They tell you when you start chemo that you will lose your hair (assuming your getting the kind of chemo that makes you lose your hair, of course) and for me, it wasn’t too traumatic to hear that bit of news. I mean it musta been because I was trying to digest the whole cancer thing and the thought of losing my hair was just no big deal. They also told me that it would take two weeks for it to start to fall out. I was a little bent about this part cuz I’m just not a patient person. The way I see it is that if its going to come out, come out already.. But anyway two weeks later it started coming out. At first it came out fairly slowly and I was surprised to see that it didn’t really leave bald patches but it came out more uniformly. Eventually it started coming out a lot. I think it was a day or two after it started coming out and boy was it traumatic. I remember running my hand through my hair and getting a clump big enough that it wasn’t “see thru”. I stared at my clump of hair for a minute and just started bawling. That took me by surprise because I knew it was going to come out… I guess I just didn’t realize it. For the next couple of days I would run my hand thru my hair and pull out clumps. I would keep a pile next to my bed to see the damage every day. At the time I was at the Health Plan building so having the nurses changing my hairy bedding daily was a nice perk.
I ended up getting sick and having to go to the hospital. I remember being there for not very long before I asked for some clippers so I can take the rest off. At that point it was very thin and I was getting sick of having hair everywhere. So alone I went, into the bathroom with the clippers. Have you ever taken a pair of clippers to your own head? I know I hadn’t. I’ve done gazillions of other heads in my time but never my own. This realization came to me as I’m standing there in the bathroom about to cut off years of growing effort. It was an interesting realization. I did the best I could with a dull set of clippers and decided that I didn’t look too bad. My first appearance as a bald girl was walking out of the bathroom to face about 4 or 5 members of my family.. I did ok. It did feel quite nice not to have to deal with my hair anymore.
After I was discharged I went out and bought a bunch of hats and I tried to wear them whenever I went out. This lasted a day or two. Hats suck. They are hot and uncomfortable and they really don’t keep people from staring. So I sucked it up and braved it bald. It was tough at first. I thought everyone was staring at me (and I know now that they were) but I just kept my eyes averted and went on with my business. I figured that eventually I would get used to it. I did…
I tell you, I am so glad it’s the middle of the summer and I have no hair. So glad in fact that I am not sure if Im going to venture to a longer style anytime soon… we’ll see, its one day at a time…