Halfway There

Got my second treatment last Wednesday and it went pretty much as expected.  As I read this back I think, "Well, now, that's not really the case."  I didn't know what to expect.  I guess I can say that it was a similar experience to the first time.  I'm managing the neuralgia and myalgia better this time with ibuprofen--a miracle drug I discovered with endometriosis.  My nausea and tiredness is worse, but not significant or debilitating.  I finally used one of the $22 per pill nausea drugs so that I could make it through Alvin Ailey II--my wonderful Christmas gift from my fabulous husband who certainly knows the way to my heart.

Now I can say that I'm halfway done--and not in the turkey in the oven way, either.  As you've probably noted on my sidebar, I lost all my hair last weekend.  Well, not all.  I still had the stubble from the last time I shaved my legs.  It wasn't getting any longer and it wasn't falling out, so I decided to shave it off and see what happens.  Jury's still out.  As far as my flowing tresses (hah) the most bizarre thing is that the only hair on my head that is regrowing is the silver hair.  And the only chin hair that is coming back is--you guessed it--silver.  What the hell is that all about?

I'd like to pretend that I'm taking this well, but that would be a lie.  I actually thought I might be one of those rare, lucky people who didn't lose her hair.  But it became apparent that something was happening when my scalp ached.  I could feel each individual hair on my head hurting.  It hurt when I laid down to sleep.  It hurt to lean against the headrest in the car.  It hurt to run my fingers through it.  I understand the way a cat feels when you rub it from its tail towards its head.  It just feels wrong.

Then, I noticed a couple more hairs than usual when I styled it using my fingers.  Then the next day  there were more hairs getting stuck between my fingers.  It never really fell out in clumps like a lot of people describe.  Just more and more would fall out from all over, but only when I pulled on it.  I never lost any on my pillow at night, but when I showered it would come down like rain.  I lost the vast majority of it in one day, Saturday, February 14.  And Happy Lovers Day to you, Joan Magnelli.  My hair had become so thin by that evening that there was no point in keeping it any longer.  I had Mickey shave it the next day.

I cried buckets and buckets.  I huddled under the covers and wailed.  I tried to be reasonable and intellectual but found out just how emotional I am about this.  I have a friend who has been through both brain and testicular cancer.  He has what he describes as a trapdoor in his skull where they removed the brain tumor.  He hangs to the left (or is it the right?)  But of all his experiences he says that losing his hair was the worst.  

The hardest part of being bald is that I have lost my privacy.  While I had a great do, I could choose whom I told about the cancer.  But without it, I have become a marked woman.  Every bloody body walking down the street knows what I'm going through.  I can feel their eyes drilling holes in the back of my head when I stop in at Starbucks.   I catch their hastily averted eyes in the grocery store.  In short, I feel like a freak.

I know that inside I'm still the same me and it will grow back, yada, yada.  But I tell you, those French people who shaved the heads of the women who consorted with the German officers during WWII knew what they were doing.  It's odd how losing your hair in this way feels shameful and dehumanizing.  Wish I could put a more positive spin on this one, but there you have it.  And I thought I was prepared for it--had my hats and wigs, etc.  But now that it's happened, it feels like the worst thing that's ever happened to me.

But the good news is that I still have my brows and lashes.  For now, anyway.