Today, I reached a milestone: I combed my hair!
This is probably not earth shattering news in the scheme of things, but for me it is huge! For almost 14 months, I have had no hair to comb. No curls to tease. No wisps to pull. And then slowly, over the past month, my hair follicles woke up. All of a sudden it seemed that there was a race for the hair to come out after a long period of hibernation. I was curious to see the texture and colour of the hair. I had heard from many cancer patients that their normally straight hair came back tightly curled. A couple of my cancer friends told me that they went from dark hair to a lighter shade. I declare that my hair came back straight and black. And then last week, the gray in my hair made an uninvited cameo appearance and threatened to take over the black.
So I called my friend and hairdresser Afsan asking her opinion on what colour I should dye my hair. Should I go Blonde? Black? Red? The conversation was pretty serious, akin to a discussion about economic policy. Since I have so little hair, I figured I would pick up hair colour from Shoppers Drug Mart and apply it myself. Afsan told me in no uncertain terms that I was not to do anything like that. She said that she had waited 14 months to colour my hair and asked me to meet her at the hair saloon where she would do the honours. I came home with my newly minted hair, and my husband said he hated it. He is beginning to come around though! I am only just getting used to this new look.
Over the past few days, I’ve been having a lot of fun with the little hair I have. I wash it frequently, dry it with a dryer (it takes exactly 10 seconds to dry!), gel it, mousse it and run my fingers through it. I’ve never appreciated hair as much as I do now.
The bigger question is what do I do with the 13 wigs I have amassed so far? Wigs that allowed me to take on multiple personas; wigs that have made my journey with cancer easier. I don’t think I am ready to give up on them yet. So I am going to take advantage of the full repertoire and enjoy all the many looks of cancer.
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