Blondes don't have more fun...

when their hair is growing back from chemotherapy! You can't even tell I have a single hair popping through this head of mine. Maybe I should buy those baby bows for my head...just to emphasize the hairs I do have (ha ha).

A few months of living with baldness have changed me, though. I was so unhappy about losing my hair, and now I'm only mildly bothered by my baldness and mostly that is because I'm so fashion-lazy. I don't love thinking about what hat goes with what outfit (so I only wear the white baseball hat - lazy). I also don't like the wig, because I'm tired of attaching items onto me to make me look like a girl (so sick of the mastectomy bra and "breast form"). BUT, fundamentally I am pretty darn ok with my appearance, even bald. This is such a departure from my pre-cancer days, it's not even funny! I was never happy with the way anything looked before I had larger issues to deal with...

Also, it's exciting to note that I feel great 6 weeks post-chemo...like it was just a bad dream. I might feel a little tired and bone-sore after this next infusion of Zometa on Friday (maybe the old rib injury will act up and then go away again), but that's ok. To only have one or two side effects to an infusion is a dream! Plus, I am armed with the information that my body can really pop right back from something so full of yuckiness, like chemo, so a little infusion of Zometa is like nothing.

NOW I know what Ellyn has been telling me since I talked to her right after my diagnosis in February...she was so optimistic and even sunshiney about chemotherapy! I know why Nancy made chemo seem like something that would just pass, not the train wreck it could feel like at times. Now I can see why they were able to look at chemo in such an understated way. It's THRILLING to be on this side of chemo, even if I have surgeries and infusions ahead of me. Actually, it's thrilling to have everything ahead of me...even the bad stuff.

There were days when cancer seemed like a black cloud that had descended upon me, changing everything, and I was so upset about it. Now I see that cancer did descend upon me like a cloud, and I did change - but in many ways, the change was so for the better. Cancer was sort of like Extreme Makeover - Pam Edition - blowing into town, leaving something much different and sort of improved where that other house was. The homeowner might miss her personal belongings once in a while but mostly she just feels lucky to have been given so much in place of what she had before!