A day after my absolutely fabulous Friday and two scoops of chemo crappiness later, I’ve had an all-in-all rough 72 hours. Both physically and mentally. I woke up Saturday morning with an extreme amount of jaw, mouth and throat pain which we quickly learned is an infection in my GI tract that comes quite often as a result of chemo. As with any infection, it onset a fever and some nausea. It continued to get worse and by Sunday my fever was up to 102.5. Pretty much sucking the life out of me, even my doctor noticed I wasn’t “as perky” as normal. Luckily I had some friends and family stop by both days which helps to put my attention on something other than the uncomfortableness; even if just for a few minutes. I certainly didn’t expect that I would be Miss Pollyanna, sunshine and rainbows the whole time but this was the first really rough patch I’ve had so far– the kind that punched me in the face with the reality of just how hard and long this road is going to be.

Then we added some insult to injury: Sunday morning my hair started to bid me goodbye. Some people may call this deep denial but I like to say I was being an enteral optimist when thinking just maybe I’d beat the odds and not lose my hair. I was quite honestly clinging onto this glimpse of hope and up until Sunday morning I was yanking on my hair everyday to see it it felt “loose” and lucky for me, it had been sticking in there quite well. Unfortunately, and unknowingly to me, the hair loss comes on extremely quickly and from Sunday morning to when I first noticed hair on my pillow, I was pulling out large chunks by Monday morning (pukeeeee). This quite literally made me feel nauseous. So, since my mom was here for the day, I had one of my favorite nurses and lets face it, didn’t have much of a schedule, I decided to rip the band-aid off as quick as possible and take control of the situation. With a Beyonce playlist of “If I were a boy” and “Diva” blaring in the background, we began the buzz-a-thon: and to my utter shock, it felt great. The first row of hair took my breath a way a bit but I didn’t cry because I felt a sense of control. It felt like I was choosing this, not my sickness making me do it. Which was empowering and important for me to feel.