Energy, the fickle friend

By Stephanie Sanders — Jun 13, 2011 6:25pm

Our internet has been out, how funny how quickly we are tied to electronic ways of connecting. I wanted to update yesterday evening when I couldn't sleep, but the internet was down in our area.

I was feeling so good at the end of the week (parts of Thurs, Fri & Sat) that I could even forget for whole stretches that this week was a Chemo week. It is funny to me how my energy will come and go; how I can go from so excited to feel "normal", to completely drained & nauseous 20 minutes later. I felt really bad Sunday & today. Nausea on & off, and very fatigued. Maybe I overdid it when I felt good, but I didn't feel like I was at the time!

I shaved my head again as my scalp just hurts most of the time, but this time I cut it very close to the scalp to see if that would help with the sensitivity. It feels like a cross between having a sunburned scalp or if your hair gets pressed against the grain for a period of time and then aches. Very weird feeling.  But the point was that my head is mostly scalp now, even with most of my hair "still there". I definitely look like a Chemo patient.  I feel reluctant to go out without a hat or scarf now.  I write poetry sometimes to help with general angst :) so here's one I wrote last night about my hair:

Unthinking
I didn’t ask to be a poster child for anything so visible as this
I didn’t ask for your looks

Or you pitying stares
I don’t know what I thought, what I used to see
Unseeing, the life behind the eyes looking back at me in a mirror

But I do know that I don’t want this pseudo celebrity status
I don’t want to have to hide
Behind a shirt, behind a hat, behind my look
Behind your not thinking
About what it would be really like to be me

I didn’t used to think about the women
In my shoes, my shirt, my hat
So is your ignorance okay then? If I didn’t know?