One year

Tomorrow is my anniversary.

It will be exactly a year since I took my long brunette hair for granted …

A year since I was sent for a routine mammogram … and my life was sent on a detour that would rock my world, and shake those around me pretty thoroughly.  If you are new here, you can check out the backstory here …

I thought it might be fun to look back over those 12 months to see the changes wrought in me.  Via ‘selfies’. Because I really wasn’t much of a ‘selfie girl’ before all this began.*  And since I was diagnosed, well, I seem to have become quite fond of them!

So here we go… this was after I had chopped my hair shorter (to prepare my family for the changes still to come)…

The night before my bilateral mascectomy.

I look a bit stressed here… I guess that was understandable.

I don’t recall feeling stressed though… I just wanted it DONE.

With my darling sister, a couple of days post-op.

In contrast to the last pic, I looked better than I felt here!

Back in BrisVegas for a post-op checkup.  I quite liked this haircut.

You will note that I had started wearing more colours (I am notorious for dressing in black/white/brown).

My first chemo…

See that bag of chemical? See that hair? The former won that particular battle.

Almost exactly two weeks later, my hair started falling out in fistfuls.  I was strangely okay with it – I knew though that I wanted to be in control of that too so…

The clippers came out – an event fully documented here…

Mr Incredible was a bit sad… but I had always wondered what I would look like bald…

I found out!

The Bald Eagle! I actually didn’t really mind it…

I still had some stubble here… it would succumb to the chemo too in the next few weeks.

Everyone still seemed to love me, even with my nude nut!

I added some colour to my wardrobe…

I learned to wear scarves…

And to keep on looking at life with a smile …

Even when I felt like crap! (I was very seedy this day)

I drew on eyebrows that became very very patchy, and dealt with a lack of lashes…

Sunglasses came in very, very handy.

Eyelashes are actually massively effective dust filters – who knew? I did when I no longer had any.

Christmas came…

Was enjoyed (with naps)… and the first signs of my hair returning!

I made the decision to ‘let it be’ and quit battling the grey… or as I like to think of it, frosted silver.

New challenges (like sending our firstborn off to boarding school) were faced…

Anniversaries were celebrated…

Axel the Great Dane watched on with the same bemused expression with which he observes the world in general.

I got used to my ‘new look’ and dressed it up with some earrings when in public!

The chemo may have stopped but the treatment hasn’t.  I am in Rocky every three weeks for more intravenous fun, and sometimes (depending on specialists) I return to Brisbane too.

I have taken to matching my reading glasses (on which I am much more dependant these days) with my colourful shirts. PURPLE in this case!

My body is still quite weary, but so much more ‘normal’ than during chemo.

It’s not hard to smile – I still feel lucky!

I have been known to brave the odd selfie without makeup (but not often!) – this one is from the school bus run recently!

My eyebrows are mostly back, my eyelashes have recovered enough to almost be able to hold some mascara, and my hair is thicker and has much more curl than BC (‘Before Cancer’).

It’s fair to say that I am still learning to cope with it.

Some mornings it’s completely out of control and darned near vertical…

And somedays…

I just visit my friend and hairdresser Melissa to put things back to rights.

Here is the BEFORE-DURING-AFTER series at a glance…

While there are things I miss about my old look, the ‘new me’ is feeling comfortable too.  I love that I am not rushing off to get hair dye slathered on my pesky grey roots every couple of weeks (check out that natural colour on the right – I was up against it trying to keep that dark!).  I quite like the short look, but there are *ahem* some close to me who’d like to see it longer.

We shall see…

Hope you enjoyed my Twelve Months of Follicular Adventure!

😀

*with the exception of this event, because I wanted to prove I was THERE with so many fab peeps.