My hair is growing back pretty well.
It’s thick
and curly
and puffy
not like it was before
straight
I look like I stuck my thumb in my mouth
and blew
and my hair popped out
like a big dandelion puff
maybe someone will walk up
and blow
and puff all my chemo hair
away
Tags: hair, Hair changes
My hair is growing back. I’m not quite sure how I feel about this…
On the one hand, I’m really glad to have it coming back. As a woman, not having hair was rather de-feminizing. That’s why I wore headbands and put cute pins on them, to add a touch of “girlieness” to the baldness. Also increased the amount of eye makeup I wore, and got larger, more ornate earings. Overall, a nice effect.
Being bald was not that bad to adjust to, and without the circumstances, it was interesting and “freeing”. Freeing to not worry about my hair, was I having a good or bad hair day. Every day was a “no hair day”…
My friend, Tim, came over the other day, and he told me that I am rocking the lesbian look. Ok, now I’m pretty sure that not all lesbians have short butchy haircuts… plus, I’m not lesbian. He did say it was kinda sexy… so – Yah, Thanks Tim!
On the other hand, being bald was like a sign that I am sick, that I am battling. Since I don’t look like the “typical” cancer victim of thin and frail, my bald head was what signaled that I am at war…
I stopped to get coffee on the way to the Dr the other morning, and the gal asked what I was up to for the day. I mentioned that I was going to the Dr and she asked if I was sick. I looked at her and said, I have cancer, that’s why I have no hair. And she told me that she just thought I had a really short haircut. I started to cry. I couldn’t help it. I know it made her feel bad, but I couldn’t help it.
It’s not that being bald is my identity, it’s that I have come to see it as a symbol, a symbol that I am fighting. Being bald is the one thing that openly displays the fight I am engaged in… and the symbol is being removed… but the cancer is not removed and I am still fighting… still fighting.
What can I say… I’m just not sure how I feel about it.
My hair is growing back regardless of how I feel…
Tags: Hair changes, hair regrowth
Up early after being “deathly” sick the past 2 days. Killing time…
Being a woman, I got my priorities all screwy. Before other pictures, I’ve downloaded my hair photos – or loss of hair photos.
It’s weird going through those photos and reliving the experience. I look at myself and I remember what is coming up next…
But I don’t know what is coming up in the future
for me.
How much of a future
do I have…
Are the decisions I’m making
the right ones
for me…
I can only Hope… I can only Believe.
The link is here “Hair Changes“, located in photos – - personal-photos – - hair changes
May 21 2009
I’m working on my treatment photos and will have them up within the next day or so….
Tags: Hair changes
I’m still ill from chemo. This has been the longest yet. Almost 6 days. Last Thursday til today (Tuesday). How do people do this for months… years…?
My heart is still doing wonky things… skipping beats, extra beats, slowing down, racing. I get surges of adrenaline, and have nothing to do with them except practice slow breathing to calm them down.
Still nauseous, still burping up noxious gas. I’ve never been much of a Girly-girl, but this is just downright Gross.
My eyes are tearing, and I can still feel the toxicity in my tears… they burn my eyes. The corners of my eyes are raw from the acrid liquid that my eyes are expelling.
I wish I had someone to hold me and tell me it was gonna be all right… someone I could believe.
According to the Chemo Nurses, one of the (many) side effects of chemo that I would probably experience would be changes in my finger nails and toe nails. That the beds of my nails would probably get discolored.
It’s happened.
Both my thumbs look like I smashed them with a hammer.
Ok, maybe not That bad… not the Whole nail bed.
Just the area by the cuticle, “only” about 1/4 of the whole nail. So far.
But still…
It’s ugly.
this sucks… ~sigh~
Tags: fingernails, toenails
You’d think that “hair is hair”, but I’ve noticed that the hair on my body that has fallen out due to chemo, has reacted differently based on location.
I’ve never had to worry much about shaving my legs, I could go weeks, sometimes months without any major growth. And the hair was on my calves, virtually nothing on my upper thighs.
Now I have no hair on my legs at all.
I still have hair on the knuckles of my toes, but not much. I don’t have to shave them at this time – yes, many women shave their toe knuckles!
