The Game of "Life"

I was 5 years old and starting my year in Mrs. Volrath's  Kindergarten class and it seemed like a such a big place in my little mind. I was nervous that morning, until I turned around in my chair and saw the same nervous smile on the girl sitting at the table behind me. The little girl sitting there had dark curly hair and by sharing that initial smile, we quickly became inseparable in the most giggle-filled yet mischievous way... it was just that easy.  There were so many happy days of cruisin' down the sidewalk in her pink Barbie Convertible with the wind blowing our hair and playing Nintendo. Lachelle occupies a large part in my heart and my childhood memories. One memory in particular was her 8th Birthday. She really wanted the board game, The Game of Life. I remember being at store with my parents, who purchased it for me to give to her and I was so excited because I knew that she would love it. She squealed when she opened it and we immediately began playing it in her basement, sitting on our knees among piles of recently abandoned toys and Barbies. We would spin the colorful dial, hoping to land on a spot that would allow us to fill our diligently-selected tiny plastic cars with an entire stick-figure family (openly hoping to have an entire backseat of daughters.) As we sat there collecting piles of paper cash from our pretend careers, we chatted about being "dormmates" when we grew up and went to college, and being each other's bridesmaids. As it turns out, both of us were completely unaware of what realities our lives would eventually bring to us.

Lachelle's and my friendship was very close but it was also tragically short. Lachelle passed away from Lupus when we were in 2nd grade, she was diagnosed in October 1991 and had gone home to God by March of 1992. I remember being told that it wasn't a disease that children usually get and beyond that, I didn't understand anything else. I remember a little bit about the progression of the disease though, and how she had special permission to lay down and rest in the school office if she felt fatigued, how she could have those white and red star mints to suck on, and I remember shielding us with my jean jacket by creating a tent to hide us from from the children that would board the school bus, gawking at her cheeks, which had become very swollen from her treatments. It's ironic for me to think that my own symptoms would so closely reflect her own, some 20 years later. When things got worse for Lachelle, I was able to go visit her and push her around her hospital floor in a wheelchair. I pushed her up and down the halls for hours just talking to her. She had recently had a stroke though so she wasn't able to respond very much, but she knew who I was and her deteriorating condition didn't phase a young me. Fairly soon after that, Lachelle passed away. It was hard on me at first and I would cry at night because I had to break promises to her of plans that we had, big and small, and I didn't understand how to reconcile that, being so young. Actually, it is still hard for me in my own journey, except now that pulling feeling stems from wanting to promise my daughter the world, but possibly not being able to keep those either. That is why living in the moment, day by day is so important to me.  But, I was very close with Lachelle's family and that didn't change after her passing. I was asked to be a part of her mom's wedding when she got remarried. Lachelle was supposed to be the junior bridesmaid, but instead, I got to stand up in the place of my best friend and share in her family's happiness following such a sad time. I got to be her bridesmaid. Lachelle also had a little sister named Chloe that was born the August before she got sick. Her mom, asked me, soon after the funeral, if I would be Chloe's honorary big sister. That was the biggest honor that could have been bestowed on me and I took my job very seriously by frequently visiting to play with her and eventually being pen pals through my school years, after my family moved away. In fact, just last year when I was living in Chicago, Chloe and her sister Grace came to visit me.

Today is Lachelle's Birthday and I'm a little tearful as I write this because I still love her, and 24 years later, I still miss her. Through the years and even into college and grown up years I kept her picture in a box in my bedroom. It's only recently, since I moved that I can't find the picture, my mom and I actually looked for it tonight.  But that's ok because lives in my heart and today, being her birthday, I wanted to write this blog to honor her memory but I also wanted to write it because that memory of her 8th birthday, when I gave her that game, is profound for me to look back on. It was symbolic in her journey and it is symbolic in my journey as well. We passed "life" lessons between us at such a young age, building our make-believe lives and all the while building a bond of strength that would lead us through our future battles. I believe that she is on my team and she is helping me as one of my Guardian Angels and honestly, I've had some pretty spectacular confirmations of that. I will continue to spin the colorful dial of "life," but it will be the real word version, and I will take everything that is given to me and continue to go down the path that is meant for my life until I win my fight and...this game of life. 

Thank you to Lachelle's Mom, Beth, for replacing my lost picture with this one.
She is beautiful and looks like an angel. 

