Being bald has been a wonderful experience for me!! For those of you who know me, you know that hair style has never been important to me. That is probably a huge understatement on how I have felt about my own hair style and what it has said about me. I have absolutely NO talent in the area of hair style and that has been reflected in the way I have worn my hair for the first 46 years of my life. Yes, I am still 46 for four more days.

One of the good things about being bald is that I get much better service in stores and restaurants. Staff members seem to seek me out to ask me if I need help finding something or if I just need help in general. I do get a few second looks, especially from children. But, overall I have not had any negative experiences with the lack of hair.

Something that has been on my mind recently is the return of students to campus in August. I hope to be able to go to work on most days when the semester begins on August 20. I have been thinking about sending an email to my students from last year telling them that I am taking chemotherapy drugs and it has resulted in losing my hair. I want them to recognize me on campus because I want to chat with them about their summers and their lives in general. I want them to know that I'm still Mary Kay and I want to be a part of their lives as students at K-State. I also want them to know that it is ok to talk about cancer and my current status. It seems fairly normal for people to want to know how I am feeling, what treatment I am taking, has the cancer spread to other parts of my body, how long will treatment last, etc. Those are all things I am willing to share with others - thus this blog!! I know some people choose to keep their journeys private because that is comfortable to them. For me, I am comfortable sharing lots of information about my health as well as information about my emotions and, of course, my FAMILY and FRIENDS!!! I love to brag about all the wonderful people in my life AND I love to post photos of them as well so that you can put a face with the name and stories.

That brings me to today's photos. Two very special former K-State students (Vy Bui and Brandi Edwards) have stopped by recently to visit me. Both are in the infamous REAL world now as Vy lives in Atlanta and works for Accenture and Brandi works for The First Tee in Charlotte, NC. I am definitely going to visit Brandi in Charlotte because that is where most of the NASCAR teams are located!! Yes, I am a NASCAR freak and I like to follow the best driver in the world - the Dupont Chevrolet, #24 Jeff Gordon. As you can see from the photos, my friend Candi Hironaka is in both pictures. Now, she will be unhappy about that, but she was so kind to organize the meetings with both students. As I said in one of my earlier posts, Candi is a really NICE person who does NICE things all of the time AND she deserves to have her picture on here each day.

This photo of of me with Todd Wells, Vy Bui, and Candi Hironaka was taken on the steps of our house. Vy was in Kansas City to visit her family and she decided to make a trip to Manhattan to visit friends. Isn't that a great looking crew!

This photo was taken today - July 13 - in my front yard after we returned from lunch at So Long Saloon. Of course, you recognize Candi on the left, Brandi is in middle, and Candi's son Myles is on the right. As you can tell from the photo, Myles was teasing Brandi during this photo shoot!

Love to all,
Mary Kay