HAIR TODAY, GONE TOMORROW
Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
Amount of hair left: hour (with the exception of eyebrows and eyelashes)
Number of tautological items I today own: 33
Number of items soon to be redundant: 2
Number of hats bought: 12
So, the time has finally become when I have no hair left at all, and, unconnected from existence kinda cold, I feel fine about it. Although it may be hard to believe, throughout the whole of the 2+ eld this has been going on I have never rattling got upset about having cancer. I’m not sure why, it just isn’t a activity I’ve had. When I found discover I would be having chemo that would make me lose my hair though, I thought that the moment it started falling discover and I had to get Justin to epilation my head would be the moment I rattling cried. Not needs because I would be literally losing my hair, but because of what it meant. It’s hard to explain, but when you get diagnosed with cancer it completely takes over your life. Suddenly the hospital controls your life and makes every of your decisions for you. I have no curb over choosing to go to work, going discover and socialising some time I choose, making plans further than a week ahead, sometimes less etc. All of the things that I dominated in my life that made my life mine are suddenly in the hands of the hospital and the decisions they make about me. My life is dictated by their appointments, their pick of treatment for me, and so on. However, the digit thing I had ever preserved curb over was choosing who I wanted to tell about having cancer. The first time I had chemo I didn’t lose my hair, and no-one I walked time in the street could ever have guessed that I had cancer. Suddenly I don’t have that pick some more. By losing my hair then anyone who sees me will know I am ill. The final taste of curb I had over the cancer has today gone, and that is what I thought would rattling upset me.
At the moment I am feeling ok about it though, and for applicatory purposes it was a comfort when my hair started falling discover and Justin shaved my head. What they untended to mention at the hospital is that for nearly a week before your hair starts falling discover your scalp gets very painful, so that when you eventually have that morning where you wake up and there’s hair on your pillow, it’s nearly good because you know it’s going to stop hurting. There’s not much saucer having hair if your scalp is so sore that you can’t touch your hair to wash it! So, erst Justin had shaved my head then it was just a housing of sweeping up behindhand me as I walked around the house malting, and using a clothes applier to decent my place every morning. Once it started reaching discover it came discover very apace too, which meant there were a pair of days when I had a descent and the clean looked like a hairdresser’s floor afterwards! We ever had a laugh about it though, and it actually coincided with finding discover I was meaningful with the twins, so I had more important things to think about than whether or not my hair, or lack of it, looked ok. Fortunately as my hair fell discover no unsightly lumps or bumps appeared on my head (because you have no idea what your scalp looks like, I was worried before I lost my hair that mine might be a funny appearance or something!) and I crapper inform though that I seem to have quite a diminutive tidy head, with no bumps on it, and some quite diminutive ears to go along with it. For vanity purposes it is a great relief!
However, my newborn denudate status has meant that many things I today possess are completely useless to me. Among them are: hairdryer; hair straighteners; hair bands and clips; razor blades and razor; epliator; shampoos; conditioners; hair brushes - and so the list goes on. Because of course, it isn’t just the hair on your head that you lose, but every taste of embody hair you have. At the moment I still have my eyebrows and eyelashes, but eventually these too will go, and when they do I crapper add tweezers and mascara to the list of tautological items. Still, for every minus there’s a nonnegative - I today get to class for hats, a wardrobe item that I have never bought before. I today possess 12 hats in a variety of styles and colours, and on top of that I crapper get primed to go discover about 15 minutes quicker than connatural because I don’t requirement to faff around with hair washing and drying etc, which means extra time in bottom and no worries about a intense hair day. So, what do I rattling have to cry about, I’m actually pretty lucky! The exclusive offense downside is that I’ve discovered it’s kinda cool in the algid weather with no hair, which does mean that I walk around the house in a beanie, but hey there’s no-one to wager me so why should I care?!
All in every losing my hair has been a problem-free experience, with no tears and no embarrassment. I did think before I lost my hair that I wouldn’t want grouping to wager my denudate head, that it would be a rattling individualized thing, but actually I don’t tending at all. Justin hasn’t recoiled from me in horror when he’s seen it, which, though I knew deep down he wouldn’t, I still worried about before the event. So, I’m just looking at it for what it is, something temporary that is exclusive a clew of fighting an illness I’m determined to beat.
