Cancer Sucks.

I've been actually feeling pretty well for the last few days. Oh, what a wonderful gift from God that is - feeling well. I know it's not the equal of the healthy feeling from before this started - but, oh, how wonderful it is to feel this well!!! Savor each breath you take and enjoy feeling well people!! It is COMPLETELY AWESOME!!

My hair is falling out. I get up in the morning and get the lint roller out to remove hair from my pillow. I'll comb my hair or run my hands through and get what would have been a couple of days worth of "fallout" every. single. time.

I look at myself in the mirror and oh I feel very old because I have thin, thin hair. It does not feel attractive in any way. I feel hair on me - on my neck, on my face - all the time. It is really just kind of gross.

I ordered some turbans and hats and such the other day that should be here by Friday. Yesterday I attended a "Look Good Feel Better" event. There they teach you makeup tricks to disguise some of the issues - like even losing your eyebrows and eyelashes, and wig care and such. They also told us that the American Cancer Society has a "Gift Closet" where you may be able to get all manner of things. We dropped by there today and I found a wig that I can live with.

So enough with the hemming and hawing around. When the items I ordered get here, I think I am going to go to my hairdresser. She had called me to check on me some short while ago and told me that when the time comes I can go to her she will take me back to the bathroom where we can be private and she will shave my head.

There is something that is quite humiliating about losing my hair. Something embarrassing, something demoralizing.

Well, there is something humiliating and demoralizing about this whole process anyway and yes, embarrassing.

Cancer sucks.

It sucks the very life's breath out of you if you let it defeat you.

This battle - it is tiring at best. I haven't written for a while because therapy though this is for me, I haven't wanted to look at how bad it is when it is bad. And it IS bad.

It scares me sometimes how bad it is. Oh, it scares me, indeed.

It scares me to think how much more I have to go. The first chemo round I was sick for a few days. This last time was my second round and I was sick for a full week and more. So I dread this next time - won't it get worse again? What about the time after, and after that? You follow my worry there.

It scares me because of how weak I felt this last time, how fatigued and vulnerable. Then add some indignity of going Kojak. Mmm. Bad.

It scares me how much I don't want anyone to ask me how I am. Because there are days when I could just scream out "I am horrible! I feel the worst ever and I know I am going to continue to feel like this for a while and then "better" is only that and not anything approaching "good" and I'm tired all the time and I know you don't want to hear this and I don't want to say this and I most of all don't want to FEEL this so please don't ask me if you don't want to hear the truth and I don't want to even tell you this and I don't want to think about it." But that would be rude and I am just fatigued from even thinking about it.

I don't mean to complain and I hope it doesn't seem like complaining, because I am simply trying to be honest and realistic here.

I'm also NOT telling people to not ask me how I am. I know that many people ask me because they really DO care, not just because it is the polite "form" to follow. If I hesitate when I answer - I am clamping my hand over my mouth inside so I don't respond inappropriately and because I am processing my answer to be somewhat honest and very not too much information for the hearer.

I'm scared because I have so far yet to go.

I'm scared of how my brain seems to go on miniature and sometimes permanent vacations.

I'm scared because I want to present a good face to the world at large and to my family in particular - a brave face, a positive and strong face. And sometimes I feel like a gentle breeze could blow me away because I feel so weak, and so vulnerable and so very tired.

And even so, I am surrounded by love and kindness and I know I am lifted in prayer - around the world.

I am a mighty warrior because God is with me. He is with me in small kindnesses extended to me by others, in meals people have made for me, in prayers, in cards sent me - some arriving just exactly when I most need them. He is with me when I can't sleep - which is far too often - and I reach for my rosary to pray a Divine Mercy Chaplet. He is with me when I lament the loss of morning coffee - tea can be comforting too, so for a while I'll drink tea. He is with me when I have my morning cup of tea and say my morning prayers. He is with me in something as innocuous as a Face Book friend sending me a greeting.

All in all, I'll take it. I'll take this hard road, because I know there's a better one up ahead.