Monday, February 3

Worked, went for a lunchtime walk with a friend, helped Lucia look for dresses for an upcoming semi-formal. I'm feeling pretty much back to normal today, which is good. Very little leg soreness. The side effects from this round, such as they are, are on exactly the same timeline as round #1. 

That said, surprising no one, and despite my best efforts to MAINTAIN PERSPECTIVE, my hair is becoming an issue for me. I don't think I can tolerate it like this, and though I like to imagine myself swanning around confidently in dramatic and elegant head scarves, I'm pretty sure that's not me. Or is it? I ordered a variety of head coverings from Amazon tonight and will try them, but if I lose more hair I think a wig is going to be what makes me feel best. I just want to look like myself, because that's how I feel--I don't feel sickly or weak. I'm just...dealing, while also going about my regular life. Maybe that's the perspective I'll be maintaining: cancer is something I am facing and fighting, but the rest of my life is the point of the facing and fighting, and that life stars me looking like myself. Not because I'm vain or because pretty hair is so important but because I want the external to match the internal. 

Now that I think about it, in entirely different circumstances thirteen years ago, I reached for a similar kind of normalcy: when I was in the hospital for five weeks on hospital bedrest while pregnant with Greta, I got up every single day in my hospital room and put on a full face of makeup. Insanity! But also not. It made me feel normal and healthy and not like a patient who wasn't even supposed to walk five feet to the bathroom. 

Looking like myself was one of the few things I could control back then, when the high-risk OB-GYNs called me a "ticking bomb" who couldn't be more than a minute from an operating room. And I guess looking like myself now is a way of taking control of a wildly uncontrolled situation. (I mean, it's controlled, and will continue to be controlled, by good doctors and excellent treatment plans, but as a patient I just...follow along.) 

So be it. I messaged my care team about a wig and will see what they advise.