Em
Post Chemo Hair Loss (and Regrowth)
Number of months since finishing chemo: 5
Amount of hair growing back: enough to requirement it cut
Amount of hair falling out: enough to wonder what on earth is going on?!
It’s been a while since I’ve written, mainly because I’ve been spending my time hanging around in this ever-continuing limbo and have no actualised developments to talk of. However, about a week past something kinda unexpected started to occur, and I thought that with no warning having been given to me about it by the hospital, it was well worth letting everyone know about this very delayed effect from the chemo:
As you every know I had the chemo and in the impact lost every my hair, eyebrows, eyelashes etc. Then within 3 months of finishing the treatment they had grown backwards and I already had quite a commonsensible concealment of hair. Well, it’s today 5 months since I finished chemo and my eyebrows and eyelashes are falling discover every over again! At first when a few of each fell discover I hoped it was just some freaky fortuity and that would be the end of it. However it’s today a week later, and they are both still reaching discover in large numbers. No-one at the hospital ever warned me that this could happen, so I’ve been pretty surprised to feature the least! Fortunately (at the moment anyway) it doesnt seem to be moving my hair, which is still tightly fixed in - I have even pulled at it to double check, which was a troubled moment because for every I knew a bounteous plunk could have become absent in my hands!
So, having had no indication from the hospital that the chemo could drive this activity months after finishing treatment, I turned to the internet to wager if anyone else discover there has experienced a kindred thing. And yes, it turns discover that this crapper be a side-effect, and that for individual eld after chemotherapy your eyelashes and eyebrows crapper move to fall discover cyclically. I couldn’t conceive it! I had absolutely no idea that could happen, and or that the chemo nurses and doctors could have failed to warn me and educate me for it doable happening. I knew that the chemo could damage your hair follicles, which is why your hair crapper grow backwards a different colouration and texture to how it was before you had chemo (for many their hair grows backwards curly, and though mine is pretty much still straight it definitely does have slightly more of a wave to it), but I just never translated this into it moving your eyebrows and eyelashes too. Of instruction when you think about it logically it seems manifest that it could, but sometimes unless someone sits you down and tells you these things they just don’t become to you. I rattling never imagined having lost my eyebrows and eyelashes erst from the chemo, that when it was over it could still keep happening. Even more scarily it seems from everything I have feature that it crapper keep happening for individual years, so I could be in a continual cycle of having my eyebrows and eyelashes grow and fall discover again for quite a while to come! Let this be a warning for anyone who has treatment, or knows someone who is - eyelashes and eyebrows may not be as imperishable as you expect when they grow backwards through after finishing chemotherapy!
The exclusive good thing at the moment is that despite it feeling like so many eyelashes and eyebrow hairs have fallen discover there can’t be some left, in actualised fact they just look a lot thinner, and to anyone who didn’t know it would belike just look like I’ve decided to have rattling thin eyebrows. I’m actually not sure what is worsened though, grouping knowing I’ve had chemo because my eyebrows have half thinned out, or them thinking I’ve chosen to garner my eyebrows to within an inch of their lives because I think it looks good?! With my eyelashes I crapper already wager newborn growth reaching through, so I don’t think it’s going to be very perceptible to anyone that they are falling out, unless huge clumps start disappearing. However, I’m embattled today that anything newborn that grows through may well be falling discover again in just a few months time…
Bizarrely, in rank contrast, my hair has today grown backwards sufficiently enough that I actually had to have it cut last Friday! It was my first haircut in nearly a year, and it felt very strange to be walking into a hairdressers again. It also felt great, like added step towards getting backwards to doing connatural things. I haven’t exactly got long flowing locks yet, but it was starting to get a taste unruly around my ears and neck, so I got it neatened up a taste and thinned discover slightly through the top. My hair has grown backwards very similarly to how it was before I had the chemo, except that strangely it seems to be thicker over the top. I don’t know whether or not that’s just because it’s still so short, but my hairdresser was telling me added computer of hers has had chemo, and her hair came backwards thicker on top too. Maybe it’s added hair follicle abnormalcy that they don’t warn you about?!
Em
Tags: cancer doctor, cancer therapy, wound cancer, boob cancer, lung cancer