16 E-mail: hair pictures

4/16/06

Losing my hair was a hard experience. The first day it started coming out I was a little upset. The second day I was a lot upset. By the third day I was a basket case and spent a good deal of time crying about it. The fourth day, yesterday, I couldn’t take it anymore. The hair follicles hurt and made my head very tender. The pain was a constant reminder of the hair loss, and the roots of my hair turned black so that every strand that came out looked ugly to me.

I went to my favorite hairstylist, Diana Vicars, and kept my back to the mirror while she cut off my remaining hair and shaved my head.

Guy can tell you what a difference getting my head shaved made. I felt like I was in control of my appearance again, and my spirits improved drastically.

Today I’m nearly my old self again – upbeat, optimistic, determined.

Here are three pictures.

Guy took pictures of me last weekend before my hair started falling out so that we could preserve the memory of what it looked like when it looked good. We think the wig looks pretty good, too, and I like the confidence the wig gives me in my appearance. I’ll have to model the hats sometime soon as well. I like they way they feel and I don’t think I’ll have a problem wearing them in public. Today’s picture of the bald head reveals stubble. Diana says it will take a while for all the stubble to fall out on its own. In the meantime, I’m no longer crying throughout the day. What a relief!

Angela

What I didn't think to write here was that my husband saved some of my hair. It would fall out in clumps. I would sniffle and add the latest clump to the collection I had on a disposable plate. While I was taking a nap Guy collected the hair, stored it somewhere, and threw away the plates. He couldn't bear seeing me cry or almost cry every time I added to the pile, so he declared the hair collection full enough and removed the visual reminders of the changes that hurt so much. Someday I'll ask him where my old hair is. I'm not ready to see it again yet.

5/23/2007
It's been over a year since I wrote this entry. It doesn't exactly do justice to the experience of losing my hair. Now that I'm out of treatment and my hair has grown back, it is not so traumatic to look back and recount a few more details.

Day 1 - I noticed a few extra hairs in my brush in the morning. I felt sad and resigned to what was coming but it wasn't so bad yet.
Day 2 - This was my second round of chemotherapy. My oncologist asked, "What are you still doing with your own hair?" I laughed ruefully and told him it was starting to fall out. During chemo it got worse. Every time I looked down my shirt would be covered with loose hairs. I would pull them off and throw them away, and a few minutes later my shirt would be covered again. That was annoying and sad, and I didn't want to brush my hair at all.
Day 3 - I went to the grocery store in the morning. The wind blew and lifted my hair. It hurt! That surprised me, and when I got home from the store I looked in the mirror and saw that my hair looked dead. It was limp, dull, and resembled hair that's been unwashed for several days only it lacked the greasy shine. By afternoon, it hurt when I wore a scarf. It hurt if I wore a hat. It hurt if I didn't wear a scarf or hat. It just hurt, and it was very hard to take. This was a Friday. Diana was coming over on Sunday. I was trying to hang in there until my stylist came over to our house (to watch Kelric for several hours and give us a break on her day off) and she said she would shave my head then if I wanted. I wanted that done in the privacy of my own home so I was trying to wait, but by Saturday, Day 4, I couldn't wait anymore.
Day 4 - I was miserable. I was depressed. Diana offered to wash my hair before the cut and shave. I said, "Are you crazy? Your sink will fill up with hair!" She said she knew that and it was okay so I settled in to have my hair washed. She gently touched my scalp and a hundred tiny little dead hair follicles poked my tender scalp and I winced. She abandoned the wash and set me up in the chair for the trim. I asked to be turned away from the mirror, and that is how I got through the experience.

What was interesting was how liberating it felt to have all those little points of pain removed. The remaining hair was so dark that the black tips of what later fell out were less apparent and so they didn't freak me out as much. I found myself wishing I had gotten my head shaved sooner and I make a point of counseling women new to treatment not to wait as I did.

I like the stories where women turned their head shaving events into a celebration. That's a much better way to handle it.

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