pre-surgery hair

I measured my hair last night - the longest layers are about 11' when in a low ponytail. Which means it's long enough to donate! Woo hoo!

I did some research today and have decided to go with Locks of Love. Some people have complained that they give their wigs mostly to kids with alopecia, not cancer. That they sell the hair that's too short for their types of wigs or that's gray. That they throw out hair that's unusable.

But you know what? Those are EXACTLY the reasons I've chosen this charity. Of course I'm freaked out over having half of my head shaved, but I can deal with it because it will grow back. A kid with cancer's hair will also grow back. A kid with alopecia? A kid who suffered horrible burns? They're not so lucky. They're the ones who really need these fancy wigs that they can swim in.

Yup - swim in. How cool is that?

And charities need cash. Not-for-profit doesn't mean no overhead expenses. And no charity is perfect. I've heard all sorts of horrible things about Susan B. Komen's excessively high overhead expenses, yet no one writes into forums about how one shouldn't donate to them or buy all of those ugly breast-cancer-pink things. So maybe Locks of Love could budget a little better. That doesn't mean they aren't doing good work.

So that they sell the hair that's gray or too short is fine by me. That money will then go towards overhead costs or to offsetting the cost of wigs for the poorer families or however it is that they choose to spend the money.

Plus, they'll take dyed hair. Can't undo that and it seems like such a waste to just throw this hair in the trash.

Bottom line, I don't care if my hair is sold instead of put into an actual kid's wig. Either way I know that it will go towards a wig in one way or another.

Anyway, back to me. I first thought that I'd shave it all off before the surgery. Then I thought maybe pixie. Then I thought maybe I'll just let them shave it and figure it out afterwards. But now that I know that I can donate, I'm back to cutting it short prior to surgery (though still waiting until January).

And then I found A Lie of the Mind via The Hairpin and saw her post about Kate Winslet's short hair in British Vogue. So I did some googling. Her hair in the magazine was platinum and tough-sexy.

I tend to fail on the tough-sexy front, but I found some other pictures that were very relatable.

See? Right? Prettiness. And seems realistic considering my hair type and what my hair tends to do on its own. But I'm not fully feeling the blank forehead thing. And is it pretty just because Kate's pretty? Plus it all seems a little, I don't know, 90's? And then I saw this next shot of Emily Browning.

Okay, now we're really getting somewhere! I don't even know who she is or when this picture was taken, but I feel like this hairstyle would totally work.

A. It's non-existant in the back so I can donate as much hair as possible
B. Girlfriend has hair that seems to be roughly the same texture as mine
C. This is the way I picture my hair color in my head (though I know it's - and like it - darker in real life). Combine B & C and I can actually see myself in this cut. Well, see myself looking stylish. I can see myself looking unstylish in Kate's cut.
D. I can picture me styling my hair so that it looks like this. I even have a 3/4 full container of Jonathan Dirt.
E. It's cute and a bit edgy but not so rock-and-roll that I'll feel like a poseur. I mean, sure, I go to gobs of concerts, I like my guitars loud, I'm quite hard core on the inside. But I'm more preppy on the outside. A friend called me a gregarious introvert and I feel like the term suits me nicely. It's my thing. And I like me. I see no reason to change just because my hair won't be 10-11" long anymore.

Keira Knightly also had a pixie with long bangs.

And Kate Moss, who can do no wrong, had even more of a traditional pixie, I would be open to this as well, though I'm so not gamine.

Of course, the most important thing is that I don't end up looking like Carol Brady

That, my friend, would definitely not be a good thing.

two months until surgery

I had suddenly started having these ridiculously horrible headaches the same week I started researching internists in Greenbelt. I don't remember the exact days, but it was like Tuesday I started the research and Wednesday my skull felt like it was about to crack in two whenever I stood up or coughed. So I made an appointment for that Monday with my internist. Since I'm not prone to headaches, she ordered an MRI. She brought me into her office to discuss it and told me that I have a meningioma - an almost-always benign brain tumor.

Total, complete craziness. Seriously? A brain tumor?

After research and consultation and all that good stuff, I scheduled my surgery for January 19th at Georgetown University Hospital. Two months from now.

And I have to say, my anxiety levels went down immediately after getting off the phone with the surgery scheduler. It's hard to concentrate on anything else when there's this major surgery looming over you, yet you don't know when it will happen. Now I know. I have two months to prepare, to get everything in order with work, to get everything in order at home, to come to terms with having half my head shaved and to find a good solution for covering it while it grows back. I've started telling people at work, I've started spreading the news to my friends and extended family and I've started this blog.

But you know what's almost crazier than having a brain tumor? My neurosurgeon doesn't feel that the headaches were caused by the tumor - and they actually have gotten a lot better on their own. My sister's theory is that they were my body's way of getting me into that MRI machine since meningiomas are very often asymptomatic. And since they're very slow-growing, who knows how long I've had this sucker in my head. Probably not an excessive amount of time, but still. So random. Never thought I'd feel so lucky to have head-splitting headaches.