Learning from my students

I am in a situation where I went back to work, everyone knows I had cancer, everyone knows I had surgery, everyone knows I had chemo and am still getting treatments once a week, I have no hair, and I am a little bigger than I was before I left in March. This lack of hair has only been a "problem" for little children all summer long and they don't know enough not to stare which I am perfectly fine with. When I returned home from living in the Adirondacks, this was the first time that I had issues with people staring at me. I went to Target and Price Chopper twice and had adults stop in the middle of the store and actually stare at me and follow me. They allowed their children to scream out in the middle of the store "That girl has no hair" and did nothing to repremand or inform them that this was inappropriate but just turned and looked at me. I really wanted to yell at them for being extremely rude and inappropriate but I didn't. It was not fun though. I was not having a good day both of these times and I really wanted to hide in a corner and ask my husband to come and get me. But I didn't. I just kept shopping. This was the first time I was concerned about working with my students with all of these changes in me. My niece Lila (11 yrs old) pointed out that people were staring at me when we were out once and she asked "Don't they know it's rude to look at people like that?" I told her that some people have no manners and it was ok but she was very unhappy about this situation. I hoped this would be the reaction my students would have to me. I knew I needed to make sure my students knew I was ok and that life was moving forward and they could interact with me as they normally would. After my Target/Price Chopper experiece I was worried about how they would react to me. I went back to work 3 weeks ago and I can say that my students have been fantastic! They do not stare at all. They treat me as if I was the same person that I was before I left in March. I am so happy that my students are adult enough to treat me with respect. I wish all people out there who make fun of or stop and stare at people with "differences" would learn from my students and know that this is not how we act. I am in no way suggesting that my students are adult in all other ways - they are typical teenagers - but right now, they make me very happy in the way they are reacting to me. They are also learning that it is ok to joke around with me about my lack of hair - I pointed out how I don't know how the boys have crew cuts, don't their heads and necks get really cold, and there was a pause before they responded and laughed. I appreciated this. They are learning that I want to laugh through this because otherwise how would life be this much fun! I am thankful for them. I am proud of them! I am glad I am their teacher! On another note: Good news: my platelets are up and I am running again (actually it is a run/walk but I am doing it). I am up to 1.5 miles and, although it is slow, I am so happy to be running in the beautiful fall weather. Bad news: My white blood cells, red blood cells, and hemoglobin counts went down last week. My bone marrow just isn't keeping up yet. But it will! It can only get better from here.