Chemo Curls

 

 

Is it vanity? Insecurity? Loss of self-esteem?      Being unintentionally bald has been the ultimate bad hair experience for me, although I did try my best to camouflage my Mr. Clean 'do with hats and wigs. Passing as my healthy, normal self was crucial for me. I didn't want to deal with pitying looks and staring strangers at the grocery store. I didn't want people to see me as "sick". It's a tell-tale sign of a cancer patient: the bald head covered up by a turban, scarf, or a baseball cap. But the bare head, especially on a woman in our society, proclaims the silent message, "She has cancer." You can hide cancer, but you can't easily hide hair loss. Hair loss is associated with cancer. It is the one outward sign that distinguishes you as a cancer patient. For many women diagnosed with cancer, losing their hair is one of their biggest fears, and often one of the most upsetting parts of this illness. But cancer forces you to get used to a new normal where image is secondary. That's not to say that my vanity has gone out the window. If I didn't look in the mirror too often, it wasn't too bad. What it does say is that I am glad to have my health! Hair was always been something I had taken for granted, grumbled about, and fussed over. However, since I am female, I had never thought about being bald. Hair loss is a loss of self-identity and self-esteem. I knew it would grow back, but loosing one's hair is traumatic. No matter how many cute hats, scarves, or wigs you wear, when you look in the mirror at night, it's a constant reminder of one's mortality. Losing your hair puts you on an emotional roller coaster. First, you have the emotionally painful experience of waiting for and wondering when your hair will fall out. And then it does. About the time the hair on your head starts growing again after chemo is over, then your eyebrows and eyelashes fall out. Losing your eyelashes and eyebrows, the defining part of your face, really makes you look sick to other people. Losing them was hard because I felt like I looked like I was sickly and dying when in reality I was fighting so hard to stay alive. It was hard to look at myself in the mirror because I didn't look like me anymore. After my head was shaved, I swore I'd never again complain about a bad hair day. People seemed to like my wig and those who didn't know I had cancer would say, "I love what you've done with your hair!"  "Thanks", I'd tell them. "I'm trying something a little different." I didn't tell them that the "something different" was attaching my hair to my shiny white scalp with double-stick tape! By December and January, my new sprouts were itching to make their debut. Mainly, they were itching! Getting my fingers under my wig to scratch my prickly head became an issue so I switched to wearing a cute winter hat. Since then, I have managed to grow about an inch of hair. As a friend joked, pounding the mirror and yelling, "Come back! Come back!" must have worked!  The major problem now is that my hair looks like a rabbits' fur. Not a nice brown rabbit but a WINTER rabbit...eye-blinding white in color...or should I say, in lack of color!!! It even feels like rabbit fur. And it is CURLY!!!!! My old hair was as straight as uncooked spaghetti! This new stuff is soft and looks perpetually tousled. Yes, losing my hair was difficult and upsetting but it is a small and temporary price to pay for a chance to regain my health. Being a survivor meant my hair had to go. Being alive and surviving breast cancer outweighs the rabbit fur look I'm learning to deal with. I look at being bald as part of my treatment plan; and if treatment allows me to be a survivor, then how dare I complain! The most important thing I have learned through this journey is that my body is not me. This shell can be altered by surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation but what's really me doesn't change. I know people around me love me with or without hair for who and what I am, and not for how I look. I know from this venture that every day is a blessing. You can sit and ask why or you can get busy living! I focus on the more important things like one's faith in God and the love of family and friends. I have become a lot less fussy about life's little disappointments since this venture began over 12 months ago. As I concentrate on this new stage of life, cancer and the fear it brings must begin to feel like an old chapter in life. This is what life is after all, a succession of chapters: some good, some bad, some extraordinary, and some painful. Maybe I should have named this posting, "Chemo Curls: How Cancer and My New Hair Helped Me Grow." Because, like my hair, I've grown some too.