Losing my hair (and my wig)

funny picture, Eldri.  Glad Spunky didn't decide to drop your wig in a puddle and it's none the worse for the adventure!

Good luck with your counts today and chemo tomorrow.

Hugs, chemosabe.

Chris

In my mind's eye, I could easily see you chasing that adorable Spunky with all you had in you!  Thank you, thank you, thank you for providing me with a good laugh this Monday morning.   When my hair came out in clumps over a two-day period, I remember how very depressed I felt.  There was hair everywhere!  The shower was the worse and I could barely look at the hair clumped in the drain.  On the third day, I looked at my bald head and decided that there was nothing I could do about it so why feel depressed?  I was ok with it after that. 

You will get through this, I promise, and your hair will return as peach fuzz at first, but it will return.   

oh my gosh!!!!!!!!  That is hysterical!!!!!  I am picturing the WHOLE thing, including your husband's comment.  

I remember after shaving my head and my hair was falling out the ITCH!  I was out at a bar with friends and went outside mulitple times to rub my head with the t-shirt I had on it just to easy the itch.  Well it got that putting the t-shirt back on my head was such torture I walked back in to the bar bald.  I couldn't wait to get home to take a shower and wash my head.  

THANK YOU for sharing this GREAT story with us and good luck on the blood test/chemo!

NoTimeForCancer said:

oh my gosh!!!!!!!!  That is

oh my gosh!!!!!!!!  That is hysterical!!!!!  I am picturing the WHOLE thing, including your husband's comment.  

I remember after shaving my head and my hair was falling out the ITCH!  I was out at a bar with friends and went outside mulitple times to rub my head with the t-shirt I had on it just to easy the itch.  Well it got that putting the t-shirt back on my head was such torture I walked back in to the bar bald.  I couldn't wait to get home to take a shower and wash my head.  

THANK YOU for sharing this GREAT story with us and good luck on the blood test/chemo!

GREAT STORY! Thanks so much for sharing with us. I'm still laughing out loud.

Our Husbands.... What would we do without them?!

In fact... today is my husband's 60th birthday.  And, I'm so glad that I have better energy now. (Not great but much better.)  I decided to try out the false eyelashes and eyebrows and make an attempt at not looking like ET for the first time since I joined the hairless party.  It took me 1.5 hours to get the darn lashes on! My fingers don't work well these days (numb from the chemo) and I have zero experience doing this in the first place!  I have to say, the eyebrows were very easy and I love them.  The bottom lashes, not so much.  Top lashes look pretty good.  I put eyeliner on to cover up the false eyelash lines top and bottom. Put my bangs fringe on with a scarf.  I don't look like me because I don't wear that much eye makeup. But, I do look almost normal. We will see how long I can do this today. I'm already having a hot flash and really want to rip the scarf off. :-)

I'm planning his annual birthday dinner that includes steak and lobster. It feels good to do something that is part of our pre-cancer life. We most definitely need the normal days!

Eldri - I spent a lot of time talking myself into losing my hair. it is hard but you do get used to it. At least most of the time. I still have my moments when I look in the mirror and hate what I see. But, I remind myself that it is TEMPORARY! Like other ladies have said, losing my eye lashes and eye brows was a lot harder.  I bought my eye brows from TLC.com. They are human hair and are pricey but worth it. Now that I have put them on, I think I'll continue to do so. They were worth the money!  And, according to the website, they will stay on for several days at a time.

BTW, I still have a little bit of fuzz. And, I continue to have itchy spots and breakouts. I will be glad when it just all goes. I mean, a mostly shiny head anyway, so get rid of the itch already!

I hope you are able to get your second treatment as scheduled and that your side effects aren't too bad for you.

Thanks again for your story. It was very uplifting!

Love and Hugs,

Cindi

Eldri!

Thanks for sharing that!   It put a smile on my face as I have two little dogs and could see them doing this too!   Glad to see that you can laugh!

My best to you!

Kathy

AWK said:

You are cracking me up!

My labs are the same way.  I don't think I look like Keith Richards though and am trying to visualize him with half of the wrinkles.  

My little guys are the same way too! :-)

I wanted to correct my earlier post...  I got my eye lashes and eye brows from Headcovers.com, not TLC.

It sure felt good to get all of that "stuff" off of my eyes last night.  I did leave the eyebrows on. They looked the same this morning as they did yesterday.

I hope everyone has a wonderful day.  We will be picking my sister up from the airport this afternoon. Can't wait!

