Beautiful

December 12, 2018

My first thought went to my hair. When the neurosurgeon was finished explaining my upcoming, emergency brain surgery, the very first question I asked was, "wait, are you going to have to shave my head?" He stared blankly at me for a minute. I didn't think it was a difficult question to answer, considering he was supposed to have done this surgery a hundred times before. I suppose he was staring at the absurdity of my very first thought not going to my life but to my hair. My parents chimed in with, "what are the risks involved?" and "what should we expect for recovery?" I was still focused on my hair.

They ended up shaving the back half of my head. It was strategic and well done, according to my hairstylist. I still cried. I googled hats and scarves and extensions and hair clips to every extent I could. My head was a weird shape before they took parts of my skull out, so I knew it would only be worse.  I had long hair before the surgery, it would take a while to grow back. Eight months, to be exact. Even then, it grew in just enough to where I could cut the rest up to meet it. Though it turns out, I look great in an inverted bob. So there's that.

I didn't like myself very much before the surgery. In those still, quiet moments I didn't like who I was or how I acted. In every other moment, I didn't like how I looked. I had never been on-trend, guys weren't really interested in me, and I didn't have a modicum of confidence to carry myself regardless of how I saw my looks. The brain surgery and shaved head gave an external life to my internal dissatisfaction. I did my best to keep the back of my head covered by curling my (remaining) hair to make it look more full and then pinning it back to cover the very short hair on the back of my head and the very long scar running vertically down it. 

Post-surgery, it got really bad. I was spending so much time getting ready in the morning. So much time to cover the acne caused by medications, the bald spot, the extra weight from inaction, everything. My body drastically changed in a very short time frame and it increased my body insecurity exponentially.

But I bounced back. My hair grew in, my acne cleared up for the most part, and I dropped the weight. I found myself beautiful, even if not on-trend, and was happy.

But then this tumor happened. Stretch marks started spreading at an alarming rate on the inside of my thighs. Sign of the tumor. Fifteen pounds and counting showed up on my abdomen. Sign of the tumor. Body acne on my shoulders and back. Sign of the tumor. It's really hard to love your body and take care of your body when not only is it slowly and continually trying to kill you but also when it's leaving you feeling unattractive and uncomfortable in the process. I feel like dying is bad enough, but now you have to make sure the corpse is ugly too?

I made it through the summer without going to an event that required a bathing suit and avoided showing off the stretch marks. But then autumn comes and you get to the point where you need to go up a size or two in jeans. And you start to rationalize. On the one hand, your current jeans for sure don't fit anymore. It's beyond uncomfortable, it's impossible. But on the other hand, why spend so much money on jeans, you're going to lose weight soon. Because regardless of the fact that this is controlled by your diagnosis, the second you start actually exercising or eating well, the weight will just fall right off. But you'll start all of that after the surgery, obviously. But on the other hand, you don't know if you'll have surgery because there's a chance it could be cancer and that would take a little while longer to treat. So you should buy the jeans. But on the other hand, denial of your body changing so much beyond your control will give you more reasons as to why you shouldn't buy new jeans, skirts, and dresses. It's. so. fun.

I'm uncomfortable in my own body. I thought I worked through this when my head was shaved. And yet here I am, detesting my body and its changes. I work out, I eat well, I sleep, hydrate, but I can't lose the weight my tumor keeps piling on or undo the stretch marks that keep creeping lower down my thighs. When will it end? How do I love my body when my body definitely doesn't love me?

I did have weight changes from my brain surgery. I was so sedentary in recovery that I gained a lot of weight. But I still had that 19-year-old metabolism that shed the weight after I stopped eating ice cream every night right before bed. What's changed now? Why does my body feel like it's aged so much in these four years? It no longer feels like it can bounce back. What can I do to like how I look in the mirror in the midst of illness taking over my body?

How can I see my own beauty and accept it?

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