A woman's crowning virtue

Today as i sat on the side lines of a busy Oncology ward waiting to see my mums Oncologist for a final diagnosis of her reports, i looked around and saw the many strained faces of fellow patients and their families - some entering the ward for the first time, some recovering from treatments, some waiting like me to hear the dreaded reality and some looking lost and confused.

Amongst all the hustle and bustle a thought crossed my mind.... for most of us women, how we look is so important. We always want to project the right image and one of the things we take great pains in is our hair. We cut, we blow dry, we straighten, perm, colour or relax, whatever it takes to get the salon look to make us feel on top of the world. But sitting here i look around and see the many women who have had to fall victim to the harsh reality of chemo therapy which makes all your hair fall out.

I remember a few months ago after my mum started treatment, the painful process of her hair fall. No amount of preparation or counselling made her ready for what she went through in those agonising few days. The itching, the redness, the hair falling in clumps around her, the pieces of hair flying off in the wind, the patchy baldness - it was more than I could bear watching from the sidelines. I cant imagine what she felt having to live through it.

I smile with one of the women who has travelled many miles to come for her treatment and I think to myself how truly brave these people are, how much pain are they enduring just like my mum, to find a cure for this dreaded disease. In that split second I realise how superficial we can be and how in a moment everything can just turn upside down and it could be any one of us walking through that ward as a patient someday.

I look around and see the bald heads the wigs and it hits me, a woman's crowning virtue.... lost in the process of cure.