This is funny and in my mind's eye I can see the Spunky running with the wig and you chasing.  It sounds like it did stop you from worrying about loosing your hair for a bit anyway.  Before I started chemo, my sister, daughter and I went and got our hair cut.  Mine in a pixie cut (8"), my daughter cut 8 inches off hers and my sister was more like 12 inches.  We sent it to locks of love.  Then I started chemo.  15 days later we had gone to Care Now for my sister who had a cold and my daughter, grandson William and I sat outside in the car.  It was a windy day and we had the windows down.  I ran my hand through my hair and it came out in hunks.  That was the first time I had pulled out hair.  So I kept pulling it out and dropping it in the parking lot and let the wind blow it away.  It freaked my daughter out and she told me to stop doing that.  When we got home I went to my room put a plastic bag on my lap and started pulled it out by the handfulls.  When no more would come out I got the electric hair razor and set it at zero and shaved my head.  Boy was my head white underneath.  I just had stubble at that point.  My daughter was then upset that I did it on my own without her help.  Later that night I got the shaving cream and shaved my head with a razor to get it smooth and bald.  I loved it except for being so white.  I kept my head shaved until after chemo stopped then slowing it came back in.  I tried wearing hats and scraves but it was so hot in Texas in the summer of 2011 almost 100 degrees everyday so it came down to me just going bald.  I did not get the wig at all.  Losing all my hair was not a big issue for me.  But having no hair in my nose just freaked me out.  I could do the no hair on my head, no eyebrows, no eyelashes, no hair on my legs or under my arms. I did not miss shaving.  But losing my the hair in my nose was just weird because you need that to protect you from germs and pollution, so you do not get sick.  But once chemo stopped everything grew back.  I still wear my hair short normally around finger length cause when it gets longer than that it starts to stick out everywhere and curls.  That was the only thing different is that now it has curls before it was straight as a board.  

Oh well that is my story with hair loss.  Wishing you all the best and praying for all the ladies on here. trish 

EZLiving66 said:

After chemo

Trish, I was wondering what I was going to do after chemo and my hair starts to grow back.  I've always worn it long.  Maybe I'll just keep wearing my wig until it grows out to an acceptable length or get extentions.  A gal at my bank has those - some days she has short hair; some long.  She showed me how they clip into her hair.  I kind of like that idea and you can't even see the clips.

Chemo room was full this morning.  I overheard them talking to an older lady next to me.  She was having the chemo so radiation would work better but it sounded like they were running out of ideas for her.  That was really sad.  Another older lady was so sick too and was down to 100#.  Then there was a younger woman who was talking about her two young kids and trying to get some in-home health care and if they could afford to pay for it.  The social worker came and talked to her husband who is a fireman about his insurance and what it would cover.  It made me feel so lucky to have the life I have even if I look like Keith Richards - the really OLD Keith Richards!!

Take care,

Eldri

It is just hair to me.  As you can see in my profile picture when I was little my mom always had my hair short. I look like a little boy.  I started growing it out in middle school. Cut it in high school, I was on the swim team for 3 years. After school let it grown till I turned 25 then cut it short.  Let if grown again till I got cancer.  It was to the middle of my back.  Cut it to a pixie then shaved it.  My gyn onc dr told me that I had the perfect head for being bald, no lumps or bumps.

I had a private room when I got my chemo and it was not an open room.  I am real surprised that they would talk about peoples personal business in the open as that is sometimes a very private business with some people.  

Cancer is sad as we have lost a lot of women on this site alone no telling how many more that never found this site.  In my little space, I have loss many family members and friends to different cancers.  

My fear when I first found out that I had it was that I was going to die before I got to see my grandson grow up, that really freaked me out.  But as my sister tells me, get off your pity pot, pull your big girl panties on and deal with it head on.  I did and on most days did it with a positive attitude.  Yes some days are bad and I get down but in the long run I am still here, still working, no recurrance and having a blast with my grandson.  That is what it is all about. Living your life.

Praying you have an easier time with the chemo.  Just remember it is temporary and you can get through this. trish

I really enjoyed your story.  My hair all fell out in two days in the shower.  What a mess.  I wore a wig but always found it bothered me.  I'd take it off at home, as my house is set back from the road a bit, in a location far from most of my family, and it's rare that anyone shows up here without calling first.  One time, I left my wig on a table near the front door and was watching TV in the kitchen.  The doorbell rang and my husband wasn't nearby, so I had to answer it.  The table where I'd dropped my wig was past my front door, which has many windows in it.  There was no sense in going for the wig because the person at the door would have already seen me bald.  My 43 year old stepson's jaw dropped when he saw what I looked like.  He had a young female friend out in the car, so she probably got an eyeful, too.  Funny thing that he decided not to invite her in. 

My husband went bald in his early 20's.  We sent e-mails out to family members a couple of months later with a comment about how the longer you're married, the more you look alike, and attached a picture of the both of us together with matching shiny heads. I think we shocked a few people.