Dear Cancer,

I’ve been debating writing this letter for a while. For one, it’s a rather cheesy way to communicate, no? But mostly because I prefer ignoring your presence. You are in no way a part of my body, but something I feel I must co-exist with.

I am writing you because I am angry with you. Not for what you have done to my body, but rather what you have taken from my life. I am angry that you have robbed me of my 25th year on this earth. A year I will never get back. A year that should have been spent exploring and having fun. Because of you, it was instead spent in a hospital getting procedures and at home feeling ill.

Cancer, I have no idea why you chose my body. I mean, I’d done my fair share of smoking and drinking, but I cleaned up my act. I tried really hard to be good to my body in recent years, but it was still not strong enough to fight you off.

When I am old and look back on my life, there will now be a big hole where the year 25 sits. My time as a person in their mid-twenties will always be overshadowed by your presence. I will never know what this period of life is like had you not come along.

Cancer, I am also angry because even when you’re gone, I’ll still have to clean up the mess you left behind. My life won’t immediately go back to being great, and it will be a long time before it has any semblance of normal. Because of you, I will live in fear of getting sick again. Really sick. Because of you, I have now thought way more about my own mortality than any 25-year-old ever should.

Please do not take this letter as any sort of truce. I still refuse to accept that you are in any way a part of my body. On the contrary, I am instead asking you to vacate the premises immediately. I expect you to be gone by January 23, 2012 – my 26th birthday.

-Susan

Undercover

I’ve had a lot of requests from people to see the more “funkier” wigs I bought just for fun. Well they finally arrived yesterday!!

I scoured Etsy for weeks with a pink or bright red wig in mind. I couldn’t decide on just one, so I bought two! I figured you can’t put a price on feeling good when chemo makes you look and feel like crap. Plus, they were actually quite cheap compared to my other more natural one.

I love this one! Both the cut and colour of it. It’s a dark purplish-brown with bright red highlights throughout. I want this hair in real life please.

For the pink wig I ended up going with a light honey blonde with light pink streaks, as opposed to an all-out hot pink wig. This one is actually better quality than the red one, you can style it with heat and change the part in it. But it sits a little high on my head. I may have to wait until my hair thins more so I don’t have as much bulk on top.

Loooove the colour combo in this. I was actually planning on putting pink streaks in my real hair before the cancer thing happened. The light blonde will probably look better if I lose my eyebrows too (which are already thinning).

And for those who said I need big spy glasses to go with my spy wigs, already taken care of.

Still working on the trenchcoat and long gloves. Can you guess what I’m being for Halloween this year?

Who said cancer can’t be fun?

The One About The Hair

Of all the things I expected to get upset over during this whole cancer thing, losing my hair was actually fairly low on the list.

I’ve already declared my excitement to wear cool spy wigs, but I haven’t really talked much about the hair thing since The Shedding began.

First, let me make it clear that losing my hair was a lot more traumatizing than I ever expected it to be. I have never been attached to my hair, having it every cut and colour under the sun. I was more worried about losing my appetite than my hair (as if my appetite would ever go away, ha).

But there are really no words to describe the feelings that come with that first clump of hair in your hands. In some ways I was happy because it showed the chemo was working. In others it was a punch in the face of “Holyhellthisisreallyhappening.”

There are two ways most women deal with losing their hair on chemo. Some will jump the gun and shave it all off before any more has a chance to fall out. It’s a way to avoid having to pull out clumps or find strands all over the place, and a nice little “eff you” to cancer and chemo.

Another way to deal with it is by massaging the hair out. Working the fingers through the scalp to push the hair out, pulling out as much as they can. This is a lot more natural way to do it, but again, still not a good time.

I got all kinds of recommendations on what to do about the hair situation. Some said shave it right away, others said cut it really short. Even though I waited a month to start chemotherapy, I still felt really unprepared when the first day came. I was overwhelmed by all the suggestions, so I ended up doing nothing about it. I cut my long hair to chin length and left it at that.

Turns out, leaving my hair as is was the best non-decision I’ve made throughout this whole thing.

I was told that my hair could be gone in a matter of days when it first started falling out six weeks ago. I couldn’t bring myself to shave it all off, nor could I let myself pull it all out at once. So I just let my hair do it’s thing, picking strands off my shirts and out of my food the whole way along.

My hair is quite thin now. My bangs are slowly disappearing in the front and I’m always concerned a small breeze will expose the pink skin under the thin layer of hair. But still not bad enough to make people stare. Choosing to just let it be gave me six extra weeks with my hair I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Pulling strands of my own hair out every day is actually really scary. It’s upsetting. It’s annoying as hell. But I think it’s also given me the time to come to terms with what is happening rather than trying to put an end to it. It’s turned into a time where I say goodbye to my old self a little bit each day. And it’s helped me say hellloooo to the new blonde in town.

Now I just need a trenchcoat to go with my spy wig.