The Bald and the Beautiful

Chemo hair, a few days after the last pics:

(I'm pleased to see that I have retained some white "wings" but the hairband-plus-combover-in-back seems for home and perhaps bellydance practice--it is far too noticeable now).  I am going to have to get good at headscarves and headwraps--thank god I have Siwa and Dunia to help me out, and a host of other bellydancers!!

 Meanwhile, my actual physical self (apart from the chemo side effects) feels great.  I have no more pain anywhere in my body, and what stiffness I do have will be allieviated, I am sure, by weaving-back into dance starting next week.  Next week I start back at the Serpent's Kiss and with my troupe (my ATS group is on sabbatical for a year), and then hopefully Haitian dance as soon as I get used to dance again.  I need to also find a yoga class.  Dance is the one thing that keeps me hooked into life, and I so want this life.  And of course, singing does this too.

I have realized over the course of (now) 21 years with lupus that no one can do this healing for me.  I realize my body has been tested to its absolute limits in the last five or six years.  And still it strives to come back and to be well.  There's a part of me that thinks affirmations and crystals and such are silly, but another part--the less cynical part--really likes them, even if only for the sense of doing something positive for myself.  Plus, people who say they are praying for me, or saying affirmations, etc, help me to feel less alone.  This is the alone-est I have ever felt, even though ninety percent of the time, I have my little family around me, but love makes all things bearable--an old story, but a true one.  I never knew I mattered to so many people.  I never knew I mattered to myself, either.

Thank you for visiting Planet Joanie today, dear readers.