Follical challenge in the small church

      Last night, still in summer shorts, I was lying back in my reclining chair and casually inspecting my knee surgery scars when I noticed that there’s not a decent hair on my legs.

      Now, I was never one of your hairy monsters but I had a serious crop of hair that came and went with the seasons, depending on whether I was wearing shorts or long trousers. The latter ground a lot of hairs off some areas over six months or so. But this is the end of the shorts season and right now my legs would serve as an advertisement for Veet.

    Yep, it’s the cancer medications. The same drugs that are making me weep copiously at the slightest sadness or even a moving passage in the Bible are stealing a very male characteristic from my legs — and other places. I am surprised at how this hair loss has shaken me.

     We think we have coped pretty well with an extra few kgs of weight, my budding breasts, the loss of my sex drive (and we are working on that), a generally teary existence and other anticipated side effects. But suddenly finding my legs were as smooth as a baby’s bottom has unnerved me. It’s a dramatic reminder of the serious things that are going on in my system—especially since a rising PSA suggests that the medications are beginning to lose their battle anyway.

I guess relationships in the small congregation are sometimes disrupted by the smallest and most minor matters. Sometimes we manage the big stuff OK and then let ourselves down on the little things.