Today is a Day Forward

My sister Stephanie got it right when she mused, “When you’ve undergone a major surgery or something like you’ve just experienced, it’s good to remember that recovery is like taking two steps forward and one step back.”

Before hearing her words, I hadn’t stopped to consider that I’d feel okay one day, and kinda lousy, tired or both the next. The passage to recovery is a suffocating struggle against waters so deep, at times my feet don’t touch the bottom; at other times, I’m buoyed by the current. I can imagine where I’d like to surface, but the way up is unclear.

At times like this, it’s important that I talk to myself,
to remind myself of all the progress I’ve made in just over two weeks of being at home. So here goes:

1. I’m eating so much better now that I can choose what I eat and it isn’t being prepared in a prison galley.
2. It no longer hurts to swallow pills, which is a good thing. I usually have to swallow at least 12 pills/day.
3. I can walk around without shoes, a real joy for me since I love being barefoot. (There was no way I’d allow my skin to come in contact with a hospital room floor.)
4. I have better cable at home. Even HGTV gets old when you don’t want to Love It or List It, Flip It, or Fixit Up.
5. My world has expanded from a mere hospital room with a bathroom. I have an entire house to move about. Although out of safety precautions, I choose to stay out of the boys’ bedrooms.
6. No one wakes me in the middle of the night…unless it’s my bladder.
7. My hair has finally stopped falling out. It hasn’t started to grow back yet, but I don’t have to worry about going to sleep with a regular pillow and waking up to a pillow case disguised as Chewbacca.

But the very best part of being home is spending my days and nights with family. Because even the worse day at home is better than an afternoon on the BMT Unit.

 

 

 

It’s Not Him; It’s Me

Before checking out my thoughts, please watch the video that inspired this post.

Would you let him give you a Tattoo?

I answered the question before I watched the video. –  No, I would not let him give me a tattoo. The man has no hands. To be specific, he has no arms either.

I attended high school with a guy who didn’t have hands, and he was quite the artist. So if you’re thinking that THAT’S the reason I wouldn’t let this guy give me a tattoo, think again. My reason has nothing to do with him and everything to do with me.

I don’t like tattoos. (THERE, I said it; rather, I wrote it!)

I LIKE people who LIKE tattoos; I LIKE people who HAVE tattoos; and occassionally, I like tattoos themselves. It’s like graffitti for the body. YOUR body. I don’t think I’d let the footed man (or a handed one) draw graffitti on MY body. Not that I haven’t EVER imagined such a scenario because in truth, there have been two occassions.

The first was when I lost my breasts to cancer. My plastic surgion offered a tattooed areola as part of the reconstruction. After giving it some thought, I decided against it. Cancer makes you tired of hurting. I didn’t want to hurt any more.

The second time I considered it was more recently, after chemo took my eyebrows. I was in a MAC store, buying a brow pencil when I met a woman who had tattooed eyebrows. They looked so realistic, I thought I might give it a try. That was before I decided that tattoos were not something to TRY, despite what tat lovers may claim. I chickened out of that one too.

Like I stated: It’s me.

There’s just something about having ink injected into my skin, that makes my skin crawl. Friends I know have no problem to committing to the deed – over and over again. When I think about it, the only people I know who have a single tattoo are the ones who either (1) regret getting it in the first place (i.e., they were young, intoxicated or both); or (2) ones who haven’t made it back to get a second tattoo.

I tried to imagine being one of those people. So I visited PINTEREST for inspiration, and I started following a board dedicated to mastectomy tattoos. Some of the work was hauntingly beautiful, especially when I learned the meaning behind the art. http://www.pinterest.com/personalink/mastectomy-tattoo-ideas/

Afterwards, I asked myself the question that I started with at the beginning of this post: ” Would you let him give you a tattoo?”

…uhm…

Maybe?

My Alien Self

I hate mirrors.

To be precise: I hate my reflection in the mirror.

It wasn’t always like this.

