Photo finish

Last November I blogged about what my mom wore to chemotherapy when she had breast cancer a couple years ago. I decided that when I went for my own treatment, rather than dress strictly for comfort alone, I would also try to put together and wear outfits that made me feel good about the way I looked, sort of as an act of empowerment. I also planned to take pix throughout.

But I didn’t take pictures.

Mind you, I actually did manage to dress pretty cute for every single infusion. In fact, chemo-day was practically the only time I donned real clothes, the only time I wore my wig or tried to put on any make-up. Most of the rest of the time I spent in baggy sweats, bald, no make-up, laying around and trying not to completely cave in.

On chemo-days, though, I made the monumental effort to look better, and it did make me feel stronger. But whenever I would catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror I was downright unrecognizable, though to someone who didn’t already know me, well, they might never have guessed I was in the midst of cancer treatment. Dear Michael used to lovingly joke I had better start looking worse otherwise people wouldn’t believe I was sick.

But all the same, I never felt like posting a picture.

I had wanted to take photographs during treatment as a sort of visual record of the experience, something tangible to illustrate the evolution I’d inevitably be going thru. See, when I was obese I never had any pictures taken. For almost ten years of my life there’s scarcely any evidence of me existing. I’m not there in the holiday photos…barely any wedding pix, certainly no candid vacation albums. So many memories are just in my head without anything to show or share. I virtually edited myself right out of my own life. And once I lost the weight I realized what a shame that was, such a waste…how sad. I vowed I would never do that again.

But when reality hit and the chemo side-effects took their inevitable toll the thought of seeing all that laid out in living color, let alone plastered in the blogosphere, became much too painful -- I completely changed my mind. In light of what was going on it just didn’t seem important. Frankly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to memorialize any of that in pictures for posterity.

After treatment ended and the summer months wore on I still didn't want any photos, for here or anywhere else. Understandable, I’d been thru a lot…but…would I ever? I secretly mourned the possibility that I might not. That would feel like yet another loss to cancer amongst so many others.

But then, very slowly, I started to feel a little better, and subsequently my appearance in the mirror reflected that back to me. Amazingly even as the whole pulmonary nodule episode unfolded and wracked me with fear to my core…despite even that, bit by bit I started to vaguely recognize myself.

Day by day I look more and more like me – and I’ve decided whether it looks like the same me as before is totally beside the point at the moment. What really matters is I am alive…I’m living my life and getting well again.