A Chance to Experiment

Making our way back to the hairloss issue ...
It's now been just over a month since the evening when Mike and I took the clippers to my hair for the second time and gave me little more than a head full of "pricklies." Shaving my head was much less difficult than I first imagined it would be. When Dr. Butler first mentioned that I may have to have chemotherapy and would most likely lose my hair (just a week after I arrived home from Korea) I can remember being completely devastated. My heart sunk. I even felt as though my life was over. I obsessed about it and convinced myself that I would never have to do chemo simply because I just could not imagine not having the long blonde hair I had for my entire life. But, there are some things we simply cannot control. And this was one of those things for me. I had to lose my hair.

Here we are, and I've now been hairless (or mostly hairless, anyhow) for a month. The progression of my hairloss was rather bizarre or was at least not what I was expecting. As you may or may not remember, my hair began falling about 2-3 weeks after my first treatment. I chose to buzz it to about 3/4 of an inch when it began falling out and over the following week, it began thinning more and more. I then chose to buzz it once again, about 4 weeks after my first treatment, until I was left with nothing but fuzz. My hairline then slowly began to recede--and I mean slowly. I was halfway through the second treatment and still had half a head of "rough stuff" starting in the middle of the scalp and continuing right to the back of my head. The crown of my head was especially not catching on to the whole hairloss thing--it hung on for dear life, almost as stubborn as me I suppose.

I think that because I buzzed my hair during the 4th week of chemo, it then became difficult for me to continue monitoring the progression of my hairloss. It was so short (almost completely bald) that it was hard to see what was happening with it. I will report, however, that as of now (Week 10 or Chemo 3, day 15) I have still yet to have a completely bald, shiny head. As of now, there are little blonde hairs scattered all over the entire front part of my scalp--they are quite visible, especially in the light. When I rub my hand along the back part of my scalp all I can feel is "pricklies." I'm unsure whether this is all new growth or whether it is all just hair that didn't fall out. I did do some researching into it, though, and discovered that the hair CAN begin to grow back in between treatments. On a forum I read that the hair can become resistent to the chemotherapy chemicals (I'm not sure how reliable this information is). But, there are other people who have reported their hair growing back before chemo ended, although it doesn't seem to be common.

Let's talk about hair in other areas--I'm sure you're wondering about this by now. My eyebrows and eyelashes are still growing strong. I have read that these usually don't start falling out, however, until the 3rd or 4th treatment. Some people do not lose their eyebrows and eyelashes at all, while others just experience thinning (which can be severe). I even read about a lady whose eyebrows/lashes didn't begin falling out until close to a month after her fourth and final treatment. That had to be a bummer. But, people say that they usually grow back quite quickly and when they start growing back it usually only takes 1-2 weeks for them to finish. I have to say, however, that I am not looking forward to losing them and I'm hoping and wishing that I will be one of the luckly ones who can keep them.
My arm and leg hair is growing as usual. The particular treatment I am doing doesn't normally cause hairloss in these areas. My underarms and "bikini area" were the first places to lose hair and are now just about bald.

Overall, I feel that I am coping with hairloss quite well. I was blessed to have a very small head so the appearance of it bald is rather nice. I have never hid my bald head and since day 1 I have been prancing around the house without anything covering it. When I go out in public I either wear a beanie (Enzo got me a super cute white Armani beanie in Italy that I love ... Thanks Enz), a hat (I have 1 favorite that really fits my style and personality), or one of my wigs (I now have 2 favorite wigs ... one blonde and one brown). I do find the wigs to be uncomfortable for longer-term wearing. After a couple of hours they cause my head to become extremely itchy and uncomfortable. I wear something to cover my scalp beneath the wig, but this only helps minimally. Because of this, I usually only wear the wigs if I want to be dressed up or if I know I won't be somewhere for an extended amount of time.

I feel that losing my hair gave me an opportunity to experiment with my looks and take my appearance to the limit. I now know what my hair looks like long, shoulder length, Sienna Miller short, Halle Berry short, dark brown, light brown, dark blonde, platinum blonde, buzzed, and bald. Although sometimes I do long to have my own hair, being temporarily bald is not all that bad. I again rerturn to my favorite philosophy on life, which is that you need to take positives from everything in life, see the opportunities in things, and realize that everything happens for a reason.

If you've done or are doing AC treatments, please tell me if and when you lost your eyebrows/lashes ... also feel free to post any questions.