Hair Today-Gone Tomorrow? and mending that important bridge.
Christine in action at Panache Hair Salon, Kells
I'm sure you have heard that old adage, 'you can pick your friends but you can't pick your family' but more about that in a few minutes, as we have a counter-chemo hair cut to get out of the way first.
When I first started my Chemotherapy approximately 12 weeks ago, one of the first thoughts I had was "I get a blade 1 every two weeks so my imminent hair loss won't really affect me, but different if you are woman". Then, just as that thought left my mind, a reality checked thought came thru, "Crap, every time I look in the mirror, a shiny bald head looking back at me will be a stark and indeed sobering reminder of what's currently happening".
As my chemotherapy progressed, as it currently is, and with Saint Jakki (my pet name for the senior staff nurse in Oncology in the Bons Secour) telling me that "Aidan, you're getting a fair blast of it" always sticking in my mind, never in my toxin soaked thoughts did I ever think that I would be getting a haircut at this particular juncture.
It's near impossible to see from the above photo (as my hair looks non-existent), but the reality is, that my hair existence has probably reduced in density by 30% but it in actuality still grew. On balance to that, my eyebrows remain on normal density but also grew and did so faster. Going forward, will my hair growth continue in this vein ? (Had to get that pun in there-sorry) or will I wake up some morning where sucking a lolly pop with dark dark glass's won't look out of place ? Hence my 'Hair Today-Gone Tomorrow" header on this blog. A big thank you to my sister in-law Delores, who invited me down to her salon 'Panache' in Kells for my first hauircut of 2017 and to Christine for manning the blade 1 rasor. Thanks so much ladies. So much appreciated.
--------------------------------------------------------------
I will hold my hand up here and tell you all that I fell out with a close family relation about two years ago. The juicy bit that people would love to catch is the: Why, What, Where?? Hmm, well that's a road you won't drag me down here folks, apologies for that but hanging my dirty laundary out on a blog that has captured over 63,000+ page views and is still climbing is not my style and to be fair, you wouldn't want it to be. Indeed, doing so is only semantics, which won't concern us too much here.
Getting back to mending this bridge, over the past ten days or so, it was going thru my mind to visit this person and offer back, re-kindle, call it what you want but I'll settle on the hand of friendship. I knew what happened between us, which caused the split had gone on for far two long. Not that I was trying to prove a point by not speaking with this person for so long, but the week by week, month per month time frame did not justify the means.
It was after my scan results encounter in the hospital two weeks, where and when I felt the presence and direct love from St. Pio to me, did my mind to continue to re-focus on offering my friendship back to this individual. Over the past few days, my thoughts would work to try and keep this separation going but then my mind would have a 'changing of the guard' if you like. What would happen next in Murf's mind is, all the positives (of rekindling) this friendship would run a report highlighting the 'can do' and 'best thing' thru my brain. The 'can do' would always win the race, the latter is a real 'me' thing. On an extension to this, my employer (PayPal) do harvest and display one very simple line of advise and when you read it again, you can capture the simplicity of it, but think again about it and it's one very powerful (if simplistic) sentence: "Do the right thing".
For the first part of yesterday, as I thought more about this and making the first move on offering an olive branch to this individual, the more emotional I would become. My mind appeard to be linking my emotional response of St. Pio's outreach to me recently to a very simple mindfulness of 'doing the right thing' today with a strong and loyal family member. By 5pm yesterday I was well on my way to 'doing the right thing'. I pulled into a neighbouring shopping centre with the intention of picking up a nice box of chocolates. Ironically, on my way in, I bumped into my accountant and friend 'Martina Eiffe'. We had a quick but beautiful two minute chat, what were the chances of that happening? I had a nice smile on my face after that brief but welcome encounter, as a consequence to this, my choice of which box of chocolates that I had initially set my minds eye on were wiped aside. Enter the largest box of Milktray I could find, and did. We were sorted.
Within 5 minutes I was at this persons front door. I kept saying to myself, "this person is in their 80's so Aidan, hold your composure". As the door was answered, I just put both my hands up in the air to reach out and give this individual a giant hug, I love giving free giant hugs. What happened next is probably what can then best be described as my tears being pushed out from my eyes. "Just go with the flow Aidan" I thought to myself, (sorry about that pun). It took the best part of 10-15mins for both of our emotive minds to chill-lax, settle down and we did. The next bit probably sounds weird, but the feelings I was getting as we caught up on the past was like I had just gone to confession. That description, now that I have just written it and read it back again, and again, just sounds so perfect.
An hour and a half just rocketed by like 15mins. In my heart of hearts I knew, just knew I had done the right thing. As I went to bed last night (I'm writing this at 5:45am) I felt happy, happy in my mind but more than that, happy in my gut too, you know, that deeper happiness. I slept really well last night, if you leave out my 5:45am wake up.
If I went to enquire? I'm sure the other party slept just fine too.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks as always for reading my blog.
I hope in small way, you took something of use from it.
Comments
Post a Comment