I spent 4.5 hours up at the hospital today. I was dreading (with a weird, "let's get this over with" anticipation) chemotherapy this morning, but it turns out that the small town friendly charm extends to the oncology room as well, and aside from the IV and the funky side effects that have started again, and will continue for the foreseeable next few days, I actually quite enjoyed myself today. People come and go as treatments are staggered throughout the day since the room only accommodates four patients at a time. So I got to chat with four different women and three different men during my own time frame. Everyone was friendly and positive and radiated hope and healing.
During the time I was there I had the pleasure of meeting three very different woman who were all very beautiful! One was rocking a wig that I never would have known was a wig had she not told us. The second woman was sporting an inch or so of lovely, soft grey hair that had recently started to grow back. The third woman, who I spent an hour chatting with after my treatment, was completely bald. And she was beautiful! Each of these women has embraced this side effect with courage and grace and were rocking it! They were friendly, encouraging, and happy to share their own stories. It was sad to be surrounded by breast cancer warriors, but it was also inspirational to see the grace and humour with which each one was dealing with her journey and this particular side effect of their common cancer.
Hair loss is not a given with my particular chemo cocktail. If it does happen, I hope that I can be an inspiration to others too. Because from what I saw today, bald truly is beautiful.
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