With Seventeen Hairs on My Head Do I Really Need a Beautician?

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The average human head has one hundred thousand hairs.
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I now have seventeen.
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And I need a haircut.
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It's not cute when your hair sticks straight out from your head.
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The Chinese Crested Hairless dog in the above picture looks cuter than I do. Plus, she has a lot more hair than I do. Insert big sigh here.

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It took me a long time to find that photo, and I found out that there are Chinese Crested dogs with lots of hair, and I fell in love with Toby who is for sale in Oklahoma. Isn't he the cutest little fella...unfortunately his sale is pending.

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I purchased a wig more than a year ago, but it doesn't look good on me. I think I bought the wrong size, as it rides up in the back. At least I think so. It looks like a blonde Paula Deen. Not to far off my own color (white is a color!). Then there is the bright emerald green one I bought for St. Paddy's Day.

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I was thinking that doing a henna job on my head might be attractive. It could look artsy, or something from the thirties. I found the Chemo Chicks on the internet, and they have a Henna Tattoo Kit available for sale.
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Lil Kim had some face decorations when she danced this week that looked like curls on her face from a distance. I have no clue if they have anything for the total head.

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I did find a place where I could buy Hairy Moles, perhaps enough on the head would fill in with the seventeen hairs. I wonder if they have white?
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I was thinking that if I lost all my hair I could get the grandkids to sign my head. There are thirteen of them, so that would cover a lot of head. I wonder how long a magic marker would last on my head?
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I have a coupon to get a head massage that would help damaged hair shine. Wouldn't they be surprised when I walked in! Sometimes being almost bald is fun. The massage might feel good, and my hair is so damaged, I'm sure the seventeen would be lost when shampooed.
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Of course, that would eliminate the need for a hairdresser to trim my crown.
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At my last RWA chapter meeting last month, I told the girls that due to my hair loss, I would be wearing a hat. All of us wore hats. We meet in a restaurant, and almost everyone that walked in looked at us and when we left, everyone did stare. It was very empowering. Who knew?
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I'm old enough to be a Red Hat lady, but there aren't any in our small town. I now know how they feel when they enter an establishment to eat all decked out with their red hats. One lady wore a purple one, and it was really cute. The one lady in a red baseball cap didn't have the panache that the others had. Go Red Hats!
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I asked my son today if I needed a hat to go out in public. (I was kidding with the question.) He is twenty-one, and very respectful, he told me to be comfortable with myself, if I felt I needed a hat to put one on. Don't you love it when your kid says something so wonderful!
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And that's what I do. I have hats in my car, some nice ones, some baseball caps. I wear whatever I feel like wearing. And when my head gets hot, I take it off. (In the car, otherwise, I leave it on.)
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With hair or no hair, I'm still the same person I used to be...except maybe more caring, more tolerant, more forgiving. Which is a good thing. Maybe that is what I'm supposed to be learning from this experience.
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Life is still good.
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New Beginnings - New Chemo Drugs

Today was chemo day. My chemo drugs were changed. Woo Hoo!

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These are 'lighter' than the previous four chemo sessions. No coldness. I didn't feel anything.

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Of course it wasn't all fantastic. The nurse who inserted the needle into my port used a short needle, I need a long. Since she was wearing gloves, another nurse handed her the sterile long needle. It went in with a slight snap that I could feel. (No pain.)

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Then they push in fluid to flush the port, and when they draw back on the syringe, blood is supposed to come into the needle so that they know that the chemo drugs will enter the blood stream. If it doesn't, well, the talk about the chemo drugs eating your flesh comes to mind.

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She didn't get any blood back. She asked for another syringe, again, no blood. Two syringes later, with three nurses in my cubicle, they asked me to raise my left arm in the air several times, and that did the trick. The dh was standing outside the cubicle, but knew something wasn't going well, as it was out of the norm.

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After starting the chemo, I laid back in the lounge chair. It was one of the ones that are difficult to get out of. They also push saline solution along with the chemo drugs, I imagine to dilute it. With all the fluids going in, a loo break is a necessity.

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For some reason, I was restless. Maybe, it was the Restless Leg Syndrome, though the extra Iron I take daily has alleviated most of movement. I sat at the edge of the lounge chair. One of the nurses asked me if I needed anything, but I told her no.

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I have to say, that the nurses, who are very attentive to their patients, and the other patients around them. You don't necessarily get the same nurse all the time, but if one is busy and your machine starts to beep, meaning that one of the bags is on empty and either needs to be changed, or that you're through and can go home, another nurse will step in and take care of you.

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So, once we finished, it was noon. The dh took me out to eat. Since we will be going on Wednesdays for the next eleven weeks. I need to see if they have other restaurants in Alexandria that we haven't tried out yet. He likes Mediterranean food, so since next Wednesday is his birthday, that might be a neat surprise.

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So, as my son says, "It's all good."

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And it is. I am truly blessed.

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Get your mammogram. I do care.

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Cosmic Intervention by Melanie Atkins

COSMIC INTERVENTION by Melanie Atkins is a Wicked short story now available at Cobblestone Press.

Blurb:
Paige Mangum attends a sales conference knowing she needs to come out of her shell if she's going to keep her job, but she doesn't count on meeting a hot, sexy stranger with magic hands and a mouth that drives her over the edge. Conference sessions have never been more fun.

Tell me how you discovered this story idea.

I got the idea while I was at a hotel at a conference, and one of the elevators seemed to have a mind of its own. It would stop whenever it wanted, whether you wanted it to or not, and then take off for another floor. It was really kind of creepy. LOL

Was this always a 'short' story?

Yes, I wrote it as a short story, specifically for Cobblestone Press.

Did you have to do any research?

No research on this one. I just relied on my vivid imagination. LOL And that's a bit scary too, because of the the story's high heat level. It's much hotter than I usually write, but I had a lot of fun with it. Guess you can say I really pushed the envelope with this one. ; )

Where can I find your book?

It's available at Cobblestone Press.

Melanie Atkins is a friend of mine, and a delightful woman. Buy her book, you won't be sorry!


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Round Four, I won again!

Monday was my last round of the first set of chemo drugs. My doctor stated that I was doing fine. My white blood cells are maintaining, neither going up or dropping down like they did in my first week. I'll take maintaining. It must be the extra iron that I'm taking that is helping.

I have this next week off, except for the weekly blood sample. But, they finally found a good vein, so that's where I'll direct all future needle punctures. One is so much better than three!

This week I've felt good, except for yesterday. But you have to have a bad day to replenish 'the well', so I did a lot of resting.

I'm still losing hair and rather discouraged that I will have to shave my legs before I wear shorts. What's with that! Wouldn't you think that if I were losing the hair on my head that the legs are fair game? I do. But it isn't happening.

My next chemo regimen begins a week from Monday, with a new course of treatment. Apparently, our bodies don't like chemo drugs and will build up to fight them, so the treatment is changed in order to get all the cancer cells. Only this time, instead of every other week, it will be weekly for twelve weeks.

On this last round, I did feel that bone-chilling cold during one of the medications, but it wasn't as bad as the second round of chemo. As you walk around the treatment room, most of the patients are bundled up. So, I'm not the only one who gets the chills.

The only bad thing, is that the cold chill stays with you. I can't seem to get warm enough.

But, there are sweaters that can be donned, or my favorite, a sweat shirt.

The dh is still very protective of me. Plus, he does sweet things like putting a white rose on my keyboard while I'm snoozing away. It must be love.

How lucky can one girl get...

It's all good.