Carrying a Big Shtick

What kind of Cancer blog would this be if I didn’t devote at least two posts to my formerly shiny noggin? There are lots of pretty horrific side effects from repeatedly injecting your veins with poison. Many of them are permanent. Why is losing your hair (not permanent) the one that proves so difficult for so many? I don’t pretend to know the answer. It obviously has a lot to do with traditional notions of beauty. But the whole issue of “hair/no hair” goes much deeper than that. I am about to admit something that I have never said out loud. I think it makes me shallow … or crazy … or both. [Sidenote: One of the things about being on a first name basis with the “C” is that you constantly analyze whether you are the most screwed up person on the planet or it’s just the “C” talking.] Those of you who know me know that I have never worn a wig and rarely a hat. I could just never wrap my arms around the idea of walking around with removable hair on my head. But for all of the trauma initially attached to losing my hair, my transition to the new “style” was pretty easy. I was very oddly comfortable being shiny-headed from almost the beginning. I would like to attribute that to my amazing self-confidence. That, of course, is the comfortable answer. It’s more twisted than that. I realized something psychologically screwy going on the first time my hair started growing back. I remember noticing a woman who was obviously going through treatment and almost fondly remembering when I wore that hairdo. I don’t think I was self-aware enough at the time to understand why seeing her in her baseball cap was evoking that emotion in me. I just sort-of filed that scene away. Fast forward to the Recurrence. When I lost my hair the second time, I shed a couple of tears when two years of re-growth was shaved. After that, I do not think I cried over it again. I now realize that is because I use my baldness almost simultaneously as a crutch and a weapon. Let’s be honest. It is the ultimate sympathy-getter. It was my badge of courage. Powerful. Silencing. What kind of person would dare to hold me accountable for anything when I am bearing such a huge and visible burden? But now I am in that “in between” phase. I no longer look like a poor, long-suffering Cancer victim. Now I look like a boy/girl with a VERY bad, way-too-short haircut. Now it is time to start learning to walk through life as me again. No more extra slack. No more sympathy for sympathy’s sake. Just me. Responsible for the impact my actions have on those around me. I have gotten a little used to being the victim everywhere I go. I am going to have to start working on a new shtick.

Trying to get the sympathy vote is another "fun" thing I wish I didn't know about Cancer.