Afro Circus: First Time I Dyed My Hair After Chemo

For a long time I was bald. Then came the prickles. Then I resembled a certain middle-aged male colleague. I walked around the department in my cute blonde wig, ducked into the office of the one secretary Who Knew The Truth About My Breast Cancer, whipped off the blond thing and said, "See? I look like so-and-so," naming my colleague.
She gasped. "Yes, exactly. Gruesome."

But now, today, finally, I really have enough hair to dye. The comfortable ritual, the glancing at the clock as I pull on the latex gloves and mix the components of L'Oreal Ash Blond, is once more a part of my life. I never thought I'd live to dye hair again! The trouble is, as my children point out, this:

My hairdo isn't this pretty. I haven't gone rainbow. But I have gone Afro. My kids sing "Afro circus, afro circus, polka-dot, polka-dot afro circus!" when they see me coming. Are they becoming horrid little racists? Not at all. It's just that mom of the long slightly wavy hair now really has hair resembling that of the happy dancing giraffe. Dry. Steel-woolly. Sticks out like that lion's mane, too. What's a post-cancer girl to do? Actually, should I buy shampoo and conditioner products for African-American hair? Or very curly hair? Or wait a year or two and do nothing, as my hair gets to be as long as that of the polka-dot circus giraffe? I've seen women with hair like that in the waiting room. Makes a statement. Just not the one I want to make. I want my original hair back. I like to be able to part it on the side and brush it. 
I like to brush it, brush it. I like to brush it, brush it. I like to . . . BRUSH IT! 
I better not hope too hard. I saw a woman coming of of the waiting room who had a Jimi Hendrix-do. Really.