Once I was diagnosed, I didn't allow myself to think too far ahead into my illness. I have two very close friends who have gone through this ordeal within the past 5 years. I spent a lot of time with them as they were making decisions on their courses of action and as they were recovering from their treatments. Kathy and Susan had different types of breast cancer so their treatments were quite different from each others'. Initially, I knew not to expect anything specific. It was such a relief to be able to have my lump removed for my surgery (which requires radiation,) and I was told I might not have to have chemo. I prayed and had everybody I know praying for no chemo - nothing scares me more! Heck, people I know that don't even pray were praying for no chemo for me. Alas, my test last week came back that I was "High Risk" - without chemo, my odds were 1 in 4 that my cancer would come back.

Will I lose my hair? The doc says yes. So I've had to start thinking about a bald Kaedy - how do I want to handle this? Kathy wore beautiful scarves and cute hats - no wig. Her husband Craig even shaved his head and they superimposed colorful Easter egg colors on their bald heads for a "Happy Easter" e-mail photo! I have a good sense of humor, but I don't know about the bald head thing. Since my chemo starts tomorrow, I've decided to go check out wigs today with Susan - I want to be prepared, even though they say it'll take around 3 weeks for my hair to start falling out. People are funny about their hair - we complain that it never does what we want it to, that it's too curly or too straight, too gray. But once you think about losing it completely, you wig out (pun intended!) Well, if my dear dad were here he'd remind me that it's only temporary and to think of people that deal with things like this every day of their lives, so I'll remember that and thank my lucky stars.