An open letter to my clients:

For more then a decade I have been behind the styling chair.  A large majority of you have been with me for most if not all of that time.  You let me play, experiment, mess up and beautify those pretty little heads with complete faith.  Fear at times, but faith none the less!  Along the way, you trusted me with so much more then your hair.  You gave me your secrets, and I let you hold mine.  We've shared laughter and tears, weddings and divorces, affairs and scandals, asshole husbands and nagging wives, lost jobs, graduation and new beginnings, foreclosures and first homes, infertility, miscarriages, and beautiful miracle babies. You let me into your world and became such a part of mine.  You've talked me off the ledge, called me out on my bullshit, and celebrated my accomplishments.  So, to my dear sweet clients, you are so much more then just a job, you are my friends.  And I miss you terribly.

When I was first diagnosed I told my doctor that I wasn't going to quit working.  No matter how sick I got I was going to push through.  I worked hard to be where I am, to build my business and I am not letting cancer or anything else take that away from me.  My doctor smiled sweetly and told me that she was going to root for me, that she hoped I could make it happen but that most people are unable to work through the treatment I was about to begin.  Those people were old though, and so what if I had to take the occasional break?  I was so unprepared for how difficult it would be.  Naive to just how sick I was about to become.  I remember the fateful morning I tried to get out of bed and couldn't.  I sprawled out on the living room floor, every muscle in my body was on fire and I could barely hold my head up.  I was so angry that the chemo won.  I wanted to give it the finger and prove that I was different.  I didn't want to let my clients down.  I didn't want to lose it all.  Everything was crumbling, like sand sifting through my fingers.  That morning, I canceled all my appointments indefinitely and went back to bed for a week.  I knew it was the end of my business.  I knew that cancer was going to take this away from me too.  And I was nothing short of furious.

So, I know what all of you are wondering.  What so many of you have been asking.  The BIG question.  Am I coming back to the salon?  The honest answer? I don't know.  Right now I don't have the stamina to make it through one color let alone a full day of them.  But that could and is improving with time.  The true demon of it all is neuropathy.  The drug Taxol wreaked havoc on my nerves, causing perminent damage all throughout my body.  Most disturbingly, my hands.  I am left with little to no grip left in both my hands.  The weakness and pain comes and goes and there are treatments available that I am considering and looking into.  My radical double mastectomy took muscle mass and tissue needed to raise my arms and also left me at high risk for developing lymphedema.  6 weeks later I am still suffering the effects of radiation and recently began an oral drug that I will take everyday for the next 5 years.  Its all something that I am trying to work through and figure out.  I don't know what my body will be like in a month, in 3 months when chemo is over, or in a year.  I still have reconstruction to tackle and a lot of emotional wreckage to clean up.  But everyday I get stronger, better.

So that is the short answer.  The good news is, I haven't lost my clients.  You have been here the whole time rooting me on every step of the way.  Through emails, lunches, facebook messages, texts, and visits, you have made me feel so validated.  It's not the job that I miss, it's the people.  This girl got to hang out all day, gossip, play beauty shop, and I got paid for it!  That is one sweet gig.  And to be honest, I need to work.  So to those of you crazy girls out there on a "Hair Strike", get a hair cut!  I might be awhile.... 

I need to take a moment and publicly acknowledge the true hero who made it possible for me to go get well- my business partner, Haley.  Haley you are almost as beautiful on the outside as you are on the inside.  Without batting an eye you stepped up and covered me completely.  You held it all down and allowed me to just get better.  What an amazing friend and person.  I am so thankful to you Haley, for everything you did to help me get by.  I will forever be in awe of the sacrifices you made and the grace in which you did so.  You saved me!  And  Jen and the entire crew at Signature, thank you for everything.  Without you I couldn't have gotten better, you gave me piece of mind at a time when it was scarse.  Your support was so far beyond what was ever expected and I am forever grateful!

Haley and Jen dropping of a wad of cash raised by our clients and coworkers.  Angels in my path!

Mom.

"I'm a grenade.  One day I'll explode, ablitherating everything in my wake"-The Fault in Our Stars

I wonder if that's how she feels.  I wonder if she feels cheated.  Like she drew the short straw.  It's not supposed to happen like this.  It isn't fair to her.  My mom.  I remember sitting with my mom at chemo one day and seeing a cute mother-daughter duo out on the patio.  Like us they had on cute outfits and wore lipstick, similiar ages, and like us they were laughing and making the best out of an afternoon of chemotherapy.  There was just one hudgely suttle difference...  The IV stand was on the other side, dangling from the arm of the mother.  I whispered just then "It's on the wrong side".  I don't think I even intended for it to come out loud, but it was the first time that it dawned on me.  The gravity of what my mom must be going through.  I was far too caught up in the caos of my own mind to even begin to empithise what this must feel like for her.  Her baby had cancer.  Through tear soaked eyes she squeezed my arm and said it back to me "Kara, it's on the wrong side."

I honestly think it's worse.  To be the mom.  I think about my babies and I can't even fathom one of them being that sick.  What I wouldn't do to take it away from them.  I know she feel helpless, I know she is scared, and I hope that knows how glad I am that it drips from my arm instead of hers.  From the begining she has had this ability to just let me be.  Whever channel I'm on in that moment is exactly what she tunes to, the level of selflessness that must have taken is unbeleivable.  She has put off her job, her friends, her finances, her other children, and her entire life in an instant and wouldnt dare let me appologize for it.  She hasn't left my side, even when my anger often got the best of me.  She is my greatest confindant and my biggest chearleader.  I know that no matter what, I have one person in my corner who wont leave me.  I have my mom.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.  I know I haven't said it enough, Thank you!  For refusing to ever say that I had cancer.  For keeping joy in my house when I was so sick.  For bringing laughter.  For loving my husband and being a mom to him, too.  Thank you for letting me navagte through this my way, on my terms.  For adjusting accordingly even when it surely wasn't easy.  For the sleepless nights and the early mornings.  For shaving your head.  For the 3am emergancy visits and the countless loads of laundry.  For the entire year of round the clock childcare.  We seriously couldn't have done it without you.  Thank you and I love you.  See you Sunday!