A hairy situation

So just a quick one with a few pictures, and blurb and maybe one link to a song. 

Melanoma took a lot from me, it changed me on so many levels. Once I was diagnosed stage 3 I was ready to fight hard and not give up, but I wasn't prepared for what treatment would do to my identity. After four months my hair started to come out in huge clumps in the shower, it got thinner and thinner and broke off on the ends, shortening it by a lot, until I broke and just cut it off.

To say I was devestated was an understatement. Slowly over the course of my treatment more and more hair disappeared and I started to feel ugly. I didn't recognize myself anymore; my identity was stripped away cruely. 

I dealt with it ok, in my way, by investing in lots of inserts of different colors, even had fun with the different colors and styles I could play with. Fake hair was probably the best investment I made in my well being while on a horrific and life-ruining treatment. After interferon I had a scary look of baby hairs growing in with straggly fly aways, brittle and straw like stressed tresses and it seemed like every day I looked in the mirror and hated what I saw. They say hair isn't everything but it can be to a 20 something cancer patient who loses 2/3 of that hair. 

Every once in a while I snap a pic of the progress to see how far I've come. I credit the increased growth as of late to no more bleach, no more dye, expensive salon product and limited use of heat styling tools. There's a hashtag on Instagram- #LongHairDontcare but mine is #longhairICare. 

I'm happy.

It'll grow back they said. Well, it finally did. And I couldn't be happier. I finally feel truly myself, and siscors: no thanks. 😃

Since there's no songs about hair that I like, I'll just post a quick hair metal band tune, one of the best of the hair metal tunes ever, and I know my friend Jess will be rocking out to this one.

http://youtu.be/i3MXiTeH_Pg

Thanks for reading my weirdos, stalkers and loves. Without you I would care less about most everything in this wild world.

-E.

May mishmash

Well it's been an interesting month so far!

First my boyfriend and I went to banff and ate and drank until I gained back 5 pounds I kinda didn't want, but oh well. It was delicious. We did some teepee creeping, which for those who don't know is basically a booze cruise, stopping at every establishment that is pouring beer and after 5 hours we went to dinner pretty much drunk, I was hiccuping bubbles like a cartoon character. 

A teepee creep is traditionally a freeloading booze cruise. You stop at one teepee and ask your buddy for booze and tobacco, and then when all the booze is gone and all the cheeba smoked you move on to the next teepee, sometimes extra buddies join the creep but then stay at the next teepee for various reasons- good booze and tobacco or just too drunk to keep creeping. Sometimes there's fights, drunken accusations of theft from buddies teepee, there might even be a teepee fire! But the unpredictability of the creep is what makes it a party. You creep the whole town and then when you're back at the home teepee you rest, but sometimes you might just have to rest at someone else's teepee. The point is to freeload everyone else's shit and make them think they partied with you, when really you just drank their hooch and smoked their cheeba.

Either way a good teepee creep should involve multiple teepees and end in a drunken pass out.

A few weeks back I noticed a bump in my underarm (Esthetican speak for the ugly word armpit) which grew into a lump under the skin. Alarm bells went off but I decided not to panic and give it a couple of weeks. Well a couple of weeks go by and it had grown, and hurting. Uh oh I said. What the fuck is that. 

So I call my oncologist and two seconds later they are booking me with my surgeon, aka Mr. Nicey Slicey, and I'm in full on panic mode. I actually had a job interview at the same time as the appointment they booked me so I asked if they could get me another date, but then they decided I should just go to my family doc. 

Ok whatever. 

Waited ten tense days to see my doc, who ordered an ultrasound STAT, which I did appreciate since this alien thing was growing it's own face and eyes and taking up space in my body at that point.

Here's the only benefit to being a cancer patient: you get results in under an hour sometimes. They do not fuck around. It's literally the only perk, if you can call it a perk.

It isn't malignant. It's a cyst.

Huge sigh of relief. I immediately started eating again. Stuffed a long john down my throat in one bite. Fuck.

The thing is about having cancer once is that whenever you feel something weird in your body your mind immediately goes to CANCER. Oh here it is, the lump that's gonna end it all. But it's just not always going to be cancer, and you have to try and stay calm till you know, not an easy thing to do. 

Basically the cyst would be more painful to remove than to just leave in there so that's what I'm gonna do. Leave it. Let the fucking thing enjoy it's stay in hotel Hex. Whatever. I've seen what they do- they cut you open and take out the pocket of stinky cheese clump, and then pack the wound with gauze! You have to clean and pack it yourself for a couple of weeks, and I am not sure if this is even a cure for it. So just leave it alone, no picking- hard for me- I love to pick and squeeze- and it ain't gonna kill ya.

Yuck, bodies make some gross shit.

Finally the 16th was my bunny Evie's 1st birthday, and it was the cutest! She had on a party dress and liked all her books and toys, and even had a cake all to herself which she picked up with both hands and put to her mouth, getting covered in icing while all of us laughed and took pictures. The cutest.

I wasn't really on it with the camera but here's a couple. Most of the cake ended up on her face dress and the floor. Love it.

-E.

Burn Booze and buddies

Country weird.

I had my first burn/booze and buddies night in my new setting and we had a real barn burner. Well more like a desk and plywood burner but still raging enough for a group of pyros.

As you can see above, John and I can't take a "normal" picture. 

Many more BBB parties to come.

METAL!!!!!!

-E.

There's a future ahead and it might be your last

A quick dose of simple wisdom.

Dallas Clayton rules. He's actually a children's book author but I love his poetry. He's totally the new Dr. Suess.

Night!

-E.