My NHL (Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma) was diagnosed on October 13, 2011. It’s not a date that anyone easily forgets. I treated it with a month of intensive Rituximab chemotherapy, and it went away for a while. Then it returned (I found out in October 2012), and I realized that once you have cancer, you have to face the fact that it’s with you, in one way or another, for a long time.

It’s a sticky business. I go in for maintenance chemotherapy every two months now, more Rituximab. I have the luck of the easiest and gentlest of chemotherapy medications. In fact, before making this post, I pondered to myself that I feel like a total poseur wearing a bandana: I never lost my hair.

Still, sitting in the chemotherapy room every other month (my fourteenth treatment is coming up next month), I meet the humans who wear the bandanas, and the ones who don’t bother, and allow their bald heads to show as a sign of their constant battle within.

I have so much respect for the people whose chemotherapy medicines enter their bodies through a port instead of an IV, for people who kill every single dividing cell in their bodies day after day, month after month, until their lives are lived through pure determination.

For their bravery and endurance, and for the stories I hear when I sit by their side in my own chemotherapy chair, I wear this bandana today.

(Many thanks to Sasy Scarborough for helping me purchase the bandana, my poor old laptop was not up for Hair Fair, and I could not pry my husband off SkyRim to use his PC!)

Bandana: [Stellar] silver sequin bandana 2013
Necklace and bracelet: Lassitude & Ennui Lion’s Paw torque in black for Zodiac
Corset: Plastik Mechanika Corset in Bordello
Eyes: MIASNOW eyes in SHINE grey
Skin: MIASNOW skin in ALIEN GREY
Jeans: ~silentsparrow~ (ash) batty leather pants
Face tattoo: HUZ Duality in full black
Horns: Illusions Ibex Horns
Nails: vintage from SiniStyle
Earrings: vintage from FlipSide