Welcome back hair

Welcome back to the hair that I never imagined in a million years would ever leave my head.. unless I did it voluntarily, which is definitely not what happened! I knew cancer was going to take away my hair but I wasn't prepared for it to happen so quickly. But at least I can it is a gradual and graceful process. I imagined rough patches falling out in big clumps from my head but that is far from what  actually happened. 

Battling hair growth

I sat on my hospital bed (not even discharged since my cancer diagnosis) and I could feel my hair becoming loose at the top of my head. As soon as I felt that loose feeling and started to find little strands of my hair (which lead to clumps) leaving a trail behind my every move, my thoughts quickly turned to question mode. When will it grow back? How long will it take me to grow it to this length again? Will the colour be the same? Will it be as thick? Will it grow back curly? straight? frizzy? .. The worst thought of them all is, will it ever grow back? It might seem like a stupid thought, but it is likely to cross most cancer patients mind at some point. It certainly crossed mine, numerous times. "It may not grow back in rare circumstances" I read online - bad move. Rare circumstances? I was one of those already as it is considered rare to be diagnosis with cancer as a child, teenager or young adult. But there's nothing like thinking negatively is there.

A big realisation

Battling cancer and my friendships

In reality, cancer did two things to my friendships; strengthen the bond or caused the friendships to sadly deteriorate.

From my personal experience, cancer affected my friendships in both ways. I bonded more strongly with the friends that stuck by my side… and I lost the friends that turned a blind eye to my suffering. You would think an illness as severe as cancer would instantly strengthen the friendships I had prior to my diagnosis, but for some of my friends, it pushed them away from me. To this day, I have never had any explanations as to why the friends I once had stopped speaking to me. It didn’t take long for me to put two and two together, once I was diagnosed, the texts and calls started to stop and the visits were non existent. Maybe they didn’t know how to deal with my diagnosis? But if the tables were turned, I would have never left them in their darkest days. I didn’t even have time to be sad, angry or stress about the loss of these friendships, I had more important things to focus on at the time, like beating cancer. But that was only the beginning of my lost friendships; some friends were there in the beginning, and then slowly disappeared. This hurt me the most. I understand that it was an important year at sixth form /college for everyone. Studying hard and working was they personal priorities, but all I needed was a little text or a phone call to know that they were still there. But I wont let these deteriorated friendships consume me.

Hello September

It may be four days into the month.. But hello September. This month should bring lots of new beginnings for people; whether starting a new school, university or job. Personally for me, this month brings a lot of happiness as I celebrate my mums birthday & start planning for my future away from cancer.

 Every month will bring a cancer patient one step closer to their end of treatment, allowing them to stay positive about welcoming a new month. So I welcome September with big open arms, as should everyone else.