How I Celebrated The Return Of My Eyebrows

It happened just liked the women promised. “Your hair will come back!” they would say. Powerful words of encouragement when you’re having a good bawl as you pull hair from your head.

And one day, I went to WallyWorld and saw, I am not exaggerating, an entire shelving unit labeled “HAIR LOSS PRODUCTS.” I wanted to take a sharpie and add “Try Chemo” to the display, but knew they would bust me because of all those damn cameras they have scattered throughout the store.

Thanks to Paxman Cold Capping, I kept about 60% of my hair. This meant part of my morning routine was to step outside and run my fingers through my hair to pull out the 40% that gave up the ghost. I figured at least the birdies might benefit by having silver strands to decorate their nest.

It wasn’t until several weeks after my final chemo that my eyelashes and eyebrows bid adieu. That was hard. I felt like Odo from Star Trek. (Go ahead, pause and look up a picture. I sure as hell don’t want to violate any copyright by posting one. I’ll just be hanging out here sipping on my coffee.)

I used mascara to plump up my eyelashes, but that’s a bit hard when you have 4 eyelashes on your lower lid. Yes, four. I counted them.

My eyebrows seemed to just disappear overnight. I woke up, and they were gone. Left the building, fled the country, whatever.

Eyebrow pencil to the rescue. And then even better, some eyebrow stuff you apply with a brush. My sister gave it to me, not knowing my plight. Yes, much better.

I research temporary eyebrow tattoos. Magnetic lashes. While this be permanent? I feared.

I cling to the words of hope offered by women who had already been through this hair loss bullshit. Like cancer hasn’t already taken enough.

Then, just as quiet as their thief-in-the-night departure, they returned. Along with a goat hair on my chin and the post-menopausal mustache, but I digress.

I did a happy dance. I would stop strangers on the street and point to my eyebrows, LOOK! I HAVE EYEBROWS EVERYONE!!!

Okay, maybe not to strangers. I felt like Jimmy Stewart in that last scene of It’s Wonderful Life. He is reveling in his life. Celebrating the broken knob on the banister. Blessing the things that he had previously cursed.

Yep. That was me. Over eyebrows.

And delight of delight-they were BROWN! That was mostly the color before, but I was nervous they would come back all silver, like the hair on my head.

It was time to celebrate! And what better way to celebrate than by…getting them ripped off. Well, strategically anyway.

First, I got my hair trimmed. The gal assured me she saw plenty of fresh growth on the previously bald spots. Yippee.

Spring is returning to Narnia!

Then I got my eyebrows waxed. Never has ripping off eyebrows felt so good. I told the gal I was celebrating their return by getting them shaped and thinned out a little.

No, they weren’t Groucho Marx bushy. But enough so that they warranted some attention.

To further add to the festive occasion, I found that my eyelashes have a new crop coming in. It sort of looks like I took pinking shears to them. A few long hairs, and then these teensy-weensy baby lashes.

Such a little thing that means so much.

It’s another step toward normalcy-whatever the hell that is.

Now it’s time to work on the weight. One thing I DIDN’T lose on this journey was weight. I gained a good 15–20 pounds.

If only that little gal at the salon could rip those off my body.

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