                                                   

From Blonde to Bald

If you have read my blog before, then you know how I feel about ponytails. I would be willing to bet that I have spent about half my life with an elastic band wound tightly around my massively thick hair and if it wasn't pulled back, then I had a ponytail holder on my wrist, just waiting for it's opportunity to be called to duty. The better part of my childhood was spent styling the synthetic hair of my Barbies or baby dolls, usually, to end up with a too-big bow perched right on top of their heads, but always, always with a ponytail. And then one day, God blessed me with a daughter whom I adore for so many reasons, one of them being her patience in letting me do real braids, buns, or ponytails, to my heart's content.

So, it is only natural that my main goal following my 2014 brain surgery, was to regain feeling and movement in my hand and arm so that I would be able to put Avery's hair in the ever-coveted ponytail once again. It was within a week that I met and soon surpassed that goal. But then, soon after, it became a gauge of my progress once again. My hair had fallen out following radiation and was recently starting to regrow. To me, getting it long enough for a ponytail would mean that I was getting somewhere with the regrowth process; but unfortunately, I wasn't able to meet that second milestone because my hair had started slipping through my fingers, literally, soon after the first cycle of my chemotherapy treatments was complete.

The first time that I knew I was going to lose my hair, I kind of panicked. I rushed out to a wig shop and had them replicate the hair that was on my head. I wanted it to be perfectly matched so that no one would really know that I had lost my hair, unless I wanted them to. It ended up being a gorgeous wig that was the perfect compliment to what I would be losing, but it cost pretty penny, a few thousand of them. However, for the time being, it gave me solace and familiarity so that when I looked in the mirror, I wasn't staring back at an alien version of myself. Once I had a wig, my panic calmed down a bit and I was ready to take charge of the situation. I had a timeline of when my hair was projected to fall out and a few days before that, I decided to cut it and donate it while it was still healthy. I was able to donate two 10-inch ponytails to Wigs For Kids and that still left me with a short bob haircut; but it was only to last about two days until it started falling out quickly in soft fistfuls.

Once the radiation was complete and my hair follicles passed being dazed and confused, my hair eventually began to grow back. Very. Very. Sloooooowly. I originally anticipated a pixie cut by Christmas, but I barely even had a 5 o'clock shadow by the time the first snow fell last year. It was a chilly winter, hiding under my wig or fashionable head scarves, but eventually, when the spring flowers started blooming, so did my hair. I was so thrilled to have my hair coming back, that I hardly noticed that it looked like a reverse Mohawk. The sides were growing much faster than the top section of my head, so in essence, it was giving me a backward version of the famous rock and roll coif. Of course, to add a little insult to injury, the gray strands were growing the fastest.

When I learned that I needed to start chemotherapy, I knew instantly that I was going to lose my hair again. The type of chemo that I am on has more gentle side effects, but there was no getting around the most prominent side effect of hair loss. I finally had a full head of hair, but this time, I would face further hair-loss. It wouldn't just be just the hair on my head but also my eye brows and and eyelashes, as well. Chemo's job is to target all the cancer cells in your body. Unfortunately it cannot tell the difference between healthy cells and cancers cells so it ends up kills all of the rapidly dividing cells in the body and that includes both the cancer cells and the healthy cells. Hair follicles are some of the fastest growing cells in the body and so when the chemo kills them, there is nothing for the existing hair to hang onto and it prevents future hair from growing. So, if you notice me hanging around town with a crooked drawn-in eyebrow, or a set of fake lashes haphazardly hanging down my cheek like I'm sneaking back in from a late-night bender, cut me some slack.

Hair is just a thing and you will probably primarily hear that from someone who has never lost their hair. It seems like it would be a comforting thought to share, but for me, losing my hair was hard. Both times. I'm not always good at showing my vulnerability and instead, I tend to hold my feelings close to my heart, but I will admit that it was a blow; especially the second time, when I had come so close to resurrecting my hair styling tools, products, and even that always desired ponytail. Okay, maybe I wasn't that close to a ponytail, but a girl can dream.

I decided to take charge of my current situation again and lose my hair on my terms. I got to spend the summer with my cute little (mostly) red-ish colored, curly, pixie. It was sassy and it was something that I would have never dared to try if I would have gone about it with a traditional haircut. I actually became used to it and so when I tried on my wig for the first time in months, I didn't even recognize that blonde girl with long hair. Instead it looked, just as it was, as if I was wearing a wig. My hair was already short but I wasn't going to watch the strands float off my head and into an oblivion, so I decided to shave it. And when I did, I wasn't alarmed when I faced myself in the mirror this time. In fact, running my hand over my bald head was like shaking the hand of an old acquaintance.