Feelings About Losing Your Hair During Chemo Are Different For Everyone

Losing your hair is synonymous with a cancer diagnosis. I’ve heard people talk about it like it’s the worst part of being diagnosed. People lower their voices and in a very serious tone say “are you going to lose your hair?” Yes, I am going to tragically lose my hair.  Losing my life, well that could be an issue too but let’s talk about hair.

Losing my hair wasn’t a big deal for me. It wasn’t my first choice but if cancer wanted my hair and left my life behind I was good with the tradeoff. My eyelashes, well that was another story. For some reason, my eyelashes were off-limits. Early on in my diagnosis I saw a woman in the elevator at MD Anderson and she was bald, wearing a hat, but had her eyelashes and she was beautiful. I remember telling her how pretty she looked. That was when I decided that eyelashes were off-limits. I wrote about her 10 years ago in a blog entry and the interaction has stayed with me since.

 

Thinning? Is That “Losing” Your Hair?

During my first recurrence I didn’t lose my hair. At least, I didn’t know that I was losing it. I knew it was thin but I thought it was a seasonal thing. How’s that for blinders?  It got so thin and looking back, I should have cut it. Sometimes it tough to see the forest through the trees. This picture is me when I didn’t know I was losing my hair. I’m going with ignorance is bliss on this. I had been told that I wouldn’t lose my hair on this treatment so I guess it didn’t occur to me that thinning was potentially happening. Ok, stop laughing.

 

Really Losing My Hair

It was the third recurrence that I truly lost my hair. What a strange process. When it started to “shed” my scalp actually hurt which I certainly didn’t expect. The next step was from shedding to more than shedding it came out in more of “clumps” which isn’t an attractive word but I think it’s what describes it best.

The moment when you know you need to shave it off is different for everyone. I know of people who shave their heads before they’ve lost one hair. I’ve seen others who have bald spots on their head and maybe need a brutally honest friend to intervene, but the process is different for everyone and I’m a firm believer that people need to do cancer on their terms.

 

 

Should I Shave My Head?

Before I actually lost my hair, I talked about asking my stylist to let me come in with my friends after hours with wine and make it more of a party.  When it came down to it, I couldn’t be bothered. I made my appointment and went in during normal business hours alone. The same way I always did when I got my hair done. I had told everyone losing my hair wasn’t a big deal so why was I going to have a party and make it one?

It was obviously not my stylist’s first rodeo and she was so kind. We have become friends over the years, and she has become part of my journey. Part of me wonders if it was harder for her to shave my head than for me to have it shaved. She offered to come to my house or do it in the evening but as I said, I couldn’t be bothered.

This picture is the first picture I took when I got home from having my head shaved.

 

 

To Wig Or Not To Wig?

 

Before I actually lost/shaved my hair I had tried on wigs, friends gave me hats and scarves to try but in the end, I decided a wig wasn’t for me.  First, I couldn’t make it look like it wasn’t a wig and secondly, I live in Florida and it was summer.  It’s hot enough here and a wig seemed like another layer of something to deal with. I had a great baseball hat that had hair attached that actually looked like mine. I would have worn that on occasion but then I thought that would be weird for people to see me out and about with no hair and then prancing around the grocery store with hair.

 

 

Covering Your Head

 

Occasionally I wore a baseball hat when I went out and I wore a winter hat when I was inside. It was interesting how cold I would get in the air conditioning with no hair. It wasn’t a vanity thing, more so a necessity thing. I wore scarves on occasion. Once to a wedding and once when I spoke at an event.  It may have started as a thought to “cover” my head but in the end it was more that the scarf was pretty and my face seemed more vibrant with it. I didn’t wear it often as I struggled to find the perfect method of how to make it look stylish. In the end, bald was easy.

 

 

Growing Back Worse Than Losing Your Hair?

 

I’ve told people that the growing back stage was harder for me than losing it.  Let me start by saying, I’m not complaining. I am glad it has grown back but it’s true, so many months of the awkward stage. Having short hair was great when it came to the time it took me to get ready! I have always had straight hair and like others, when it came back it was curly, with a capital C and full…so much hair! I’ve heard people refer to it as “chemo curls” and I had them. That was the most out-of-control stage and the stage I needed the most amount of hair product. I think you will see the uncanny resemblance to Napoleon Dynamite during the awkward growing back stage.

 

It all changed when I found out I was facing more treatment and would lose those not so luscious curls.  I decided that I would cut it off into a cute pixie and let it fall out when it looked normal and not fight the awkwardness just to have it fall out again. But……

 

The Joke Was On Me

 

I started a chemotherapy treatment, Avastin, that was intended to keep the cancer quiet while I was waiting to go on the trial that I would lose my hair again. Days before starting that trial I was scanned for baseline images to find out that my tumors had shrunk and in some cases resolved! Yes, the Avastin was making my cancer was go away! The new plan was for me and my pixie cut to stay on the maintenance chemo so the process of growing back started all over.

 

 

 

 

I’m still on the maintenance drug and my hair is growing.  It’s at a point where I feel like I actually look like me again.  I don’t ever want to lose my hair again but not because of my appearance, simply because I am done with cancer and hopeful that chapter is behind me. As of the writing of this post, this is what I look like which looks like me, to me and I think to others.