Comments on the Stages of Re-growing Hair

About a month and a half ago I was in Publix picking up some snack foods for a movie/study session with some classmates. I had forgotten to bring a hat with me, as it was a warm day and I was feeling quite comfortable and didn't think of it. I was standing in the produce section trying to decide between the big bag of carrots and the small bag of carrots when a woman comes up next to me and seems to be similarly contemplating the carrot situation. Suddenly she said, "So did you do it on a dare," and I thought that she must be on the phone with someone... but then she finished her sentence: "or did you just shave it because you felt like it."
Of course at this point I knew that she was talking to me, but I delayed the looking up response by about five seconds because I was uncertain of how to respond. She picked up a bag of carrots and was looking at me when I finally ded look up. I said, "Uh, no... I have cancer and it fell out because of the treatment. It's just starting to grow back."
The woman's face went kind of blank and then quickly regained composure and she began explaining to me that she was asking because her daughter is in the habit of shaving her head randomly as well as coloring her hair blue, purple and pink.
At the time my hair didn't exactly look like it was buzzed; it looked more like it had fallen out and was just starting to debate whether or not it should come back; it was fuzzy, sparse and very, very soft. Really, it looked like more like the fuzz on a rabbit's rump and less like human hair. But I wasn't angry; the woman just seemed to be looking at me from a specific angle that she was familiar with and I wasn't. So I talked to her. We laughed and joked for about 15 minutes and when we departed I hoped that our interaction wasn't one of those incidents that she would look back on in ten years and think, "I can't believe I did that... I'm a terrible person." (Or anything of the sort)


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Recently my hair has started to look more like hair and less like ducklings. I have even discovered that I have a white patch growing in the very front and center of my hair line. I'm hoping that the old age has been concentrated specifically to this area rather than being evenly distributed all around my head, that way I can look cool like Rouge from X-Men rather then like old from Life.

Unfortunately this also makes me look like "rebellious" from "the youth," which is very much frowned upon here in good old Homosassa Florida, where they prefer "inbred" from "the rednecks" over anything representing "not conservative" (which included McCain until he became the Republican presidential candidate).

Anyway, my new hair growth includes most follicles, but not all of them yet, because the chemotherapy is still attacking my being. Because not all of my hair has chosen to come back at this time, I have chosen not to let it grow to any significant length because I prefer not to look like an under-nourished animal.
This apparently has the effect of making me look like a rebellious teenager and therefore gives people the right to stare at me without inhibition and give me disapproving looks.

Today I did not bring a hat with me when I went to Publix and I got lots of these stares and looks, starting in the parking lot and mostly from senior citizens, especially of the female variety. When I had picked out a package of chicken breasts and was walking away from the poultry bin, an older, male Publix employee said to me, "I like your hair cut."
I couldn't help but laugh because it just seemed so random and struck me as funny. I could tell from the confused look on the man's face that this was an inappropriate response, so I tried to wrestle my laughter into submission while spewing out a surprisingly coherent "thank you."

People that I am close to told me while I was bald that I "pull the look of well," (I like to believe that they weren't referring to the cancer look in general) and my mom has told me many times that I look really good with super short hair.
I have heard "It's just like _______ (choose: Sinead O'Connor, J.I. Jane, Natalie Portman)" repeatedly from lots of people and my dad, brother and most of my brother's friends have shaved their heads in tribute. I was simply happy that my head is a good shape and that my ears aren't large.

I like not having much hair and now that I'm mostly used to it I find that when I look at pictures where I have long hair, I am surprised at how strange I look. At some point in the not too distant future the poison will finally drain completely out of me and hair will spill forth from my unpolluted scalp and redecorate this head of mine. I will then be faced with something that was more or less taken away from me on October 5th, 2007 when the surgeon found that the cancer had spread into the lymph nodes, thus making chemotherapy an important part of killing Bob: a choice regarding the aesthetics of my body. Sure, I could have chosen to leave the lump there and remain unscarred, and I did, after all, choose not to have my breast taken off all together, but those were forced choices that I wouldn't have made had I been cancer free, so I don't really count those.

Regarding my new hair, though, I have all kinds of choice, more now than I did pre-cancer, because it is entirely likely that I never would have chosen to cut my hair so short, never mind buzz it, were it not going to fall out in the first place. I used to be in the habit of growing it very long and then putting it in a ponytail and having it cut about chin length and donated to Locks of Love. Now, however, I'm considering keeping it very short... at least for a while.

But those looks, those unapologetic stares and presumptuous opinions you can see forming behind their eyes. I often avoid looking at people these days because sometimes I just don't want to deal with it. Before, when I was bald and my eyelashes and eyebrows were mostly gone and I was pale and sickly and just generally looked like a cancer patient, the looks were different. There were kind eyes and apologetic smiles (for staring, I think) and there was no nastiness. As soon as it started kind of coming back, though, the looks started to change. Slowly at first, and I thought that perhaps it was in my imagination, that I was subconsciously afraid of what people thought (which is not a normal habit of mine). But then people started randomly saying stuff, usually at a Publix store (but never at the same one), and old ladies started giving me bluntly mean looks and people started staring unabashedly and with a tinge of disgust, like I've done something that has torn the moral fiber of our great nation and deserve to be punished by means of rude behavior from the morally superior.

On the other hand, on the days that I feel good and am most similar to my "normal" self, these stares and looks not only lack the effect of making me feel like I need to justify my hair, but they make me want to keep my hair varying lengths of short, sometimes longish to show off the white, with the express intention of making people gawk openly and make comments. Perhaps I'll start wearing t-shirts that say stuff like, "Young people get breast cancer too. Stop staring and tell your granddaughter to check herself," perhaps with "you morally superior bitch" in very small print at the end of the sentence.

In any case, it is interesting to be me, and I must admit that I very much enjoy it. And the oddities and downsides? Well, they just serve to make it more interesting. After all, variety is the spice of life, right?