And I by that I mean the hair stops growing, because as long as there is hair… I will shave.

I was also told today that I’m not supposed to be shaving under my arms with a razor since the nerves there are damaged from surgery (aka, I have NO feeling) so I guess I’m going to need a wet/dry electric thingy. Because I don’t not shave under my arms in the shower. Ever. Like, the times I was only allowed to lift my arms 45 degrees, in the shower was the one moment I totally violated it. Because it’s a big part of how I feel clean.

I’ve been having a pretty hard time emotionally this week. I think it starts with the fact that this has been the physically hardest week, but it also extends into how useful I feel in general.

I haven’t talked about my symptoms a ton because I don’t like to whine, and I don’t want anyone to worry, but I also promised when I became the Breast Cancer Ninja that I would be real. So I’m going whine really quick, and then I want to ask for some opinions.  Feel free to skip the bullets, which are the whiney part:

1. Mouth sores suck. It feels like the bottom of my feet when I’ve spent 12 hours in a chlorine pool, except for all inside my mouth, and it has all week.
2. No more TP? I called to ask about my bottom being sore, and they said, “We suggest that you don’t use toilet paper.” So now I have those clammy wipe things that are flushable, but you’d think that this should have been in the “chemo teach” last week.
3. WTF with the shaving thing? You’d think this is something they’d say early on, like they did with the never-get-BP-or-blood-draw-from-left-arm.
4. It only ever seems like I get partial info from the nurses. They told me to call and they’d give me prescriptions when I was @ chemo last week, then asked me if I’d done a bunch of OTC stuff before they write prescriptions. Uh, no, I have not been going rogue, trying random shit. I’ve already got a small pharmacy in my kitchen, so I’m not going to just TRY stuff when I don’t know how it interacts with the other stuff. I want to make this all EASIER on me, not harder by doing the wrong thing.
5. I’m having a hard time caring about work. I feel like I’m being left out of the loop, which drives me INSANE, and that I have no value since they’ve got someone in helping out while I’m “out.” But I don’t want to be out. And since I don’t know what it is that I’m being left out of, I don’t feel comfortable jumping in. So then I just get depressed and don’t do. Which does NO ONE any good. So then I get down on myself for that. I plan to fix this on Monday.

OK, so here’s the cheese to go with my whine.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this hair thing. You know, the part where it’s all going to fall out.

And the one thing I know is that I’m going to donate what I have, not sure where, but I still need to decide what I want to do with my head for the next couple of weeks.  Here’s a pic of how my hair looks now:

Self Portrait of a Ninja, No Makeup, Little Sleep

As you can see, my hair is a couple of inches past shoulder length.  Shedding hair that length is both wasteful if I’m going to donate, and gross as it shows up around the house.  So now the question becomes- what next?  I’ve uploaded several visual aids to a new Pinterest board “Pre-Bald” but the basic options are:

1. The 2012 version of the Pixie cut- a la Ginnifer Goodwin
2. The old school Pixie– Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina
3. The boy cut– I’ve shown it on Natalie Portman since I didn’t want to put a pic of my son on Pinterest 🙂
4. Bald- Like Britney when she lost her shit

If you’ve got another option, I’m open- I’ve even thought about short, then a funky pink or something, but I think the texture would make me cry and the color would ruin my towels.  I’ll just buy a sassy pink wig & call that urge fulfilled.