Vanessa Simmons hopes her hair will grow back curly, and perhaps much darker.

At 42, she’s looking for a silver lining in the cloud that’s been hanging over her head since May.

That’s when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and began a fight with the disease that resulted in a mastectomy, and the loss of her long, thick  brown hair.

As she looks forward toward her last chemotherapy treatment, there’s a chance it will grow out completely different. 

“That’s what they say, that it could come back black, or curly. I’d like mine curly, because it’s been always been straight,” Simmons said.

It was March when she first noticed a knot the size of a marble. Because of it’s size the cancer a mammogram did not detect cancer, so an ultrasound was performed. The second test revealed cancer in her lymph node.

“You never think it would happen to you. After that I said, ‘God you have a reason for it,’” she said.

She knew right away she’d have to undergo chemo, and was prepared for the loss of her hair, for days of feeling sick, and for a battle against a formidable opponent.

“I prepared myself for that. I told myself God will not put anything more on me than I can handle,” she said.

Within a week after her first chemo treatment, Simmons remembers touching her hair, and it falling out.

She waited until nightfall — about 9 a.m. — and with family gathered around the kitchen sink, she shaved her head.

“My daughter helped me. I just kind of closed my eyes and the grandkids were standing there gently patting her on the back and  saying, ‘Grandma it’s going to  be all right. It’s going to be beautiful,’” she recalled.

Her husband, Pat, who is bald echoed the granddaughter’s sentiments. “It don’t matter; bald is beautiful,” he said.

Simmons said she would rather have done it that way. She’d been told that once it started coming out in clumps, she’d wake up and it would be all over the bed.

To ease the process, Simmons said she’d spent the morning at the American Cancer Society’s Beaumont office. There she picked out two wigs and a couple of hats.

One wig was long hair; the other short — kind of a pixie cut.

It’s nice now not having to fix her hair, she said. And, the upside is she’s wearing her hair short for the first time, and likes it.

“My husband likes the long one, but I kind of like the short one that’s punked out on the sides,” she said.

You have to look on the bright side, she said, and just do what you have to do.

She hopes to have her chemo completed in November, just in time for the holidays, then go back to work.

Because she is a teacher’s aide for kindergarten students in Vidor, Simmons said she elected to take a leave of absence.

“I was worried that because children are sicker so much more than adults, that it would affect my immune system,” she said.

With January right around the corner, Simmons said she can’t wait to get back to work — back to her normal life.

“The best thing I’ve learned is you just don’t sit there and say ‘Why me?’” You just get up and go about doing what you have to do,” she said.

skoonce@panews.com