Goldilocks – well, if she wasn’t blonde and was actually bald – hehe

It is interesting how life is a bit like Goldilocks and the Three Bears – time seems always too fast or too slow, never just right. There are times when days and even hours can seem to drag on and on and others when it seems like a week is gone in the blink of an eye. It doesn’t seem possible that my last post was 2 weeks ago. I had the best of intentions to do a better job of keeping this ‘up to date’, but alas, here we are –

Tomorrow will be my 4th out of 12 weekly treatments in this second half of chemo so – for you math wizards out there – that will be 16/24 weeks complete. Quick, simplify the fraction – yep that is 2/3 of the way done with chemo!!! Woo hoo!!! I love fractions for this kind of perspective – 16/24 – what does that even mean? But 2/3 I can visualize.

My PICC line is working well so that has made things less painful. The changes in my veins have been helped by a physical training program that I have been working on. I signed up for a study that is looking at how input from a personal trainer (virtually) during cancer treatment will help with wellbeing during and after the various interventions. I am very thankful for these blessings along the way. Added to the list of blessings, my parents arrived safely from the US last week. All went well with their travel and pre and post flight COVID testing. They are now enjoying school drop offs/pick ups and various sport fixtures in addition to keeping me company and pitching in with any and all of the various requisites that keep us afloat. It is great to see them ‘for real’ after about a 2 year hiatus.

In other Goldilocksesque moments, I am currently either too hot or too cold, primarily at night. This has made the whole bald head situation a bit more challenging. I had originally thought that I would have a wig before losing/shaving my hair, but the timing didn’t work out that way. In hind sight, that is likely a blessing as I had time to become ‘comfortable’ without hair. Although I now own a wig, I surprised even myself when I didn’t just take to wearing it every day. When it arrived, I wanted to do an ‘unboxing’ video and even bought a device to hold my phone. I then realized the speaker for recording video on my phone was caput so then the hunt was on to fix it. Anyone who knows me well, knows that means I break out the tiny tools and get to work. Somehow, I always think I will be able to sort it out. Well, I was convinced this time to replace the phone, but have managed (much to Ezra’s delight) to resurrect my old one. He put in the work with me to fix it, so he deserved the up grade from his Dad’s old phone that we moved here with in 2013.

Anyway, back to my bald head. The wig is great and actually looks quite natural, but as we say in Scotland is a bit of a faff. Adding in glasses and masks there are just too many things going on around my ears! So the wig usually goes on for church in addition to the contacts. To make matters more interesting, with my varifocal contacts, I am not actually able to read anything very close to me with them in, but still better than the glasses, which have to be removed to read anything at all.

Well, that left me often gazing at quite a vast expanse of whiter than usual skin up top. Actually, instead of seeing this as a lack of hair, I could see it as a blank canvas.

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Only problem is that I am NOT an artist. Lucky for me, I have some arty friends! I wondered if Henna-ing your head was a thing and sure enough, it is. After looking at some amazing designs online, I enlisted/forced my friend Marije into helping me with this undertaking. I am so glad she was up for the challenge. I think ‘our’ first attempt turned out AMAZINGLY well! What do you think? Are you up for starting a side gig, Marije?

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My sister Aspen has some great connections for designing Tshirts – Cerebral Palsy, Baseball, Football, you name it (the observant among you may have spotted me sporting my pink ‘Team Tenley’ tshirt in the photos above). I thought it would be great to have my own inspirational ‘cancer shirt’. Who doesn’t love a cancer shirt? So she and Ang got after it and designed an amazing one for me! I LOVE it. I had no idea that it would also have an aspect of fundraising associated with it so anyone who buys one gets the added benefit of being a blessing to ME. What great sisters I have! If you want to order one, the link is here.

So, my wig does get some use and it is lovely, but here is where it generally lives (frightened Matt a wee bit when he first saw it there and Elspeth has been a bit confused as to why my hair is now on a shelf instead of on my head).

She really doesn’t get the love she deserves and I have been thinking for a while now that she really needs a name. I thought to go for the quite obvious – Harriet, but then, I quite like Hazel too. I would love to have your suggestions!