Yay for exfoliating bark!
I'm glad something's going right with it. It doesn't seem to want to bloom for me. Last year I thought it wouldn't bloom at all, and it finally coughed out two panicles in August. This year, I don't even think it has a sniffle.
I have bloom envy! All I get is sparse flowering and everyone else's tree is loaded with blooms. I guess that's what a balding man feels like.
Speaking of bald...
I started losing my hair once. It was not too long after I moved down to North Carolina.
It was making me really sad and self-conscious. It was all thin around my temples, and on the top...
Luckily my hair was short-ish at the time, so I could cover it up better than if it was long.
No, not with a comb-over!
Sillies.
Coincidentally...this was around the same time that Chuck was going through intense rounds of chemo. He had to go 4 times, once every 3 weeks or so. They'd hook him up for 5 hours at a time.
Each time he'd feel all right that day (and snarf down dinner at the Kentucky Fried Chicken near the hospital), then wake up in the morning in terrible pain (which was not the fault of the KFC). He didn't start feeling nauseous until near the last chemo treatment, but his joint pain was colossal throughout the whole thing.
I'd never seen someone in so much pain before dealing with this cancer shit. It was horrible. And I couldn't do anything for him. The person I loved more than anything. Look up 'helpless' in the dictionary. It grew me up in a hurry.
After 3 or so days of his joints feeling like ground glass, Chuck would start to feel a bit better. After a week or two, he'd feel almost normal again. Then it would begin all over again with the next treatment.
His hair started falling out a couple of weeks after the first treatment. I shaved his head in the garage when we knew that it was time to do so. That was surreal, let me tell you.
Chuck had pretty long hair when he went into all this. I think the chemo nurses were a little sad to see it go. I told ya, Chuck's a charmer! :)
We took this after he got his staples out, before his hair started going.
And this was taken a few minutes after I shaved his head. His younger daughter was over for a visit, and I think she was really freaked out. I was freaked out.
Now, I have a lot of common sense. It's one of the things I take pride in. Why would I not put two and two together in why I was losing my own hair?
During Chuck's chemo treatments.
Oncologist never warned us. Guess she underestimated his level of friskiness. He was a 44-year-old man who'd just had his lung removed a month earlier, undergoing intense chemo whilst worrying about whether he was going to live or not.
Chuckles was also a sexually healthy 44-year-old man who hadn't been with his [*cough*gorgeous*cough*] 24-year-old Canadian girlfriend in 3 months. And then had his lung out, like I said....so add on another month.
Hey, even I underestimated his level of friskiness.
Interesting, huh? You can 'catch' chemo. Which makes sense, because after all, chemo is poison and doesn't discriminate.
Here's my public service announcement for the year:
Sex with a chemo patient will cause hair loss. Use protection. Oh, and don't smoke. You'll lose a lung.
Did I really start this conversation off with crepe myrtles?
Wow.
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17 comments:
Stop it ... I was laughing so hard at the end, I could hardly type!!!! Crepe myrtles to public service announcements about 'friskiness'!!! Only you!
It's amazing just how poisonous chemo treatment is ... I had some trouble as a result of cleaning up my poor ole Dad's messes with his colostomy bags during his chemo treatments ... don't want to go there!!!!!!
Anyhoo ... I can understand Chuck's daughter would have been a freaked out! But I was more freaked with having to gaze upon Michael Bolton once more in my short lifetime ... don't get it, never did!!!
Back to the Crepe myrtle ... maybe next year!!!!!!
Chemo is a bastard. Watching someone you love going through intense pain and being unable to do anything about it is also a bastard.
To add to your public service announcement - never underestimate a man's friskiness.
I had to sit for a minute after finishing reading this, kind of gobsmacked, trying to get my head around the whole concept of 'catching' chemo. Who knew? And how freaking bizarre!!
Meanwhile, go Chuck!! You rock!
You live and learn.
Glad the crepe myrtle and Chuck are both doing well.
He's been in remission a few years now?
That is fantastic.
The way your mind works ... reading your posts is always such a compelling journey!!
(I agree w/ Bernie -- Michael Bolton... yikes; ...we actually have had an ongoing family debate as to whether his hair style is a "mullet" or just a balding man in denial?! What's your vote?!?) :D
Bernie: Glad I could make you laugh, I like to turn serious things into something funny. They don't hurt as much if they're funny :O)
I'm sorry you had to go through all that with your dad. I thought my dad would get cancer, if not of his liver than definitely of his lungs. He was a smoker and a drinker.
