Bye Bye Hair!

Today is the day that my hair fell out - rather spectacularly! Some people find that their hair falls out gradually others end up like me, it pretty much all falls out over the space of a few hours.

I woke up in the early hours with an aching head and realised that it was in fact the outside of my head that was hurting at which point I knew that major hairloss was on its way. However much you mentally prepare for it by reading advice leaflets, listening to other people's experiences when it finally happens it comes as a shock. I was washing my hair and as I did so I realised that most of it was either in my hands or in the bath. Huge handfuls of it leaving me with sore bare patches on my head. At first all I could do was look at it in disbelief, surely that couldn't possibly be my hair? Sadly of course that's exactly what it was and the more I ran my hands through it the more it came out so there was only one thing left to do - get rid of it all.

My husband is a dab hand with the clippers as he cuts his own hair, so over the course of an hour we cut and clippered away what was left. I guess you could say that a neat job was made of it but there is no way that I am going to say that I like it! It reinforces everything I've been saying to those around me - short hair doesn't suit me. Nope, it makes me look old and it screams out 'cancer patient' louder than anything else can. I know it will grow back but that doesn't help deal with the now.

I feel mixture of things - hatred of cancer and what it is doing to me on the inside, hatred of chemotherapy and what it is doing to me both mentally as well as physically but a little voice (and tonight it really is a little voice) is also saying that if my hair is falling out maybe that's a sign that the chemotherapy is actually doing its job. . .

I have week to go to my second course of AC and the thoughts of having to go through the whole sickness, oral mucositis crap is horrible but what are the alternatives? All I can say right now is that I've managed to survive cycle #1 which means that there are only 7 left to get through.