11-30-09

Today is day 14 post chemo starting, which should be the day my hair starts really falling out. My DD ran her fingers through my hair last night and am alarming amount of hair came out. She was amazed that I didn't feel a thing. I have someone to shave my head on stand by. But I have a weird fascination with this process and don't want to shave it before it starts coming out.

Really, how many people get to experience this?? I do want it shaved in a mohawk first so I can take a picture and my 10yo DD wanted to shave hearts and stuff into it.

Thanksgiving was nice, my Mom's on Thursday and my other family (kinda ex inlaws) on Saturday. My sister really didn't show for Thanksgiving... a new low to our dysfunctional family ladder. Saturday was OK, seeing alot of people that I had not seen since diagnoses, so it was a little more emotionally charged.

Yesterday was bad emotionally for me, I had a unsolicited mental breakdown. I cried for a few hours for no obvious reason, well, no obvious reason other than cancer, chemo, holidays, family dysfunction....

Today, I see the oncologist to check my blood count, hope I am doing OK as there were alot of snotty kids running around this weekend and apparently there had been a pink eye break out.

So far, this whole cancer thing is very similar to finding out you are pregnant. It will be about a year of constant medical stuff, good days and bad days, weird cravings, and body changes. Hopefully, at the end of the year, I will have a new life, a cancer free life. But, just like with becoming a parent, nothing will ever be the same again.

I will always worry about cancer just like I worry about my kids. My body will be OK but it won't be the same. Being a parent, becoming pregnant was an irreversible action. Being diagnosed with the big C feels the same, everything changes a little or a lot, but everything changes.