Life List #30 - My Hair

"Your hair is so long!"

"Yes, I know. I call it my Second Chance Hair."

What is second chance hair? Simply put, it is the hair you get after a traumatic medical event has taken your original(ish) hair. When I left the hospital in 2006, be it the combination of terrible eating, intense stress, lots and lots of new drugs and lack of sleep, I lost a ton of hair. I remember staying to my transplant coordinator - "how can I be growing hair everywhere else and losing it on my head. I am turning into a man!!!"

I was really hopped up on steroids at the time.

My heart failure hair was thin and dry. It was long in my youth but after a while, shorter became the obvious (and much better) way of keeping it.

Then I had it cut super super short in the hospital. It was a great cut, and far easier to keep it out of the blood and the ick and the lack of washing. In the final six weeks I was in the hospital, my hair was washed a whopping 3-4 times. And that included two open heart surgeries. Yikes.

But then it started growing back - darker, curlier and thicker than before. Everyone had an opinion, but it was always...

Hey look at your second chance hair.

Mothers told me that their hair after pregnancy was different. Cancer survivors said the same after chemo. My hair was a visible reminder of the beauty of my heart. Was it increased blood flow? Cyclosporin? Or a secret gift?

#30 - Grow my hair to my waist.

Check.