Best-laid Plans

Zach thinks my hair is starting to grow back.

If it is, I can't tell.

It wouldn't make sense for it to grow back now, after four treatments. If anything, the stuff that hasn't already fallen out should start to go. It's like stripping layers of varnish off an old piece of furniture—with each application of the chemical, more and more of the varnish comes off. (I realize I am the old piece of furniture in this analogy. So be it.)

But who knows? Stranger things have happened.

Last time around, the hair on my head went first, and everything (and I mean everything) else followed, in order, from top to bottom.

It hasn't gone quite so predictably this time around. For example, I still have my eyebrows and eyelashes.

This is HUGE.

Because what I learned last time around is that you don't really look sick until you lose your brows and lashes.

For one thing, without them every little speck of dust (and we've got lots of 'em here in the Big Apple) finds its way into your eyes and makes them all red and teary. So you look like you're miserable even if you feel absolutely fine. (And of course you never feel absolutely fine in the traditional sense of those words, but you sometimes feel absolutely fine in the "given I am going through hell" sense of those words.)

For another, much of the expressiveness of your face depends upon your eyebrows—they let you show joy and surprise and skepticism and confusion and lots and lots of other things. Without them, from the nose up at least, you are kind of a blank stare. Well, a teary blank stare.

Also, one thing I learned back then was that wearing eye makeup (something I tended not to do on an average day) somehow helped to counterbalance the bald thing. A little eyeliner and mascara gave my face definition—they framed my eyes the way my hair used to frame my face. So between a well chosen hat, some eye makeup, and a pair of earrings (good for distraction), I could manage to make a first impression that was something other than Cancer Patient.

But I digress. (Shocking, I know.)

My point is (was?) that the reason I can't tell whether my hair is starting to grow back is that I never entirely lost it. Don't get me wrong—I lost a lot of it. Just not all of it.

I've still got this sparse half-inch layer of peach fuzz. So I have to wonder whether I jumped the gun with the buzz cut. Is there any chance that had I let sleeping follicles lie, I might be able to walk around hatless in public without scaring small children (or large adults, for that matter)? Did I outsmart myself? Did I lose the game of chicken by flinching too soon?

Probably not. It's really sparse up there (although I don't think I have any actual bald spots).

But it's one more thing I'll never know.