This afternoon my wonderful hairdresser Willow took me to the next step in my survivor journey. I've given a lot of thought to how I feel about the loss of my hair and came to the realization that it's not necessarily the loss of the hair, but what it represents. This may sound funny coming from someone who lost a breast a mere two months ago, and has spent a day a week for the last 3 weeks in the Oncology clinic, but this step really brought home what I'm faced with. A friend said yesterday that when you loose your hair, you know you have both feet in - chemotherapy becomes real, and that's a very true statement. Not only that, but now I'm not only a cancer survivor on the inside, but on the outside as well. Complete strangers will only have to look at me to know what is happening in my life
(yeah, as opposed to the complete strangers who may be reading this....but I don't have to look back at them). So, here's the tip - when a cancer survivor wants to talk to you about the loss of hair - don't respond with it's only hair, it will grow back - to steal a line from a title of a book by Debra Jarvis, it's not about the hair - it's about the milestone that the loss of hair represents. Talk to her about what she's really feeling.
2 comments:
Denise,
Great blog! Thanks for posting and sharing. Mary let out a "Cool!!" when your hair cut photo came up. Then we did the Mother/Daughter over the shoulder beginning to end read through.
You are one awesome aunt, Denise and what a role model for our girls and girls everywhere. Miss you bunches...Can't wait to see you and CR in person, but blogging is a close second.
Love,
Donna
Denise:
Thanks for doing this -- it's a way to keep in touch and see how you are progressing. You are right...the hair thing is a milestone. You will have many through out this hard work, but you will make it through.
You and Charlie continue to be in my prayers.
Elaine
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