Three men and a bald lady

So it has been five days since my last treatment. I intended to write more frequently when I started this blog, but the truth is you probably don't want to know about the bad days. Hell, I don't want to describe the bad days. It involves lots of stomach issues and headaches and sleeping. What we can do is play a game. Each blog post I'll tell you about the side effect I hate the most that day. Today, it is smells. Bet you thought I'd say hair loss. Nope. More on that later. No, I hate many, many smells...particularly the smell of alcohol which is unfortunate considering when people see me, they immediately rush to their hand sanitizer and/or wine. The other night, Ken came to bed and I started gagging. "What the hell is that smell?", I said. "Have you been drinking whiskey?" No, he commented. He had just had milk. He had brushed his teeth. I snapped at him and told him to brush them again, convinced that he had been drowning his cancer sorrows in a bottle of Jack. Turns out what I was smelling was Listerine. It's a revolting smell, a I-can't-lay-here-next-to-this-stench smell. My poor husband.

I started losing my hair about two days after the second treatment. It was so very disgusting. Hair on my pillow. Hair all over my shirt. I always thought I would let it just fall out on its own, but my hair is so thick and it is just so gross. Plus my head hurt like crazy. All I wanted to do was rub it, yet every time I rubbed my head more hair would come out. So Sunday morning I suggested I just buzz it, and my husband basically raced to get his clippers. You know, men, I think, have this serious power thing concerning hair clippers. They just love them. Even my once long-haired hippy husband has always had good hair clippers. He loves buzzing the kids' hair...a little too much if you ask them. He wasted no time.

So there we were...all four of us (me, Ken, and two big boys) out on our lanai porch instead of at Sunday School buzzing my hair. Took a matter of seconds and I didn't cry. How did everyone react, you ask. Were the kids okay? Uh yes. They are dudes after all.

Ken: Pretty cool. You look like a Star Trek lady. Who is next? Should we all buzz our heads?

Caleb: I don't want to buzz my head. Is that okay, mom?

Levi: Are we going to a restaurant today for lunch? We normally go out to eat on Sunday.

And there you go. The world of hair according to guys. No biggie. Just wear a hat. It is, indeed, very liberating. The only drawback (besides my aesthetics, of course) is that now I have a big neon sign flashing at me, pointing out the sick girl. Every outing from taking the kids to school to going to the grocery store involves looks of sympathy and condolence. I just know the Publix lady is pitying me with my silly hair turban and cart full of Stouffer's lasagna and ice cream bars.

Since my treatment began, I have been tutoring some on campus in our learning center. Yesterday, I went to help a young male student with his math. He said after glancing at my hair turban, "What? Are you going through chemo or something?" Yep, I said. "Well," said dude, "That just sucks." And then without skipping a beat..."Can you help me with this? I just can't seem to be able to figure out this oblique asymptote here." This guy summed up this whole hot mess pretty well. Chemo sucks, but let's get back to living. These rational functions are not going to graph themselves.