I recently went bowling with my 5-year-old nephew. I’m not sure if he just hasn’t seen me for a while, if he forgot that for quite some time I had no hair, or what… but in the middle of our bowling game, he walked up to me, stared at my head for about 10 seconds (which is a LONG time for a 5-year-old) and said, “Kristi, what is up with your hair??”. I asked him what he meant, and he told me, “Well, you… you’ve got... GRANDMA HAIR!!”  I decided that he described it perfectly – I am rockin’ some pretty bad-ass Grandma hair.

About a month ago, I decided that I was going to be done wearing my hats – I had worn either my grey stocking cap or my grey/white buffalo trucker’s hat for about 3 months straight, and I don’t even like hats that much. I had to figure out what to do with the mop on the top of my head. One day I dug through my old hair products and realized that I had mousse (that was probably from about 1992 – and I’m not exactly sure what I used it for then). I went out and bought some gel, and between the two products, was able to look what I consider presentable enough to not wear my hat.

I have a few new friends who didn’t know me before I got sick. They love my hair right now – they think it looks great. But when I show them a picture of what I used to look like (a.k.a. what I’m supposed to look like), they can’t believe that it’s me – that’s how different I look. It honestly is pretty unbelievable even to me the changes that have happened in the past year.

My hair has been one of the most difficult parts of this journey. I was really nervous to shave my head. But for some reason, it was like the jitters floated away along with my hair as my boys buzzed the electric razor over my head. Once the hair was gone, within a few minutes I had snapped a selfie and posted it to Facebook. My mom told me that I was brave... but after she said that, I had second thoughts – maybe I shouldn’t have shown the world my new 'do quite that quickly. But I decided that it was going to be WAY easier for me if people knew what I looked like without hair – that way they wouldn’t stare at me or be caught in an awkward position for both of us the first time that they saw me.

Honestly, being bald kind of grew on me (ha… get it – “grew”??). I enjoyed the lack of hair products; the ease of getting ready in the morning; the cool breeze on my head. Everyone told me that I had a nice head – and I did! I thought I was ready to have my hair back, but I have definitely struggled throughout the growing-the-hair-back process.

When it first started growing back, I looked OK in my short buzz-type hair. But then it grew just enough that it looked funny… so I started wearing a hat. And I didn’t take that hat off for about 4 months. Luckily, this cancer thing hit at just the right time (or, I guess we caught it at just the right time, because I have a sneaking suspicion that it was growing inside of me for quite a while before we caught it). Anyway, those two hats became part of me during the winter months.

During the hat-wearing season, late at night, I would take the hat off and spend some time all alone in front of the mirror trying to make my head look presentable… and I just couldn’t. If you knew me before I had cancer, hair-styling skills weren’t at the top of my strengths. I had plain, straight, dirty blondish boring hair (that I didn’t appreciate as much as I should have). Now, I have brownish-graying grandma hair that makes me look like I’m from 1980. If I could find a neon-colored leotard, I would definitely win a 1980’s costume party.

For a while, I contemplated shaving my head again nearly every single day. But I feel like I get closer to long(-ish) hair every day… only a few more days (I’ve been saying that for at least 3 months now – just ask anyone who sees me at work every day. My hair is my #1 discussion point of most days).