“I knew who I was this morning but I’ve changed a few times since then”- Lewis Carroll’s Alice (‘Through the looking glass’)
A FEELING of normalcy had returned to my body. I was over the bad smells, in fact I welcomed bacon into my diet whenever I was ‘allowed’ to sneak it in. Yes, I was a foodie again but with the inclusion of fresh fruits and books on Alternative Medicine from my Dad, who would always pop into my room for insightful discussions on health, politics and religion, but these days it was mostly health.Along with the chemo treatments I was always eating soursop aka Graviola (scientific name: Annona muricata) and brewing tea with its leaves as it is known to have anti-cancer properties. I had been told by one of the past oncologists I consulted with that “those things are myths.”

This is why it’s easy to lose faith in modern medicine when Doctors are so easy to discredit anything that cannot be sold over the counter. While Soursop cannot ‘cure’ cancer, according the Cancer Research UK “In laboratory studies, graviola extracts can kill some types of liver and breast cancer cells that are resistant to particular chemotherapy drugs.”

There is no myth that benefits can be reaped from adding this fruit to the diet of a cancer patient, it just makes common sense and I was appalled that the Doctor I had spoken to was severely dismissive of it and ‘any other herbal/natural cure as nonsense’.

Hey Doc, Lapachol – an anti-cancer, anti-tumor and inflammation medication is made from Tabebuia species (trumpet tree). There are over a hundred active ingredients derived from plants and used in the drugs we buy from the pharmacy.

What do you think they used in Egypt and Rome back in the day? I refuse to be fooled by doctors and pharmaceutical companies that benefit to keep me sick, never underestimate how ruthless and unethical greed makes people and corporations.

Just two days after getting my pixie mohawk haircut my hair started to fall out. When I touched the tips of my hair I felt an unpleasant tingle shoot down to my scalp. My hair was prepared to go on sabbatical but the nerves attached to the follicles were making the process an uncomfortable one. I could run my fingers through my hair and expect to discover at least ten hairs in my hand. ‘Ok not so bad’ I thought, at this rate there won’t be a significant hair loss any time soon.

The weekend had come again – which doesn’t mean anything when you’re home every day, any day could be the weekend, but this marked the birthday celebrations of my friend Gina. Happy to be feeling somewhat ‘back to normal’ and excited to be doing something that did not involve needles in my arm, I got all ‘dolled up’ and attended.

Once there, I enjoyed having conversations that weren’t centered on ‘how many chemo sessions do you have again?’ and more on “ Kanye is a Kardashian and doesn’t even know it’’, lol.

Amidst the entire skinning and grinning and odd thing was happening to my hair. Its new m.o to fall everywhere seems to have gained significant momentum from the time I had left home to the three hours I had been socializing, my scalp was tingling and I could literally feel the hair falling around my neck and shoulders.

Two hours later I was apologising to people for hair in their drinks. Ok, time to leave!

As I headed outside a strong wind blew and I thought that half my head would have blown away. Throughout the car ride home I kept my windows up, I was becoming a mess, hair stuck to my dress and I had started to itch. As I wrapped my hair up in a scarf for the first time and climbed into bed it dawned on me what I had to do. I reached for my cellphone and texted the words “Ann, I need you to shave my head asap’. This was it, no going back now.