Cynthia: The Bald Facts contd.

 

“After all,” I said. “It’s only hair. If I don’t like it, it’ll grow.”

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That was before breast cancer. If I’d known what I know now, I would have gathered up those last scraps of hair from the salon floor like strands of gold.  As a lifelong athlete, I decided to approach treatment like training for a race—with perseverance, patience and a sense of humour. My new “training schedule”, was clearly explained to me: a partial mastectomy, six rounds of chemotherapy, plus 31 doses of radiation.

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The chemo—a powerful cocktail of Taxotere, Adriamycin and Cyclophosphamide—would make me feel nauseous, my white blood cell count would plummet… and I would lose my hair. But my hair would grow back, they promised. And I would go back to normal—or at least a new normal.

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Eight months after my chemo finished, I am as bald as a bean.
My doctors are perplexed. People try not to stare. I hide in the house on a sunny day.

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“It’ll grow back,” console well-meaning friends. “Wear a wig,” others suggest dismissively. Finally, my oncologist—obviously a mad scientist—told me to rub garlic on my head. My sense of humour is running out.

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“Do you have nose hair?” asked a curious friend.

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“Let me check,” I said. Then he stared in disbelief while I, a well-mannered middle-aged woman, stuck my finger up my nose.

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“No,” I said, after considerable excavation. “Nada—no ear hair, no eyelashes, no eyebrows.”

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I used to want so much in life—so much stuff—but now I would settle for the simple gift of eyelashes. Hair is so much more than vanity. It’s protection. It’s warmth. It’s the very essence of femininity. My head, once a form of whimsical self-expression, is now a scar—a daily reminder of my disease.

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So, love your hair… “long, straight, curly, fuzzy, snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty,” as the musical “Hair” celebrates. “There ain’t no words
for the beauty, the splendor, the wonder of my… hair.”

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#alopecia #chemo #hair  #taxotere #wigs #Adriamycin #Cyclophosphamide #wearawig #oncologist