BEFORE, I’d do a mirror “drive by” – you know the kind where you pause to check your hair, makeup, or make sure that you don’t have spinach in your teeth. Now I’m trying to remember the last time I looked in the mirror and liked what I saw. You’d think it was the hair. Correction: you’d think it was the bald scalp staring back at me. Men and women, complete strangers, can’t seem to stop themselves from offering:

“I like your look.”
“Are you in treatment?”
“You have a beautiful head.”
“Is that by choice or for medical reasons?”
“Do you have cancer?”
“Wish I could wear my hair like that.”

Nope. The lack of hair on my head isn’t the problem. Chalk it up to being a black women.

I know, I know – you’ve heard (or may have first-hand knowledge) that black women share a complex history with our hair. Part of that history is being able to sport just about any hairdo imaginable: straight, wavy, curly, kinky, natural, relaxed, locked, twisted, cornrowed, braided, weaved, and yes – bald, the latter style popularized by a 1970’s Ebony Magazine cover featuring Issac Hayes and model, Pat Evans.

I like to think that the bald head works for me, as well. In my mind, I am edgy, a rock-star! I’m so confident that I can walk around with a small purse AND a bald head. I don’t have time for insecurities. LOOK AT ME. I SLAYED MY CANCER! Everything is laid bare for the world to see. I am the ultimate wash-n-go-hair-girl, with no complaints about having a bad hair day.

But as much as I’ve written about it, this actually ISN’T about the hair on my head. It’s about the other hair: my MIA eyebrows and eyelashes. I am now acutely aware that I look like an alien without facial hair to frame my eyes. Whenever I go out, I have three choices:

1. Resurrect the ET-look. (I think I may have scared a young child yesterday.)
2. Channel my inner-celebrity via oversized sun glasses and a baseball cap.
3. Or I can build my face, from the epidermis up.

I’m fairly comfortable with #3 if I am lunching with friends, or #2, when escorting my son to the bus stop. But ask me to glam it up, and my security fades. I have had to “pass” on formal events, in part, because no matter how much makeup I wore, or how pretty the gown, I felt like an imposter, an alien in this body.

After several weeks without eyebrows, my appearance is beginning to affect my quality of life. I am tired of waking up, looking like someone sneaked into my bedroom and took a giant eraser to my brows. Even my MAC brow pencil isn’t getting the job done these days. Imagine catching your reflection in the mirror, only to see a small part of your brow missing. You wonder: who else saw me like this?

I would never judge others by the standards to which I hold myself. I need a plan other than hiding.

Day 14: My Hairstory

Two stories managed to catch my (albeit short) attention (span) this morning. One was about college senior, Brinton Parker, who documented reactions to a selfie she posted, wearing different amounts of make-up.  The other pictured Beyoncé and Jay Z’s two year-old daughter, Blue Ivy’s hair. In both cases, people critiqued their appearances and judged them, based on how they thought each one should look.

Reading their stories made me think about people’s reaction to my hair over the past few years. Here’s a little show & tell.

Chemo Head: I refused to leave the house like this for fear of what people might say. (Incidentally, this is the first time I have shown this to anyone beyond my inner circle.)

Pink Hair: My friend Edie mailed me this Japanese party girl wig. I was thrilled to have something besides a hat or scarf to cover my bald head. I wore it whenever I needed a lift. Not sure what people thought about this, but I thought it was fun.

 

TV Hair: Since I host a TV show, and didn’t want the audience to “know,” I wore a wig. I loved it, initially, but found myself feeling like someone else when I had it on. I sacrificed authenticity for the comfort of others.

 

   But eventually, I got tired of hiding out.

I remember having lunch with my friend, Claire. The waiter did his best to avoid looking at me. He was polite, but definitely uncomfortable. I didn’t win that day.

 

 By the time my hair grew to this length, everyone was pretty relaxed again.

But then, I went ahead and did this –

 Looks like I don’t care what you think about my hair, and I never should have.