In sickness and in health

It has been almost one week since round #2 of chemo. I am now on the upswing from the side effects and back to work after spending almost 3 full days in bed in a stupor. I was in a very foggy state of mind, very tight muscles from the shot they gave me to keep my blood counts up, and had some nausea that was manageable with crackers and eating regularly.  My tongue burns and everything tastes like metal. The hardest part is feeling so wiped out. I am only 1/3 of the way through this and I need to figure out how to get some energy into my system.  That will be my mission for the next time. And in spite of my complaining, I know it could always be much worse, so I am grateful.

My husband has been wonderful through out this ordeal. He has always been my rock but now I think there is new meaning to the words. 

Last Thursday after chemo it was time to get rid of my hair. I had reached the point of aggravation from it shedding all over and asked my husband to buzz it. We stood on the deck for awhile and we both ran our hands through my hair and watched it come out in clumps and then let the wind take it away for the birds. Then he got the buzzer and trimmed it very close so that I had just peach fuzz on my head. 

I handled it better than I thought I would. I had no tears and I while I was glad to have my bedroom mirror covered, I still looked in the mirrors in the rest of the house. Friday morning came and I got up and got ready for work with my wig. My husband was awesome. He usually goes to the gym first thing in the morning, but that morning he hung around waiting until I felt secure in my wig and then we went our separate ways. I thought it was so sensitive of him to hang around without my asking him to. 

So I got into my car and as I was pulling out of the driveway and turning my neck, I noticed that the wig cap underneath the wig was starting to roll up on my heard. "No, this could not be!" I thought to myself. "I am not even 5 minutes away from the house and I am having a wig fail!" The cap kept riding up and I knew that it was going to pop off my wig in about 2 seconds. So, I pulled over to the side of the road and pulled the wig off (hope no cell phone cameras caught me!) took off the cap and then threw the wig back on. It looked like a disaster now! I couldn't tell the front from the back! I was so frustrated and decide to just leave it and drive to work. I slipped in quietly and went into the bathroom and called a colleague for help with styling the wig. Everyone said that it looked nice, some couldn't tell it was a wig, others could tell because it is longer than my real hair. 

So mostly, the peach fuzz was OK. I went out on the deck with it, I let my son see me with it. So tonight I decided that I wanted my husband to finish the deed and make me completely bald. The remaining hair is achy and uncomfortable and it is still falling out all over even though it is so short. Time to be done with it. 

Tonight when I asked my husband to buzz it off, he hesitated a bit. I asked him if he was OK. To my surprise, his eyes filled up with tears and he said he would do it for me, but he didn't like doing it. I was so involved with how I was feeling that it never even occurred to me that he might be having a hard time. He said that he is OK with seeing me hairless, but seeing me bald just reminds him that I have cancer and the last couple of weeks when I was feeling so good after round #1 he was forgetting that I even had cancer. I was forgetting, too.

I so understood his feelings and I also why he tried to hide how upset buzzing my hair made him, but I am glad that he was able to share it. Because even though I have cancer we are in this together and I want him to be able to share with me. It is hard on the caregivers. I am the center of his attention. It isn't easy for a man to call up a male friend  or even a woman and talk about what he is going through. I have always been there for him to talk to and now it is about me and he feels like he can't.  We are best friends and I don't want that to change. I want him to tell me what he is feeling and get it out in the open, so I was grateful tonight when his tears showed me that he was hurting. 

We are learning to be more patient with one another than we have ever been. We will come out of this much stronger than we have ever been. Relationships are hard work, in sickness and in health.