Hair

 Hi Sharon,

Remember when you took me to your stylist, and she gave me that cute, long-ish inverted bob, and you kept saying what a great hairstyle that would be for my upcoming cruise? I kept wondering why you were saying that, when the cruise was 10 months away. 

It was as if you had a distorted sense of time. Thinking back, I wonder if it was a sign of what you were going through, perhaps early days of mental confusion. 

Or, it could have just been that you were thinking it was a new hair-do that I'd probably keep for the next year or so, and I was wrong to think you were nuts for saying that. You did say it multiple times.

Maybe it was because I needed a haircut so damned badly that you wanted to reinforce how good it was that I finally got it cut, perhaps to inspire me to keep up with the hairstyle with regular trimmings and so on.

I'm probably overthinking it. I seem to overthink a lot of things pertaining to you these days.

Well, yesterday I got my hair cut pretty short, and layered. It's sort of a bob, but it doesn't require a blow-out. I can just wash and go, and it's wavy and almost curly. It's not at all like the style your stylist gave me (which was a very good cut). 

It just seemed to take every ounce of will-power to do my hair after a shower. I have very little gumption for anything these days. But this sleek bob kind of look requires blow drying with the blow dryer brush. When I let it dry naturally, it was so bushy that my head was one big triangle. I think I told you my head was a dorito and you laughed. I think you called yourself an egg. Anyway, I couldn't go to work unless I either took the time to blow it out, or shoved it in a hair claw in the back.

So now I have a curly, messy head that isn't evocative of a dorito. 

I mentioned during our talk this past Sunday that G and I had gone to Tammy's house Saturday night. Her hair has grown out from the chemo, and she had it styled in a way that brought to mind a 40's pinup girl. It was very pretty. 

She found out that her cancer had returned into the lymph nodes, so she's going to start chemo again very soon.  But they have her on some other cocktail this time, and told her that her hair wouldn't fall out this time. She's happy about that.

I shared with her and Barb that you and I talked about what your hair might be like when it grew back.  You were wondering if you should just keep it short, as you were surprised at how good you looked with a badass super short head of hair. And everyone kept complimenting you on it.

It really sucks that you never got to find out what your hair might become.

It really sucks that you waited so patiently that whole year for your life to begin again, going through treatments, figuring out how to  live your life without hair, figuring out what to do with it when it started to grow back .... I mean, I know your hair wasn't your #1 concern, but it was in the mix, near the bottom.

I know you got to do fun things as you came out of treatment, you went to Ireland, you had a lot of fun times with family, you went to a concert in Cleveland with ME, but still, you were waiting for that time, just a few elusive weeks away, when your remission would be confirmed. And then you could take a sigh of relief, and waltz off to Portugal and France with Bev. 

But you were cut short. Some other fucking asshole stupid god damned thing stole your future from you. You were robbed. I'm so angry that you were robbed. I've been angry --  angry at your family, angry at me, angry at you, angry at your health care providers, how did we miss it?? You kept telling us you were exceptionally tired and not getting better. We placated you. What the fuck.  

Could they have done anything for you if you had insisted earlier? If Cleveland Clinic couldn't figure out the source of your infection when it was screaming at full volume, I'm sure Fostoria Hospital couldn't have a month prior when it was a quiet whisper.

It's possible that this is just something that happened.

And I hate it.

But I have to stop now. I have to get ready for work. And today's the first day I have to figure out how to style this new head of hair.

PS and Eric's tests came back not too bad. He has a polyp they want to monitor.