Ahead of Our Time
Living with Permanent Chemo-Induced Alopecia
Ahead of Our Time
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Through the Eyes of a Plaintiff
Posted September 9th, 2022
I had Inflammatory Breast Cancer in 2011 at age 53. This has/had a 5% survival rate, so my doctor rushed me into chemotherapy the week after it was confirmed in the path lab (for the insurance, natch, my doctors knew as soon as they saw my breast)... read more
Never has the Need for Transparency been Greater
Posted November 24th, 2021
After attending the second week of Bellwether trial no.2 Sanofi v Plaintiff (Elizabeth Kahn) never has the need for transparency been greater. The evidence I heard shocked me to my core and I need to share this burden that has now embedded itself deep in my soul. You think THAT sounds dramatic?... read more
Empower and Educate
Posted 09/08/2021
It’s been seven years since my memoir Naked in the Wind: Chemo, Hair Loss and Deceit hit the digital shelves of Amazon. It felt strange. There was relief, elation and worry all rolled into one. Relief because tapping away on the PC during the nights filled with insomnia, brought all the trauma flooding back, revisiting my nightmare.... read more
A Melancholy Anniversary
9 comments
Posted on March 1, 2017
Ten years ago today, I saw my hair for the last time. I had received my second treatment of FEC (Fluorouracil, Epirubicin Cyclophosphamide) the week before and had been ‘finger combing’ my hair every morning since, knowing it was only a matter of time until clumps of hair would abandon my scalp and my inevitable baldness would ensue...... read more
All Trumped Up
Posted on January 4, 2017
I am forever grateful to have survived cancer. This blog article is simply to raise awareness about chemotherapy and permanent hair loss (alopecia)...... read more
Christine: This is not as easy as people think
Posted on May 17, 2016
Before chemo with Taxotere
Those of us who have experienced chemotherapy for breast cancer can no doubt recall all too well, the horror of the loss of our hair. For most women, this initial distress gives way to eventual acceptance, because we take comfort from our doctors telling us that our hair will soon grow back. Sometimes there is even curiosity about colour and texture, and a certain eagerness present, waiting for that familiar fuzz to appear, signaling the start of a new head of hair...... read more
Taxotears Turns Ten
Posted on April 4, 2016
Later this year will be a bittersweet celebration for myself and many ladies from around the world. Bitter because it marks the anniversary of the birth of a highly successful support group that I have been involved with from the first day......read more
Michelle: The inconvenient truth
Posted on March 8, 2016
If you were told that you needed to have chemotherapy to combat cancer, what is the first thing that would most likely come to mind? After the initial shock of the diagnosis, you would most likely be ready to fight the disease with everything that modern medicine has to offer. You would know that chemotherapy would most probably cause you to lose your hair, but conventional wisdom says that after treatment, your hair would grow back thicker, stronger, and more beautiful than ever. Right? Wrong! There are many of us who, after treatment, much to our horror, learned that we would be permanently bald. This is a disfigurement that in this era of modern medicine is not only devastating but totally unacceptable......read more
Erica: The Caption Contest
Posted on December 9, 2015
It’s been over four years since Taxotere took my hair for good. And about four years since I read a harrowing story that’s haunted me ever since...... read more
Lise: Finding the Colour Again
Posted on November 24, 2015
The painting details my receding hairline, the ghastly thin hair, my lack of eyebrows and eyelashes, the impact of the permanent disfigurement of losing my thick, long blond hair from FEC D (FEC T). The cruel irony of being alive but having to live with such a horrifying disfigurement, the desperation I feel when I look at myself closely in a mirror. The colour and vibrance in my life has washed away...... read more
Emma: If only…
Posted on November 17, 2015
Diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010, I put myself completely in the hands of the excellent UK NHS care. I was treated with kindness and support and was completely reassured about all aspects of my treatment. I only have praise and gratitude for the specialist nurses, the surgeons, the oncologists and the many others involved in my treatment and care...... read more
Taxotere Doesn’t Discriminate
Posted on November 10, 2015
We’ve banded together as bald breast cancer female survivors. We found each other via this site and our numbers continue to grow.
I have always wondered about the people who don’t find us, are befuddled by their lack of hair, don’t report, or succumb to their disease and this side effect remains unknown...... read more
Kathy: So Much Loss
Posted on June 17, 2010
When I was 39, I was diagnosed with a Grade III infiltrating duct carcinoma. It was a couple of weeks after my daughter had spinal surgery, and I was so in shock, I just did everything that was recommended to me. I assumed that the doctors knew everything, and would do only what was absolutely necessary to save my life so that I could care for my family...... read more
My Hair or My Life?
1 comment
Posted on April 21, 2010
Ever since a story in The Globe and Mail linked the chemotherapy drug Taxotere to irreversible hair loss, some have tried to turn it into a “my-hair-or-my-life” debate. This is just hair-raising hyperbole and a blatant disregard for the facts...... read more
Shirley and Sanofi-Aventis: Facing off on Facebook
Posted on March 19, 2010
As part of my campaign to make patients aware that the chemotherapy drug, Taxotere, has been linked to permanent baldness–and that it might not just be temporary as I was told–I started writing letters to Sanofi-Aventis, the manufacturer of the drug...... read more
Shirley: The Taxoterrorist
1 comment
Posted on March 17, 2010
I was a healthy 47-year-old woman… or so I thought. I had never been overweight, always ate healthy and swam four times a week. I didn’t smoke. No cancer in the family. How could I possibly get breast cancer?!..... read more
Baldly Forward
7 comments
Posted on March 3, 2010
I’d planned to mark my 50th birthday with six-pack abs and Popeye biceps. At 49, I was right on target. At 49 ½, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. All that running, yoga and those “grass drinks”, as my boyfriend calls them, didn’t stave off old age or disease. But chemotherapy did stave off my hair......read more
Shorn of my Femininity
9 comments
Posted on February 10, 2010
Breast cancer, I was determined, would not turn me into a frump. After all, “It’s better to look good than to feel good,” joked Billy Crystal as Fernando Lamos on Saturday Night Live...... read more
The Hair Follies
2 comments
Posted on January 5, 2010
I’m really torn about this whole process—I hate using the word ‘survivor’ re: cancer. So many other people have to endure debilitating conditions every day, year after year, and their lives are such a struggle!! We endure short-term treatment, and for the most part continue to live on relatively carefree. Those people would gladly sacrifice their hair if they could trade with us! Does our perspective make us all seem incredibly vain?..... read more
Carol: The Chronicle of my Follicles
31 comments
Posted on December 29, 2009
Jan 07—Diagnosed with 70% chance of mets; prescribed the harshest chemo available: 3 FEC/3 T (3 X Fluorouracil, Epirubicin and Cyclophosphamide/3 X Taxotere). Was told ALL my hair would disappear. Bought wig as pre-emptive measure...... read more
Nancy: Déjà Vu
4 comments
Posted on December 15, 2009
My sister, and my best friend, died in 2002 at the age of 54 after a difficult seven-year fight with breast cancer. I was my sister’s support system during her journey and I thought I knew everything about breast cancer. Later, I learned I didn’t. Little did I know that chemo would leave me permanently bald...... read more
Cynthia: The Bald Facts
4 comments
Posted on December 1, 2009
I always loved doing crazy things with my hair: red, black, asymmetric. Streaked. Short. Shorn. My hairstylist loved me. He’d give me a massage and a glass of wine and he’d get happy with the scissors. He could have shaved “Up Yours” on the back of my head and I would have laughed...... read more