By the time July rolls around, my hair is noticeably thinner. When I start straightening it, I see grey glints like silver ore veining through granite. Okay. It's not unheard of. Nothing a cut and dye can't solve. But when I start picking out the hairs, they're not entirely grey. They're translucent, too. Each strand has bands of oscillating stripes down its shaft. From clear to grey to red to light brown to mouse fur.
It feels like a betrayal. I'm doing everything the doctors tell me to. There's never been a time when my body doesn't do what it's told. After days of sulking, I wonder if this is a positive thing. My body's clearly having difficulty absorbing nutrients. It's a classic symptom of celiac disease. The anaemia, the vitamin deficiencies, and sudden changes in hair can all be explained. Maybe the rest is unrelated. It's rare that a test comes back with a false negative, but it's not impossible. Maybe I'm the exception. All that I would have to do is avoid gluten and wait for the villi in my intestines to heal. I'll never have to have that conversation with my mum. This will be an unpleasant few months that I can set aside.
I say as much to my doctor.
"We should do an ultrasound," she says and prints out another lab form.
YOU ARE READING
Spectra Terrestrial
Non-FictionA life can be brief and small, but the universe proves that it's never meaningless. My first brush with mortality.