But his bad eating habits got him first, he died of a heart attack in 2002. It was pretty sudden. I try and take it to heart and make myself healthier, so good things come out of bad things. That's the way it is, even if we don't see it that way at the time.
Bub: Ha! I should be skinny for all the running I do from Chuck chasing me around. Ok...jogging. I kind of want to be caught.
Crazy Lady: I know! I still think about it, how weird that was. After a few months my hair was growing in though, sure enough.
Al: He had the surgery and the chemo in early to mid 2006. So 4 1/2 years I guess. He still takes every opportunity he can to make himself his own public service announcement. Just last night we were over at a friend's house with a bunch of people, and someone who had never met Chuck was there.
The dude lit up a cigarette, and Chuck lifted up his shirt. All of the rest of us were like, 'Here we go!'
The guy's eyes get all wide (he's a Marine, btw) and asks, 'Cancer?'
Chuck goes, 'No, shrapnel.'
LOL! The guy was totally fooled until Chuck started laughing and was like, 'Yeah, cancer!'
That's my man. Not only a charmer, also the biggest bullshitter around :P
Shyrlene: Totally 'balding man in denial'. I used to laugh, but since I had my own balding experience? Now I only slightly giggle. Because that could be me someday :P I totally wouldn't let Chuck shave my head though. I'd go get it done at the salon, and get a manicure and a massage thrown in. ;)
Exfoliating Bark, Crepe Myrtles and Sex = Good
Cancer = Bad
That's 3 to 1 in my book.
GOOD WINS!
I remember when I was in hospital once, hooked up to an ECG thing. When my then girlfriend visited, our entertainment was to see how high we could get that thing going without the nurses throwing her out.
Never underestimate the potential friskiness of a male of the species, even under adverse conditions. Indeed, research has shown that adverse conditions increase the friskiness ratio. As does having a female around the place.
Melissa: That's definitely the gardener's ideal Menage a Trois! lol
IG: I don't underestimate anymore. Chuck's a year and a half away from 50, and I keep expecting the frisky (yes I could just be a grown up and say horny, but frisky is funny) to decline.
Nope. Viagra, shmiagra. I'm glad, because I hear those bastards are expensive!
Do you think as many men would buy those pills if it was called Shmiagra?
Yeah. Yeah, they probably would. Because the primary reason men evolved legs was as a mode of transport for their penises. That's also the reason why the wheel was invented.
Never mind.
Stress would also have lead to hair loss on your part. I'm sure what you both went through wasn't easy on the nerves!
I don't know how you do it, bloom envy, to frisky kitties on a string, but somehow you pull it off! :P I was told for weeks that chemo was coming, thankfully though, I managed to dodge that bullet. For everything I had thought about though, I hadn't really thought about the 'contagious' part of chemo, but it makes perfect sense. Glad Chuck has all that put behind him now though. Cancer seriously sucks big-hairy-mooseballs.
this is probably one of the most inappropriately funny things I have ever read.
chemo cum.
Laura: I thought it might have been stress. But if it was stress, my hair would have been falling out a few months before that. My stress was the worst when I was still in Canada, and Chuck was going for tests here to find out what was up. Horrible. At least when I was here I could see him and be with him, no matter what was going on. I had a hard time even going to work.
Clare: Cancer does suck big hairy mooseballs! We should make a t-shirt with that on it ;)
Prairie: Me and inappropriate go together like peas and carrots.
'Cept I don't like peas :P
Laura: I thought it might have been stress. But if it was stress, my hair would have been falling out a few months before that. My stress was the worst when I was still in Canada, and Chuck was going for tests here to find out what was up. Horrible. At least when I was here I could see him and be with him, no matter what was going on. I had a hard time even going to work.
Clare: Cancer does suck big hairy mooseballs! We should make a t-shirt with that on it ;)
Prairie: Me and inappropriate go together like peas and carrots.
'Cept I don't like peas :P
I was going to comment on my exfoliating crepe myrtles, but really! What happened when his hair grew back? A friend of mine had straight red hair, but after chemo it grew back dark and curly!
When it first started growing in, it looked kind of black and grey, like a salt and pepper look. His facial hair was growing in black patches, which was weird. Then it changed and turned back to his original colour, but was super curly. Chuck was freaked out because he said it made him look exactly like his mom lol. After a year or so, it straightened out a bit, and now it looks like it used to. :)
From Crepe Myrtles to sex, what a transition. I can really relate too. Two weeks after having a triple bypass, my dear hubby can hardly move, but then the mood hit, and, well.....
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