{hair be damned}

My last post felt like a quick purging of information from my appointments with my oncologists, which it probably was.  I haven’t had time to sit and type like I want to, like I was able to last time.  I seem to have a lot more going on this time so I’m not able to sit, but at the same time I am crazy busy with kids, going back to school, coaching, being mom and wife and just dealing so it keeps me busy and distracted.  In my last post I talked about my soul being crushed and my breaking point.  I said finding out my treatment plan was my breaking point and when my aunt mentioned “soul crushing” that hit the nail on the head. It was the same thing as finding my breaking point.  

I had a hard emotional week after two days of appointments with my oncologists. One of the hardest things for me to wrap my head around was the thought of losing my hair.  Before we met with my oncologist I had been doing a little reading online about chemo and hair loss.  The first site I clicked on was the Mayo Clinic.  I try not to read too much online because there is just way too much information out there and you never know when you will come across a not so reputable site.  So I try to stick with just a few, www.mayoclinic.org, www.breastcancer.org, and www.webmd.com. So when I clicked on an article on the Mayo Clinic’s site regarding chemotherapy and hair loss I read this opening caption, “Plan to use your energy staying healthy rather than worrying about how you look.” F You, Mayo Clinic. That had to have been written by somebody that has never lost their hair due to cancer treatment or an insensitive man. A woman, okay many women, are going to worry about what they look like when they are bald, when they have lost their hair against their will.  You can’t just tell them to not worry about how they look. If bald was an awesome look for a woman, more women would choose to go bald because believe me blow drying and fixing your hair everyday is sometimes a pain in the ass. All those days I had a bad hair day and said, “I should just shave my head!” is coming back to bite me in the ass.  

I’ve struggled with losing my hair for several reasons. One, I get pissed at myself because I’m having a hard time with it, it’s hair, it will grow back, damn it!  Two, very simply, I’m going to lose my hair. I believe there are very few women that wouldn’t find this hard to think about.  Vain or not, our hair is a part of our femininity. We wouldn’t worry about regular haircuts, highlights, coloring our greys (actually, I’ve never done either of those), or freak out over a bad hair day if our hair didn’t matter.  It. Matters. For some people less than others, I realize that, but it still matters. In the middle of it the reality of losing my hair is devastating to me, maybe more so than losing my natural boobs. My boobs I could cover up, after my mastectomy nobody would look at me and think, “Oh, she’s a cancer patient.” Bald head, during and well after chemo, people will look at me and know, “Oh, she’s a cancer patient.” After treatment, I will still look like a cancer patient.  That pisses me off. I haven’t been sick with Cancer 2.0 and now with chemo I will be sick and I will look sick. That pisses me off. The thought of losing my hair is devastating to me. That pisses me off.  I want to be stronger than that.  I want to not care. I want to have a head shaving party and celebrate the glory of my bald head. I’m not strong enough to do that and that pisses me off.  I want to be that girl, but I’m not.  I’m the girl that is mourning the loss of her hair every step of the way.  I’m the girl that is tearing up while typing this because I’m afraid that I might not shave my head before I see my hair start to fall out.  I’m the girl that left her radiation oncology appointment and started calling and walking into salons until I found somebody that could do a walk-in haircut because I couldn’t stand the thought of going home and seeing my long hair anymore. I’m the girl that is going to be going way out of my comfort zone to try to embrace my hair loss as a show of strength. I’m the girl that is going to fail to do that on more than one occasion. BUT, as devastating as it still feels, at the same time I have wrapped my head around it a bit...and that, my friends, is a small victory for me and a loss for cancer. 

A week and a day after I chopped my hair off I had coffee with a friend.  I didn’t feel like going, but I knew I had to catch up with this friend who is also a survivor, one of my biggest cheerleaders, and who has walked this chemo and hair loss walk before me. She gave me an out, she told me we could cancel coffee and I could go home. But, I couldn’t do that because all I wanted to do was hole up at home and that gets me nowhere except feeling down and sad. So I sat, we chatted, she shared, and I started to feel better. She knows and validates my feelings and fears and lets me own them. At the end of our coffee date I was feeling much better and my week started to turn around. Before I left she had a few things to loan me, a wig and some head wraps of various styles.  When I got home I took them out of the bag, one of the head wraps was a pre-tied scarf. I pulled my hair back, put it on and made myself look at my reflection in the mirror. It was hard, but at the same time I looked at myself, sighed, and thought, “Ok, I can do this.” So though I can’t stand the thought of losing my hair, I now feel like I have a relatively firm grasp on the reality of it.  Today I have a hair appointment to get my hair cut again, an even shorter style than it is now. Next Wednesday I have an appointment to get my hair cut again, a pixie cut of some sort.  Gradual “in between” styles to try some out for ideas when it starts to grow back. I’m not saying I am happy about this or loving this idea or process, but I’m feeling strong enough to do this when even a couple days ago I had planned to cancel the “in between” hair appointments.  

Sometime in between my pixie haircut and my second treatment, I will be getting my head shaved. My goal is to do that before I witness my hair start to fall out. I don't have much control over what is going to be happening to my body, but when I lose my hair I can do on my own terms. That I have control of.

So, in my world...losing my hair + the fear of health problems that I may have in the future due to treatments I am having to hopefully rid myself of cancer = a soul crushing, breaking point kind of week. But, like everything else, this too shall pass, I continue to move forward, I am having far more positive days (with an occasional mix of the blues, but that is okay), and I will probably be better for this journey on the other side. My sister-in-law sent me a message awhile back and said, “I can’t wait to see the person you are on the other side!” You know what? Neither can I.