Saturday evening Mommy and I went to Anita's salon. When the stylist realized that Mommy's hair had been falling out for a few days, she asked the owner (Mark) to come talk to my mom about her options. My mom thought that she'd have a couple more weeks to deal with her hair before it fell out completely. Unfortunately, Mark explained, she probably wouldn't make it one more week without losing all her hair. The people at Anita's certainly didn't force her to cut all her hair off, but did recommend it so she wouldn't have to deal with clumps of it falling out at home.
So...she agreed to have Mark shave her head down to about 1/8th of an inch. She winced while he did it, which made me feel sad for her. After she put her glasses back on and surveyed her head she just rolled her eyes, chuckled a little, and asked me to pick out some hats for her to wear. We picked a cute pink night cap, a plain brown beanie, a nice light blue scarf/cap thing, and a pretty pink floral cap. After a long head massage/shampooing (with shampoo specially made for chemo patients) she bravely pulled on her cap and we headed up to the register.
She didn't want me to tell my dad or Dave about her bald head--she wanted to walk into the house and see how long it would take for them to notice! Haha! We ended up meeting them at Emil Villa's (where else?) in the parking lot. They both did a double-take when they saw her and then smiled. Like she said "it is only hair and it will grow back."
The rest of my weekend was full of cooking meals, eating, washing dishes, doing laundry, changing bedsheets and bathroom towels, and generally tending to my mom's needs. It is a lot of work being the "woman of the house" for two households! But I'm glad to do it. I admit, though, that I couldn't stand doing all this without having Dave with me each weekend. The first weekend I went to Livermore to see my mom Dave had to work. I was so stressed out and depressed after that weekend. Since then my stress level has lightened greatly (despite all the other crap that has come up--like the sudden disappearance of my school funding) and I'm feeling much more upbeat. Every weekend gets a little easier but I know it wouldn't be as nice without Dave. Just knowing he's around makes all the difference. Plus he's a HUGE help to my dad with all the cleaning...and my mom absolutely loves having him around. But who wouldn't? =o) (I love you, my baby.)
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