibrum and rhythm…soon it starts to fly by.  Thank you to all of my dear people in my life!  I appreciate your encouragement and well-wishes!  They pulled me through infamous mile six! 

Little miracles!  Hooray!

This entry was posted on Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 6:04 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.