1 week down....5 to go

About 3 weeks before I ever found out I had cancer, I went in for a haircut because my hair was down to the small of my back and the kids were practically swinging from it. I had an upcoming business trip to San Diego so I didn't want to do anything drastic, but I was ready for a new look. I asked them if they donated hair to Locks of Love-- a charity which donates real human hair to make wigs for cancer patients. They said they needed at least 10 inches for the donation to be viable. I was anxious because it would bring my hair up just under my ears if I cut it all off. But I told the stylist to go for it; so she put my hair into two pigtails and cut both off with sweeping clips. Just like that, she took 10 inches off and now it would become a wig for someone in need. How's that for foreshadowing??

So I gave myself a break yesterday because the cloud over my senses after the portacath surgery finally lifted. The port scar is healing, but the tape around it is starting to itch and I can't even scratch it. They used medical "super glue" to close the wound instead of stitches. I still feel generally more fatigued, but my mind is clearer and I seem to be coping well with the chemo medication. I have a small needle in my chest with tape and dressings around it. From this, there is long plastic tubing (kind of like what you see with an IV) which trails down from the port all along my right side and hooks up to a chemo pump. It resembles a giant iPod and fits inside a black satchel with a strap on it. I have to wear it on my shoulder 24/7 and be careful not to tangle up the tubes when I sleep at night. Inside the pump is a "cassette" which houses the chemo medicine in a small plastic pouch. It is a 100mL reservoir and the pump automatically delivers about 14mL of chemo into my bloodstream every 24 hours. When the medicine is pumped, it makes a camera shutter sound which I've learned to become oblivious to. Every Tuesday, I go into the oncologist's office and they switch out the empty cassette for a new one for the next week. I'm not expected to lose a lot of hair since the chemo is a low continuous dose over a long period of time, and the radiation therapy is targeting my lower body instead. But I was thinking how funny it would be if I ended up getting a wig made of my own donated hair......