I’m an adult woman, and since puberty have maintained a somewhat groomed intimate area. Basically – clean and tidy, adult with hair.
Now I am mostly bare, but not totally. And I dislike this. I like my hair. I will not shave the remainder, I am holding on to whatever semblance of adult female that I have left.
My underarms have always grown fast and required shaving weekly at minimum.
Now I have Nothing – not one single hair.
I have always had a lovely thick head of hair.
and now… well, now I am bald.
But I’m not Totally bald, I am “patchy” bald… so I have to shave so I don’t look like something from Dr. Seuss.
Seems hair is particular about holding on and letting go…
Tags: hair, Hair changes
Today had follow-up #2 with the oncologist, Dr Casimir of Northwest Cancer Center.
Again, I spent more time with the nurse, Katy, than with the Dr herself. Again – not much confidence.
I mentioned that I was still experiencing heart issues – palpitations, skipped beats, extra beats, racing. Katy asked if they had done an EKG on me, I said no. Nothing else was said about that.
I mentioned that I was still on my vitamin regime. Katy seemed somewhat surprised to hear this, and stressed that I needed to stop taking vitamins as, according to Katy, vitamins lessen the effectiveness of chemotherapy.
WTH? Seven weeks into chemo and this is just now being brought up. I’ve never made a secret that I have, for the majority of my adult life, been on a progressive vitamin regime, and Now I’m told it works against chemo? Just another reason for me to see chemo as an antiquated treatment and Dr. Casimir’s thinking as confined within “The Box”.
Regardless, I brought an “offering” of sorts for the Dr, a gift… a cute pink shoe/purse magnet set, since she is such a shoe fan. Hoping, I guess, for some acknowledgment as a patient.
Maybe if I had insurance, maybe if I wasn’t there as a beggar.
And beggars can’t be choosers…
When I asked, I did get official notification that I am a Stage 3B. About Flipping Time it was mentioned.
I looked up breast cancer stages, and got the following info…
“Cancer stage is based on the size of the tumor, whether the cancer is invasive or non-invasive, whether lymph nodes are involved, and whether the cancer has spread beyond the breast.“
“Stage IIIB describes invasive breast cancer in which:
Lovely.
Tags: vitamins
I blinked today
and 4 eyelashes fell on my cheek
giving up the safety
of their roots
now toxic and unwelcoming
I blinked today
and 2 eyelashes fell on my cheek
releasing themselves from the swamp
that has become my body
I blinked today
and 3 eyelashes fell on my cheek
stoic reminders
of the dying of me
Tags: eyelashes, loosing hair
I had my head shaved on Wednesday, so I am surprised that I have stubble.
Now I find out that it still grows back as I go through chemo – it just doesn’t all die or all grow back at once. If I let it go on and grow out right now, it will be all mangy looking. It will look all mangy for a while… I do Not want to look “mangy”, so I’m gonna have to shave my head.
I don’t know what I thought… I guess I thought it would just stop growing until it was ready to grow back nicely. Silly me. Reality slaps me in the face again.
I will be shaving my head for a while, at least until I stop looking mangy… there is nothing to describe how a woman feels - standing in the shower, shaving her head with tears mixing with the shower spray…
The fun discoveries of chemo side effects…
Tags: hair, shaving head
I’m sure chemo was not on the mind of Lynyrd Skynyrd when they wrote “That Smell“, but it certainly is applicable.
“ooh that smell can’t you smell that smell
ooh that smell
can’t you smell that smell
the smell of death surrounds you“
No one told me that Everything that comes out of my body would now Smell So Very Bad. It does make sense though. The chemo Kills Indiscriminately, and that dead stuff needs to leave the body… and when it does, it is toxic and it smells like death. The breath, the sweat, the gas, the pee, the poop… every smell, every waste product that comes from the body smells dead.
For several days after chemo infusion, anything that comes out of my body is toxic to others. I am a danger to others.
This can Not be right.
“look what’s goin on inside you“, “Angel of darkness is upon you“
That’s about how I feel… chemo is an Angel of Darkness.
Tags: smells
