My Watched Pot

     As the old saying goes, "A watched pot never boils."  My mom used to say those words to me in an effort to teach me patience.  Ugh.  I never pray for patience.  You know why.  I never have been good at waiting.  Now, I'm not one of those people who demands her way all the time, but when it comes to waiting for a process to fulfill itself, I'm not good at that.
     On June 30th, when I took my last chemo, I began to look forward to having hair again.  Not that it's bothered me to be bald, it really hasn't.  Wearing that itchy wig was annoying, but I did that for the kids.  Over the summer I had my cute ball caps to wear, and honestly, it's been nice not having to worry if I would have a cute curly day or a frizzy what-will-I-do-with-this-mess day. Until the hair started to grow.
     I have had a silver sheen for a couple of weeks now.  Peach-fuzz covering the baldness, sort of.  My eyebrows and eyelashes are coming back.  There is hair on my arms, and I am now shaving my legs again.  Yippee.  But the hair on my head is not so quick to return.
     I saw a lady at the radiation center on the first day I was there.  She had some hair.  I say some in a generous way.  She wasn't bald, but she didn't have a head-full of hair either.  She was a mixture of peach-fuzz, short hair, and random straggly longer hair.  I imagine myself looking like that soon. 
     And I imagine myself looking like the lady I saw getting in her car last week.  She has a beautiful short hairdo.  Very short.  It is "real hair" as opposed to "chemo hair," and she must have had it styled based on the first lady's spastic look.  She looked so cute.  If she hadn't been in her car already, I think I would have asked her how long it took to get that beautiful look. 
     I don't want you to feel sorry for me or think I am feeling bad about the way I look.  I do not have a low self image due to the cancer.  That's not the case.  I just hate to wait!  Watching hair grow is like waiting for the tea kettle on the coldest winter day...how long CAN it possibly take to get a hot cup of tea or a beautiful head-full of hair?
     In the meantime, I continue to get my radiation treatments and take care of myself as I recover from this cancer experience.  The question remains, will my hair be gray or brown?  Salt and pepper wouldn't be bad.  I do hope I don't get the brown with big patches of gray back, but even that would be ok.  Will there be curls?  I hope so!  
     For those of you who haven't seen my new look, the hair around the sides never really came out and it is a beautiful white color.  The top of my head was pretty slick.  Basically, I look a lot like my husband.  I suppose that explains my impatience.  Come on hair, grow!