Just keep swimming

A wonderful friend - who also happens to be a cancer survivor - shared with me how going through chemo is a lot like that part in "Finding Nemo" - when Dory is singing, "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming ..."

Boy, is it ever. Chemo No. 3 is Friday, day after tomorrow.  I told some folks recently that I only just turned the corner from "I guess I may be meeting Jesus earlier than I thought" to "This chemo is helping heal me, and helping better guarantee that I'm going to watch my girls grow up."

And yet: I am hugely un-excited for Friday.

My hair has continued to fall out en masse. I am now feeling especially thankful to be enjoying the head wraps and hats that I have received from folks - there is only a light fuzz atop my noodle now. Amazingly to me, this does not seem to distress my girls. In fact, I have asked them on a couple of mornings: "Hat or bald today?" to have them say, "Bald." With no fear or distress - I marvel at them.

If only I could borrow a bit of that bravery. Earlier this week I went swimming for the first time in months - between the surgeries and just feeling yucky, I haven't been interested. But my sweet husband had purchased me a swim cap, I didn't feel beyond horrible and my two beautiful daughters really, REALLY wanted me to come swimming with them and their dad. So I sucked it up ... but I still exited the pool before the rest of my family and the rest of the pool got out. I didn't want to do the bald thing in front of non-family.

There was a basketball practice happening during swim time, and a little girl came in to use the locker room bathroom. She looked about 3 or 4. She came over to where I was changing and asked about whether kids were swimming in the pool I had just left. I still had on the swim cap, but she pointed at my head and said: "Where is your hair?"

"It's under there, sweetheart - this is a swim cap!" I smiled, and thought of myself: Chicken. If there was anyone with whom I could practice some bald lines, this was a great choice - kids are amazing. But I just wasn't ready to say it. And besides, I rationalized, I have at least 30 pieces of my hair up there. That must count for something.

But another really great kid interaction happened just a couple days ago. An awesome mom that I know and her three girls showed up unexpectedly - it was so good to see them and catch up, and we LOVED having them. I looked like this:

(Aren't the earrings fabulous? An out-of-state friend mailed me a whole bunch of her blingy jewelry that we Brown girls have been rocking around here.)

The newly 5-year-old girl brought me a blow-up dragon that we own and said, "Here you go! It's a dragon to go with your pirate costume!"

I had been waiting for the pirate comment - you may recall that my girls had been making pirate comments even before bald happened, and another awesome cancer survivor's blog talked about her pirate moment in a grocery store. I sort of thought mine would also happen in that kind of venue. But I grinned and said, "Thanks, babe!" while hoping next time I would have the gumption to say, "ARRRRRGGGHHHHH!!! Thanks be to ye, matey!!"

This seadog is pleased to report, however, that doing my hair has gone from 10 minutes (with long waves) to 5 minutes (with a pixie cut) to 0 minutes. I miss my hair, and I know my girls do, too. But man: This no-time hairdo is pretty sweet.