Regaining Control

I don't know if anyone is still reading this...I guess most of the journey has sort of levelled out now that I'm 3 1/2 years out. The 3 year anniversary of the end of Chemo passed me by without a thought as did the 2 year anniversary of the end of Herceptin. I still have a moment of panic whenever I feel any sort of twinge or bit of pain in either breast, but I figure that with the many appointments I still have, if something was funky, someone would notice. The mammogram would catch it...or the blood work...or the doctor. In Therapy, we've barely touched on my self-image issues. We've mostly been focusing on my job and organization issues which are discussed in a not-yet-shared blog. We briefly chatted about the self-image and dating issues a couple of sessions ago, but a lot of the issue revolves around my hair. I think that the stress that I currently have isn't helping matters any but my hair isn't what it was before the chemo. I think I'm one of the 'unlucky' ones whose hair came back thinner than before. I tried to keep it long, but it's not making me happy. So, after the session where we talked about it, I heard, on Facebook, about a stylist in Jamaica Plain who was apparently great with curly hair...so I made an appointment. It isn't until the end of the month, but at this point, I'm so fed up with feeling this way that I just want to do SOMETHING. Maybe I'm hoping that the haircut will be all it takes to make me feel better about myself. Maybe I'm putting too much power of my self-image in my hair. That could also be a problem because what if I don't feel better about things? The plan is to go in, prepared with pictures of shorter cuts, and say 'Do what you need to do to make it look nice. If you cut it short, please leave enough for curl.' What happens will happen. But, in 2 1/2 years, my hair hasn't grown much past my shoulders and that makes me sad. But the reason for the title is this: I went in for my checkup in March and was talking to one of the Oncology nurses there and it came up that I wasn't happy with my hair and that I was considering cutting it short again. The nurse looked at me and said, and I'm paraphrasing, 'When you lost your hair before, it wasn't something you can control. But when you cut your hair now, it's all in your control.' I feel like so little is within my control right now, that it's one thing I can grasp on to. I'm actually kind of looking forward to it. My hair will be short-er, definitely. Whether it will be short is uncertain, but I am going to go in there, tell the stylist what is going on, and leave it in her hopefully trustworthy hands. I've even contacted a headshot photographer in case I need to get new headshots. The trek is annoying, but it's not going into NYC and I get two digital files with the very affordable cost...and his work was nice. We'll see. Maybe that's all it will take for me to start feeling better about myself...although I think having a new job that actually wants me there and utilizes my skills other than my ability to open mail and my awareness of the alphabet would also help a great deal. But I'm trying to regain control.