MOON FACE

My cousin’s cancer is aggressive and advanced. I have not seen her in years. The news of her cancer still hit me hard. This is my cousin who I spent summers and holidays with, the cousin I grew up with. She is now fighting for her life.

On Sunday, I was catching up on Facebook and just about to put on my swim suit for the first time this year. I was dreading putting it on as my cousin’s beautiful face was staring back at me on the phone. She was bald and beautiful.

I completely forgot about the swim suit and how I would look. There are more important battles in life than how swim suit 2015 will look.

And it got me thinking about my own warrior, and Jacob’s moon face. You get a “moon face” from using steroids over a too long period of time. Jacob’s face is round as a moon. People point it out to me. I hear them, but bald or moon, I just see beauty. Love is blind. The chance of Jacob’s face losing its’ moon shape is slim. We need to wean his steroids, which will take exactly a month if Jacob’s body agrees. He will still be on steroids, but on a lower dose that supposedly should remove the moon from his face. After the steroids are weaned, it will take months, yes months, for the shape of his face to go back to normal. The chance of us not having to once again increase steroids due to an illness seems farfetched. His closest doctors tell me over and over again that it doesn’t matter. It’s ok if Jacob is dependent on steroids. It keeps him alive.

And I guess that’s what I love about my cousin’s beautiful baldness and my son’s moon face – they both breathe so much life. They are both two incredible fighters loving life. That is beautiful to me, not the loss of hair or the round face of my son.

To life, Maria.