Losing my identity??

This is not a shallow reason. I mean, ok, taking three piercings out for an hour or so perhaps is, but the issue of who we are and how cancer affects that identity is anything but. 

Yes it's a big thing for a lot of us going through this.  I look in the mirror and don't see me anymore.  I had a comment that my face had changed and it has stuck in my head since and now I wonder if that.is what.everyone thinks when they see me.  I cold capped to try and save my long hair and ir never worked.  I know it's only hair and will grow back but I doubt it will be long again.  I feel pathetic that it gets to me so much as it is only hair x

Hi Fig, 

This is absolutely not shallow, I feel exactly the same.  I was diagnosed at 50 a couple of months ago. Just before this I had had a bit of a self revelation and finally felt I was happy in my skin, had found my style and was far kinder to myself, then bam! Cancer, Chemo, surgery came into my life.  I did loose myself in the shock of it all but now I am half way through my chemo I am starting to feel like me again - me with cancer but more “me” than cancer if that makes sense.  It just took time. You are more than your diagnosis. Little things like still wearing my favourite big boots for every treatment even though I know I will have to take them off to get weighed help me feel like me! You will find the bits of you that Cancer can’t have and it will help you feel like you again. xxx

.mel28 said:

I doubt it will be long again

Mine was long too, and now the top of my head is... well, to put it in the delicate words of my son, "reflective." And yet, I am looking at a longer timeframe and have promised myself that once it starts growing I will be leaving it to grow, and find out, at the end of 3-5 years, if I have again the same length as before.

I had to rush out earlier, hence the short response earlier. I want to expan on that a little. Who we are is, to each of us, connected to different things that have significance to a larger or lesser degree. For you it's the piercings, for someone else it could be the length of their hair, and for yet another person it could be about how much they can physically take on. And so it goes. 

One significant issue that cancer can cause is for people who are forced out of gender help due to hormone-sensitive cancer. I have a newphew who was once my niece, and while I truly hope no one I care about ever has to deal with cancer, that nephew is right at the top of my list for that reason.

For me, it's about mental faculties. The idea of losing the ability to think sharply scares me more than any physical issues. I have had two mastectomies and am not planning on reconstruction, or on wearing a bra with prostheses unless I really have to. I'd like my hair to grow back but I can live with it if it doesn't, and I can even live with the current annoyance of not being able to walk as fast or as far as before (hoping for that to improve with time) but when I catch myself in a below-par mental capacity situation.... well.