Chemo Cut #3 Bring on the Bald

On Monday, April 1, 2013, I decided it would be the best day to shave my head based on the phone call of my nephew from the night before: he had the day off and he called to tell me that he would shave his head off, too.

I had looked to this day for a long time now and wondered how I would feel, how would I want to go about it, did I want many people over or just a few.... I really could not picture it. I wanted to shave it off before the chemo takes it off -- I wanted more control over this situation. According to my oncologist it would fall off between days 10-14 of my first chemo treatment which puts it somewhere this week. When my nephew called it felt like the perfect time to do it. He would also be bringing his fraternity 'twin' (they are in a service oriented fraternity; two people with the same mentor are called twins) who also would be shaving his head with us. His grandmother had breast cancer and she beat this. I loved this!

There is something so youthful about last minute plans. I love the energy my nephew has. He made it such a fun event. Once we got out the clippers and some stools by our kitchen table, he placed his laptop facing us with motivating songs -- and fun goofy songs like 'shave it'. We laughed, we danced, we rolled with it. Each of us took turns shaving off each other's head. Both boys also got Mohawk pix to remember their last locks.

Next month I graduate from the same school both my nephew and I attend. My nephew and I are both students at California State University Northridge. We started 3 years ago -- he as a first time college student in the film department; me as a third career in Speech Language Pathology (SLP) to help my son. SLPs work in many areas including the ones we have such as swallowing disorders (dysphagia), feeding disorders (eg from macroglossia and other structure differences), pragmatics (social interactions), cognition (eg attention, memory, executive planning), sensory integration challenges, articulation, hearing loss. For him, his major brings him into all kinds of areas of the film industry and I've seen him grow in his skills from related jobs across these past three years. It's been a long but meaningful road for the two of us. His call the night before to share a shaving experience with me and with his friend whose grandmother had breast cancer felt like such a perfect plan. The act of solidarity was awesome. The spontaneity of it alone made it feel youthful -- something I hope to always feel deep into my 90's as that lady crossing the finish line of a race.