My New 'Do

My doctor and the literature both stated that breast cancer chemotherapy drugs cause hair to fall out between days 14 and 21. While I had no reason not to believe them, even at day 13, I wasn’t losing any more hair than normal. When I woke up on that 14^th day and showered, I knew my luck had ended. Every time I touched my head after that, more hair would come out.

I had scheduled an appointment with Kathy, my breast cancer guru who also, amazingly enough, is a hair stylist, to cut my hair short to lessen the dramatic impact. She actually made a house call since it was just a couple of days after my second round of chemo, to cut my hair (see, I told you she was awesome!) I was looking forward to my short new hair cut, thinking that I could rock a Halle Berry look for a couple of weeks until it got too patchy and I’d have to let it go. That morning in the shower, I was horrified to feel a huge clump of hair wash down the back of my body as I rinsed my head. I got out of the shower and sobbed in Brian’s arms.

Kathy arrived and started cutting. The more she cut off, the more we both realized that already, in just a few short days, I had lost too much hair and the short hair cut wouldn’t work. She brought out the clippers and buzzed away. Even though it was hard to see my hair go, it was much easier than seeing clumps of it come out every time I touched my head (plus, Brian was relieved not to have to sweep any more hair off of our clothes and the bathroom floor!) After Kathy cut my hair, she fitted my wig, and gave it a nice trim. I really like it a lot…it will be nice to have straight hair for a change without having to go through all of the effort to get it that way.

The worst part of losing my hair is that now I actually look like I’m sick. There’s absolutely no denying now, every single time I look at myself in the mirror, that I have cancer…there’s no denying that I’m in the fight for my life.