Pirate Chic

Almost a week has passed since chemo #2 and this one has hit me harder than the first one. Feeling a bit more poorly in terms of SEs and also generally just feeling more miserable.

My head is feeling itchy and hot again like it did around this time on the last session, so I imagine what hair I do have left is going to fall out soon. Some people I have "met" either through the great forums I'm a member of or in real-life have asked me if I've thought about shaving my head so I have control. Part of me really wants to be gutsy enough to do that, but the other part of me thinks that if I can keep even a small amount of hair under a hat I feel more like me. So for now, the mini amount of hair I have left is staying. I took Fagin for a walk the other afternoon and when I put on a bandana I felt I looked like a pirate! My lovely friend Hannah has been experimenting with tying scarves and texting me pictures so when we meet up next week she's going to teach me to look less piratey.

I think the thing that has been affecting me most is that up until recently, the cancer was my secret from Joe Public, and I could tell people when I wanted to tell people. I could walk around as me and no-one would that I had breast cancer. Now that I have to have some sort of head covering when I go out, I feel that I look like a cancer patient. I know that's what I am, but I don't want sympathy looks, or people looking whilst trying not to look. I don't want this cancer to define me. I know it's only vanity etc etc but losing your hair, especially as a woman, hits pretty bloody hard.

Tomorrow evening there's a group being held at The Olive Tree in Crawley which is a once monthly evening for younger women affected by breast cancer. I'm trying to decide if I want to go to it or not. I think I might go tomorrow and then I can decide if I want to go again or not, I might even take Erika for her debut outing....

P.S. As part of setting up this blog, you can see how people have found it, what referral links they used, what words they typed into Google to find it etc etc. It amused me greatly the other night to find out someone had stumbled on my blog because they typed the words "topless sunbathing" (I mentioned being nervous about getting my boobs out sunbathing in an earlier post) into Google - lols.