It seems like my hair is not only growing, but the fuzz on my head is actually getting a little thicker.  I am happy to report that it’s not ALL white, either, as I had feared.  Years ago my bestie asked me “What color is your natural hair color, by the way?”  I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now, but I feared the worst.  I’d been coloring/covering it so long, and in between visits to the salon, I just didn’t look too closely in the mirror to assess the drastic demarcation of the grow out.  My sister likes to point it out, in her special, loving way.  🙂  But I just laugh that off.  Ken says if it comes in all white, it would probably be because of the chemo, but I believe that’s just him being a loyal, loving husband, flattering my vanity.  But if I’m really honest with myself, what I was most afraid of about losing my hair, was how much I would be confronted with the truth when it began to grow back.  As long as I could color my hair, I could be in denial about getting older.  I still think of myself how I looked when I was in my 20’s.  I still feel as ignorant and unsure of myself as I did when I was in my 20’s, why shouldn’t I look like I’m in my 20’s?  Well, stupid, (this is me talking to myself), have you looked at yourself in the mirror? No, not a really GOOD look, because every time I do that I see my mother’s nose and jowly cheeks and chin.  Yikes!

I haven’t thought of myself as vain before this experience, but I actually am.  You all figured THAT out by all my moaning about losing my hair.  It took this cancer journey to open my eyes to it.  I thought – I don’t really care about clothes, hair, makeup, looking good, so I can’t be vain.  I am not pretty to begin with, so why bother?  This whole experience with my hair has taught me better.  First I worried about losing it.  Then I worried about what people would think, so I wanted to hide my bald head from everyone, including my husband (that didn’t last long).  Now I brag about being out in public, and forgetting about my bald head.  Turns out all these things just point to the fact that I am extremely lazy.  Thinking carefully about my clothes takes effort.  I want to look as chic and put together as those ladies on What Not To Wear, I don’t actually want to do the work to shop and think about what looks good on me.  That would require actually going to the mall, going into a store, picking out clothes, and trying them on.  I have to get undressed for that, and see myself in those extremely large, revealing mirrors under those unforgiving florescent lights.  Uck, no thanks.  I’ll just keep wasting money buying clothes on line, and being disappointed when they don’t work out.  See?  Lazy.  Same thing applies to my whining and complaining about my hair, or lack thereof.  Similar lack of initiative, lack of creativity, similar rationalizations for the lack of creativity and initiative.  I don’t know how, so why bother?  And you all know it’s all BS on my part, isn’t it?

Anyway, back to hair.

After we checked in at infusion, while we were waiting for our turn, I mentioned to Ken my recent impressions about my hair, i.e., doesn’t it seem to be getting thicker?  He agreed, especially in the back, which I hadn’t noticed, I was so obsessed with how thick and dark my scalp fuzz was growing.  We wondered aloud to each other when it would start falling out again.  Then my infusion pager went off (it’s just like one of those little square bricks they give you at restaurants to let you know your table is ready), and we went back to the infusion bay to settle in.  The nursing assistant comes to take my vitals, and then we wait for the nurse, which I am thrilled to see is Kevin.  Kevin is the oncology nurse I’ve had every week since I started taxol.  Kevin is AWESOME.  He tells me just enough about what we’re doing, and in such a way that it’s interesting and easy for me to understand.  Plus he’s HILARIOUS.  Anyway, we’re chatting about how the last week has gone, and I bring up the subject of my hair (see how vain I am?  I keep calling attention to it!).  I ask him “What do you think about all this hair?  Isn’t it getting thick?”  He agrees, and I wonder aloud again when I might notice it falling out again.  Kevin says it might just keep growing, but really, really slowly.  This is an option I hadn’t allowed myself to admit out loud, but I have to say now this has been a secret hope of mine.  I don’t think he was just flattering my vanity, and I know we have a long way to go yet, but I can’t help it.  I DO hope that my hair will continue to grow, oh, so slowly.  As much as I’ve been enjoying my bald chickness (never thought I’d say that), it’s fun to run my hands over my scalp and feel downy soft hair up there instead of prickles.

My eyebrows as well seem to have new growth.  They’re still very thin and sparse, but there are also some very short, dark brow hairs coming in.  While I was getting ready, I tried again drawing them in, and it went a lot better than the last time I wrote about them.  Because of the new growth, it was a matter of filling in some areas with the pencil, rather than trying to replicate a full eyebrow with the same.  Much less obviously clown-like, at least to me anyway.

It hasn’t been obvious to me that my eyelashes are coming back.  I guess I have to admit that they are, but they just aren’t as long as they used to be.  My eyelashes are another vanity of mine.  I have always enjoyed very long lashes.  They aren’t dark, but they are long, which is noticeable if I wear mascara, as they brush up against the lenses of my glasses, making little “skid marks” whenever I blink.  Oh, please, please, PLEASE come back long…

I bought a pair of false eyelashes, tried to apply those today.  But those ARE too long to wear with glasses.  I thought about giving up after the first two attempts, especially when I got a look at myself with the full set.  I thought, “I can’t carry this off, who am I kidding?”  But I really wanted to wear my big dramatic earrings, and to my mind that means a full eye makeup, including lashes, of which I have not much, so I had to carry on.  So I tried trimming off individual sets of lashes, clusters of five or so, and used just one or two clumps on the outer corner of each eye.  That I could work with.  I had lashes I wasn’t embarrassed to go out of the house with (yes, I know, it’s ridiculous that I think about these things), which enabled me to wear my bad-ass earrings to go with my bad-ass bald chick head.  It worked for me.