Technically, this post is a week past due. A week and two days past due to be precise. On Friday, July 13, I sat in the chemo chair for the last time (pre-baby for sure, but hopefully for good!!). See these faces? Yep, that's pretty much how they looked thru the entire three-hour process. We're ecstatic!
I wasn't home post-chemo for more than 10 minutes when a knock at the door revealed this:
I know. Beautiful, aren't they!!??!! WM surprised me with a dozen sunflowers (my absolute favorite) for each round of chemo. Six dozen sunflowers!!! That man spoils me rotten. Rotten!! My two helpers were quick to get the stems cut and the blooms into vases. They were strewn about the house all week. Never before have I had flowers in practically every room in the house. Even Channing selected a blossom to put on the dresser in his room.
So, what now? Well, I do have an appointment at the end of August to talk to my surgeon, Dr. O'Leary with regard to my double mastectomy. When, with a newborn and a preschooler, is that going to be 'convenient'? [Ahem.] After the little guy's arrival, I will finally have the MRI that most cancer patients would have started their course of care with. That is, at this point, all I know.
Can I be honest? I think I'm going to miss being bald. Really. I liked it. My hair never did totally fall out. It was just impossibly thin & gross. I shaved my head every few days with an electric razor. I burst into fits of uncontrollable giggles the night before my last chemo, having one of those 'never in my lifetime...' moments. I was shaving my head in preparation to go out for dinner with WM & his family. Shaving. My. Head. for a date of sorts. You know, like putting on make-up and jewelry. I found it hysterical.
A special thanks to my sister, Sarah, & her husband, Jesse, who let us crash their dinner the other night so that post-meal, Sarah could take a couple of pictures for me. I needed a red umbrella shot for this post. She captured it just perfectly-a little umbrella, a lotta belly.
As 'my' song goes, I'm gonna be OK so let it rain!!
It started earlier this week. My hair was falling out-slowly in the beginning and then turning into cascades. Showering lost it's appeal. The hair would run down my body with the water. It felt like spiders. Not my favorite of bugs, that's for sure. I stopped drying myself with a towel on Wednesday. All it did was make more hair fall out and the stick it elsewhere on my body. By this morning, you could see clouds of hair flying off my hair from the force of wind the hair dryer produced.
The hair, it was everywhere. I was ready. More than ready.
Kathy's stylist was kind enough to come to the house to lend a hand with the cutting. Kendra and Libby made the trek across town to photograph the event.
We'd been talking to Channing about my hair falling out for a while now. At night, when tucking him into bed, he'd reach up to push my hair back from my forehead to try to see what I was going to look like. Sometime's he'd predict beautiful. Other times, he'd choose a word a little less flattering.
This evening, he was allowed to help. Laura first trimmed my hair down with her clipper and then helped Channing with one she'd brought along for him to use. He was careful. He was thorough. In the end, he was quite pleased with his work.
WM, with his kind, kind heart, shaved his head in solidarity. Channing said he wanted to too. Unsure if he really understood what those words meant, he was given a trim instead.
Here we are. One more bald than not, happy family.
And one last thought to share tonight. It seemed appropriate for today, this piece I came across while perusing Pinterest a day or two ago.
