A Melancholy Anniversary contd.

 

On February 13, 2007, I had a lunch date with my good friend John. In the shower that morning, my finger comb filled up over and over with my loosening hair. Although I knew I was going to lose my hair with treatment, I surprised myself at how upset I was watching the hundreds of strands collect at the drain.

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I got on the phone to the hairdresser only to find out my regular stylist was off that day. I lost it and had to hang up. Once I composed myself, I called back to make a late morning appointment with someone else and John and I stopped off at the salon for a really short haircut before heading off for lunch.

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I had a really good head of healthy, full ‘Irish’ hair—so much so that sometimes I would grumble at how long it took to dry—I could never go to bed with damp hair because it would be a wavy mess in the morning and I would have to start the drying process all over again. I remember the last time I wished my hair would dry faster and have often regretted even thinking it.

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I was so lucky as every day I could get out of bed, run my fingers down my part and my hair would settle into its style. With a bit of blush and lipstick, I was ready to start my day. My eyebrows had thinned a bit as I got older, but I had lovely, lush lashes which had never required mascara—I had always been a ‘get up and go’ kind of girl. I felt lucky that I never had to worry about running mascara or spend that extra time at night removing eye makeup.

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How things have changed! I have about one quarter of the hair I had in the shower that fateful morning. My thin, post Taxotere hair sticks up all over my head every morning and needs ‘arranging’ daily—sometimes more often if I am caught in the wind and my extra strength hair ‘goos’ don’t hold. I’ve never been a hat person—with all the hair I used to have I just got too hot and now wearing hats just reminds me of when I was bald and sick and had to wear them. My eyebrows are non-existent and have to be drawn on every day. My biggest fear is that one or both will wipe off or smudge and I won’t notice. I’ve never been a mirror checker and like wearing a head covering, I still haven’t adopted the habit.

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Our appearance is a neon sign advertising that something is, or has been, very wrong with us.

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I find it interesting that TV ads regularly show men and women lamenting their thinning hair and bald spots with various companies offering treatments and potions to restore their manes. Words like ‘embarrassed’, ‘devastated’, ‘humiliated’ and ‘depressed’ are used to describe their feelings. When cancer patients use these terms with regards to how they feel about their Taxotere induced hair loss, they have been ridiculed and maligned and told they should be happy to be alive. What’s the difference? If someone who is genetically predisposed to thin hair can elicit public attention and commiseration why can’t those who unknowingly took a drug to cure a life-threatening disease and suffered the consequence?

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Taxotere users generally don’t have only their hair loss to contend with. Our group has experienced body changes with lumpectomies or mastectomies and the associated, constant nerve and bone pain; side effects of medication including loss of feeling (neuropathy) in our hands and toes, osteoporosis and joint problems and the constant cloud of recurrence or worse yet, spreading of the disease. We all wonder if the serious treatments we endured have been enough.

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Our appearance is a neon sign advertising to the world that something is, or has been, very wrong with us. After treatment, life usually returns to normal and cancer becomes a mere blip on the timeline of life, but we are reminded every day of the journey we have travelled and the unknown road ahead. Most of us can’t go out in the world without hairpieces, wigs and time-consuming make up tricks—friends tell us not to worry about it, but if the shoe was on the other foot….

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I am thankful that I was never one to depend on my looks, but I am more self-conscious now than I ever have been—even combined with the ‘who knows me?’ and ‘who’s looking at me?’ attitude of an older woman. Very few friends have ‘drop-in’ privileges—I don’t answer my door if I don’t have my hair done and my brows on. I have refused invitations to see former colleagues and old friends because I expect them to be curious about the huge difference in my appearance and I don’t feel like explaining everything or re-introducing myself—it took me four years to recognize myself in a mirror! I don’t seek out former acquaintances and avoid social media. I have changed jobs and met many new people, but take the first opportunity when I get to know them better to self-consciously explain this is a new hair situation. To the annoyance of my friends, picture taking is absolutely out of the question—I don’t know if I’ll ever feel comfortable with the way I look.

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I often ask myself how much longer I am going to hope for the old me. I have waited nine years for my hair to return and am starting to accept that it’s just not going to happen. I have tried all kinds of treatments but, like the other members of our group, there has been little improvement— certainly not enough to continue the twice-daily regimen and associated scrutiny of my scalp.

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We all recognize that many people in the world deal with much more serious circumstances, but we were put in this situation unknowingly and are left to deal with an unnecessary and very difficult consequence. Members of our group diligently scour the Internet for new discoveries to potentially reverse our plight. I keep my fingers crossed that by my 20th anniversary this website and our group will no longer need to exist.

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I can only hope that, in the meantime, the ‘head shamers’ and trolls will step back and examine why they are unable to empathize or keep their comments to themselves.

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#bald  #cancer #chemo #FEC  #hairloss #taxotere