Cancer modesty

I was going to title this post 'modesty' but many of you would just snort and think to yourselves, 'That Sue, she may be many things but modest isn't one of them". Yeah, I'm working on that. Nor in general have I been in the past too modest about my body, whatever shape it has been in much to my children's embarrassment. Forty pounds ago, I would run in the heat with just a running bra on top. I don't hide behind curtains in locker rooms and annoyed somewhat by people who do as they hogged up valuble shower stall space. Every day for the past week, I've let strangers, up to 3 a day, peer at and touch my misshapen breast-half of them men, in the rad room and I don't bat an eye. But where I draw the line, is my bald head. Noone is going to see it.

Yesterday at my LiveStrong program, a classmate told me I really should consider going natural as she did at one point. I said I will never be ready to do that. She wondered if I had a misshaped head. No I don't think so-I have baby pix of me with only a few mm of hair and my head shape looked fine. I was the only one to show up to class with a wig. It was very hot trying to exercise with it on so now I am using my pink fuzzy hat. From a distance, it looks like a hot pink fuzzy afro and some people thought it was my real hair. Steve wanted to take a picture of my head for some reason so I could remember this experience. I didn't take pictures of the childbirth damages to certain body parts even though they were quite impressive. Hopefully this baldness will soon pass. Marilyn who is 10 days ahead of me in treatment finally saw some stubble this weekend and new eyelashes. Her remaining eyebrow hairs sadly fell out at the same time. Not that I will have hair the same time as she did but there's hope that next week I can have my own layer of fuzz. Her fingers still are numb giving her problems trying to sew.

As for cross cultural modesty, about ten years ago I attended an international chemistry conference in Bozeman, MT. The international chemists were mainly Eastern European. For a social event, we took a white water raft trip up the Yellowstone River (it flows north, which seemed strange to me)together. We were advised to bring a second set of clothes as we would get wet. The Americans huddled behind makeshift tents of towels in their bus seats trying to change clothes without exposing their bodies. Not the Europeans-they stripped down outside in full view of everyone. Quite the contrast!

We mainly did weights yesterday in the LiveStrong class. Despite the neglect of my muscles, I did well. Still can't stand on one foot for more than a few seconds though.