The next morning I woke to find hair on my pillow, and rising to look at myself in the mirror, saw plainly that I could consider myself bald. No hair remained except for a few stubborn wisps which clung fiercely to my scalp like December leaves that refuse to fall even after winter's icy blasts. My lashes, brows... everything... had been depopulated. The mirror seemed to reflect incredible youth and fragility. Painfully thin and hairless, I resembled the gaunt and disciplined Buddhist student. Withdrawing from the mirror, I went in search of a pair of scissors to bob my wisps to a more reasonable length of one inch, then took my wig from its styrofoam head and placed it on my own. I peered at myself with disgust; "It couldn't be much worse," I thought, and headed toward the kitchen for breakfast. PAGE 87 Chapter 13 Year at Home and Diary "Chemotherapy ravaged the body and tainted the mind just as the cancer against which its debilitating powers were supposedly aimed." CHAPTER THIRTEEN Year At Home And Diary Due to my poor and unreliable health, I never re-entered junior high; it would have been both risky and impractical. I would have forever been involved with past homework because of frequent absenteeism, as well as further depleting my energy level through normal, daily activities. Individuals having good health were often taxed at the day's end; I knew I could not have kept the steady pace that school demanded of those desiring to succeed. Standing 5 ft., 8 ins. I weighed, at times as little as 75 pounds. My eating was sporadic; on certain days I wouldn't recall having eaten at all. When I did eat, my nauseousness would span 20 minutes to several hours. Sometimes my only relief would come after vomiting, although that seemed a rather drastic and unpleasant measure, I found this voluntary vomiting to be more agreeable than sitting motionless in a chair for the entire evening to humor my stomach, when the eventual result was to be the same anyway. I was soon quite practiced at manipulating my stomach, as well as determining whether my nauseousness would irreversibly result in oral elimination or if it would finally subside without an event.