Wednesday, June 16, 2021
It’s time. Tonight my mom came into town, per usual, to help with the fallout that comes with treatment week. I’m so thankful to have her here with our family during these times. I don’t care how old I get - it is clear to me that I will never say “no” to having my mom around when I’m not feeling well.
But back to my opening statement - it is time. With my mom here, and Cory’s support, it’s time to shave my head. I am not ready. But I’m fairly certain that I will never be ready for this. That being said, I just can’t stand having my hair falling out all over the place anymore.
After putting Macy to bed Cory set up a chair in the garage. I sat down and mom wrapped a table cloth around me to keep the hair off of me. We put worship music on my phone. Cory started the clippers, and with tears in his eyes, he began making passes across my scalp. I held onto my mom’s waist and cried into her shirt. When Cory would shift around to the front of my scalp, I looked up to the ceiling with my eyes clenched tight as tears went streaming down my cheeks. It was very raw, an extremely hard moment on all of us.
Every time I heard Cory sniff back tears, it broke my heart over and over again - it kills me that I had to ask him to do this for me. It felt like the ultimate form of sacrificial love, and in its own way, it was one of the most beautiful things that we have done together in our marriage.
It can feel isolating, like no one else can really understand what you’re going through at this moment. People try to make you feel better by telling you how strong you are, or what a badass you’ll be. Trying to equate it to a celebrity shaving their head for a roll or telling you it’s no big deal because it will grow back (hopefully). But it’s really the loss of one’s self, your identity. So much of who we are as individuals is wrapped up in our hair. You want to change up your look or pamper yourself? Go get a cut and color. You want to feel fancy? Take a shower and style it up nice. As a woman, it's easy to take this for granted. The ability to walk into a bathroom and look in the mirror and know exactly who you are because you look the same way you always have for 30+ years. It’s horrible to say, and I’d never in my wildest dreams equate what I’m going through to the genocide of an entire people, but I told Cory that the first time I saw myself in a mirror, I thought I looked like a victim you’d see in pictures from or movies depicting the Holocaust. My reflection scared me. I felt angry and heartbroken and lost.
And what most people don't realize is that it's not just the shaving of your head. You still have to get all these little hairs out of your scalp. So my mom sat with me and used a lint roller on my head, trying to get as many of those loose hairs out of their follicle, and we would continue to do that in the days to come, until as much of the hair that’s going to come out does.
But after all of this, my mom and Cory, they both still looked at me with such love in their eyes. My mom told me all she saw was her daughter, nothing less. And Cory continued to tell me over and over how beautiful he thought I looked, how much better I look with a shaved head than he would. I was so thankful to have them both there with me. I wasn’t ready to invite others into this grief with me. I didn’t want my family or friends to see me like this just yet. I felt so envious of those warriors who are able to have lots of people around them - make it a celebration almost, take back the power that the cancer tries to steal from us - I wished I could be that strong. But tonight, all I could handle was my husband and my mom and uplifting worship music surrounding me - holding me tight, crying with me, loving me through this and encouraging me that we will come out better and stronger on the other side.
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