Hi! thanks for the reply and the good wishes, and yes, I’ve heard it’s supposed to be thicker and curlier and since that’s the type of hair I had to begin with I keep laughing at the thought of it being even more so, I get the sense I’m going to go from bald to Chaka Khan in one fell swoop :) 

And BTW, I really enjoy reading your posts, the perfect mix of smart commentary, a little dish and style critique, love it. 

Hi, Kermie!  Ooh, yeah, NY soot on my face would make me crazy too, but I have to confess that I am a world class exfoliator (I won’t elaborate on my practically loofahing off my nipples once, haha!) so I love that Clarisonic :)  

And thank you so much for your good wishes, it’s been a long six and a half months for me but treatment is over and now I get to work on getting stronger and stronger every day.

Hi, Kermie, I couldn’t agree more about the Clarisonic brush, I definitely see a difference in my skin when I use it, I think it really helps do slough off dead cells on the face and let whatever cream, be it expensive or not, do their work better.  I recently had my old brush break down and was too sick to go out and get a new one for a while (chemo) and now that I finally got the new improved version I’m so happy.  I’m 52, have had oily/combo skin all my life and the added advantage of carrying extra weight (ha! how’s that for rationalization?) so even tho I’m currently bald and chubby at least I have great skin!  :) 

Hi, everyone, I’ve been a little out of the Wowow loop lately but just peeked into this thread for a bit and want to add what I consider to be the definitive argument on this subject:

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/23/jon-stewart-eviscerates-t_n_243383.html

Enough said. 

I second the motion :) 

Dear Joan, sorry I didn’t see your response until now.  Thank you so much for your warm thoughts, I was very glad to hear that our girl was able to get you some help with your back and hope you are feeling better by the minute (isn’t she the best?)

As far as my trip goes I am completely taking your advice, researching away!  I had decided I was going to go to Africa in September because there is a seminar being held by a writer that I love, Martha Beck, at a reserve called Londolozi that’s on the South Africa/Botswana border, the seminar was only five days so of course I wanted to spend more time traveling after.  As it turns out out I won’t be able to make it after all because my treatment will be extended a little longer than I expected.  I am pretty sure she is going to do the seminar next year too and if that’s the case I think that I should shift my focus to New Zealand as my dangling carrot; Africa will be a subsequent celebratory trip, and the second in a long line of them I hope.  And to be honest, any new place I go to, near or far, will be a treat, I’m feeling very much in soak-up-life-like-a- sponge mode lately :)

Go, EKA, go to Cuba soon! (Not that I’m biased just because I was born there, haha!) But there’s something really special about that place, as Joan says, it’s admittedly not the most beautiful island but definitely worth experiencing IMHO.  After going five years ago for the first time since I left at the age of three I was struck by the fact that the word that best sums it up is "bittersweet", I expected to see poverty and need and that part was worse than I had imagined (especially in the small towns across the island that rarely get seen by tourists, everyone typically goes to La Habana and Varadero) but I have to say that the PEOPLE were much more wonderful than I could have ever imagined.  It’s an odd place, people there dance and laugh through their struggle and it’s been so isolated for so long that it just feels authentically weatherbeaten and raw but there’s also an innocence and sweetness to it that I don’t know how long will last after it finally opens up (which of course I think is 50 years overdue…).

 Also, my three choices right now include a trip to Africa and I had selected Botswana and Namibia, so to hear your endorsement, Joan, was perfect :)  New Zealand and Amsterdam. 

My head is swimming with all this, I have so many thoughts and so many feelings that I don’t know where to start.  Please indulge my stream of conciousness rant but this is what the inside of my head has been like since February 19th when I went into an emergency room with what I was sure would be divirticulitis or IBS only to have what looked to be a 12 year old doctor say "how long has been since you’ve had a pelvic ultrasound? we found tumors that look consistent with ovarian cancer and metastisized nodules in your pelvic cavity"  WTF? how long has it been since my last pelvic ultrasound? tumors? ovarian what? I think you can even hear your knees buckle when the word "cancer" is directed at you like a loaded gun and then the bullet hits a few days later when the diagnosis is confirmed.  I had stage 3 ovarian and uterine cancer, I am in the middle of chemo, I am very happy today because my doctor just told me that I will only need a total of four rounds and I’ve already had 2, so wow, I’m 50% done and that rocks.  

But, Martha, I may be too much of a novice at this to know for sure, but I have a sneaky feeling that you will experience a 360 degree range of emotions on a daily basis sometimes, yes, I too have temper tantrums about wanting my old life back, but then I snap out of it and realize that my old life was not all that it was cracked up to be, so even this sucky experience (and believe me, IT SUCKS) holds the possibility of opportunity.  One of the things that first struck me about this experience was the social schism that automatically comes into play, you are now part of a tribe that you weren’t even aware of, I call it the C-Tribe, and we are all just like the rest of you, those of you that have not been branded with that scarlet letter C, except that now you don’t know how to deal with us, don’t know what to say, and I feel like saying relax, we may have been diagnosed with cancer but we are not cancer, and we can’t be defined by our cancer.

I lost my hair three weeks ago, and while I thought I was all good and prepared for it it was more difficult to deal with than I thought, first because the sensation you have is that your body is failing you, like a decay, even though rationally you know it’s the chemicals that have just been pumped through you, but more than anything it’s because now I can’t escape the fact that I was diagnosed with cancer, my baldness is a 24/7 reminder, there used to be times when it would actually slip my mind for about a minute, but not any more.  

And I struggle to deal with the fear, the anger, the denial, the absurdity, even the twisted sort of power I can wield on someone if I pull out the cancer card, and as I realize that my life is forever changed I keep trying to figure out what I am supposed to DO with all of this, because I know there’s something that I am meant to do.  

Thank you all for sharing your stories, I’m just doing the best I can to construct mine, and Martha, I wish you all the strength, stamina, levity, and healing in the world, let yourself feel everything you feel and don’t judge yourself.  A very wise woman once told me (hello, C jay- wink) that it’s BS to blame yourself for not being being able to "think positive" all the time, as if you are sick because you weren’t positive enough. Just let yourself feel the gamut of what you are going to feel, that after all is what life is, and just know and trust that little by little the good feelings begin to get stronger and louder.