Well, when the hair goes from all over your body, your daily routine changes completely.

Now mind you, I don’t miss the art of standing in a shower with my leg extended up the shower wall to shave, or the underarm routine as well.

I do miss the eyelashes and eyebrows and even with my background in medicine it took me several days to realize that I was crying, sneezing and my eyes became lost in my face due to those fine hairs no longer in attendance.

My filtering mechanism was gone and with that part of my identity.

I found the daily part of preparing to meet the world a whole lot less time consuming and would giggle as to whose head looked better bald, Ron’s (her husband) or mine!

I stopped looking at the outside and started looking inside, and for someone who had avoided that most of my life it became quite a revelation.

I am not now nor have I ever been an overly confident person, although I have a persona that would deem differently.

The introspection and self affirmations were at times more than I wanted to look at. My perception of what I was and what I had become changed as time went on, and the positive reinforcement, although it came from outside, I decided had to come from within.

Men, I know that you have felt the frustration when your wife continually says, “you just aren’t listening, you don’t understand and don’t tell me the answer.”

I needed support but words from others couldn’t fill the void.

I feel so bad for the caregivers who are standing there feeling like they can’t say or do anything right and continue to try. They are the ones who need uplifting by others and just a reassuring ear but it is guaranteed they won’t seek it out as their scars don’t show.

I started to mend and grow and even yet today I am still learning and growing and it isn’t always a forward step.

Do we talk of cancer now, at home, in the quiet times?

Not often.

I have healed and feel pretty, more from the inside than out.