Hair lip

Several years ago, when my brother's boys were little, I was reading them a story as they sat at my feet. One of them stared cherubically up at my face, rapt by the tale -- or so I thought, until he wrinkled his nose and asked, "How come you've got fur on your lip?"

Well, the fur is returning, along with all my other body hair, slowly but surely. I've even had to dig out and dust off the tweezers. It's not all returning evenly, but rather in long, patchy strands. So far, I've got eyebrows where I don't like them but not where I do like them -- I'm still using the eyebrow liner. To my horror, I now have "fur" on my lower lip, in addition to the upper. Meanwhile, the hair on my head seems to be coming in much greyer than it was before. It's still very short, but at least it's covering my scalp.

I have two more radiation treatments to go and then I'm DONE. My skin has reacted much better than it did five years ago, but I'm still doing the saline compresses several times a day; I think they're helping keep the itch and burn to a dull roar. Today I had the technicians show me the complex diagram that illustrates what parts of me are being radiated, and I was surprised to find that they are doing my upper back -- the machine circles around and shoots me from under the table somehow. I panicked for a second because my orthopedic doctor said he wouldn't be able to fuse my spine if it were radiated, but the technician assured me that the beams are avoiding my spine. How that's possible, I don't understand. But now I know why my back feels so itchy.

I've been quite active recently, and walking is pretty easy, though the burning in my upper back is sometimes a bit much. And from time to time, I feel like I'm overdoing it and need to lie down for a while. I'm sleeping quite a lot.

Here's a photo of what I looked like getting radiated five years ago:



Pollyanna moments:

• Wonderful to see some friends from abroad: Joan from Australia and Neil from Vancouver and Manila.
• Took my 12-year-old nephew to the Art Gallery of Ontario; I hadn't been there since the renovation. I was heartbroken at what they've done to Walker Court -- a mishmash of styles -- but liked the wooden gallery overlooking Dundas Street. My nephew loved the chairs.
  
• Enjoyed the Taste of South Asia festival last weekend, which was handily less than a block away from my house, of course. Sugarcane juice looks like murky green swamp water but it's very tasty.
  
• Went to see District 9 -- great movie.