Hair today, gone tomorrow!

 

from Jane Manning

Possibly one of the worst side effect of Chemotherapy is the certain knowledge that you will lose your hair. Bad enough for a man but totally traumatic for a woman who sees her hair as a big part of her sexual attraction and femininity.

So there I was embarking on the first cycle of chemotherapy of what is essentially allowing another person to pump you full of poison with the hope, no, the prayer, that this poison that will not only make you feel ill but will target and kill the cancer yet at the same time will cause all your lovely hair to disappear for at least 9 months ­ not a happy thought at all - a case of heads you win, tails you lose!

I had no idea how I would feel but had read all the horror stories and could guess the misery of the next 6 months so was pleasantly surprised when I wasn’t immediately violently sick as the delightful, kind nurse pumped in the drugs.” Surely everyone gets sick” I asked and was thrilled to know that I had also been pumped with drugs to stop me throwing up.

Armed with leaflets telling me how my body would react over the next 21 days I left the hospital ward and went home to wait for all that was to come.

Each day passed and I was hit by another side effect (none as bad as I had been led to expect) I was tired - a really strange tired which made me feel my legs and feet were nailed to the floor making it impossible to get up and do things. My brain was more woolly than usual and I dropped things all the time - I have finally broken all my old china and will need to stock up again which is great! I have spent more hours on the loo these last three weeks than most people spend in 6 months which would also be great if I could read a good book, but my eyes have been affected by the chemo so I can only sit there and see the dirt! Mainly though I have waited for my beautiful red hair to fall out. Every day I expected to wake up and find it gracefully spread across the pillow and when I got up it would just stay there. That is what I had read - either that or you wash it in the shower and it all falls out and blocks the plughole.

I was told that hair loss would begin after 3 - 4 weeks or it could be earlier. In my case it began on the 21st day................

Horror of horrors. MY hair just began to thin and then to drop out in small clumps. I would feel long strands slithering down my neck or as I washed up (when I felt well enough) I would find long red strands in the dirty water. Worst of all, as I walked around, large clumps would thud on to the carpet and I had to make sure no hair fell in the food. A hair net was probably the best answer but that was just too much, imagine what I would look like! It was all most disconcerting and nobody told me that it would hurt. My scalp felt really bruised and I started to wonder if it would hurt like this when it grew back but I have a few months before I need to worry about that!

I had been supplied with a short red wig which I nicknamed Oliver, perhaps because it reminded me of a boozy Oliver Reed lying there on the settee. It wasn’t really that bad - it just didn’t move when I did! It immediately fell foul of the cat who killed it twice before I rescued the poor thing (Oliver-not the cat!) and put it back in its box where it lay quietly - you don’t have to feed it and it lies very still although is far too hairy for my liking!

On the 26th day I still had a few red spikes left on an increasingly bald scalp ­ It would have been possible for a few days to earn money as an extra on a cowboy and Indian film - as a scalped cowboy - but I decided instead to brave it (spot the dark humour?) and visit Tesco wearing my wig for the first time.

Oliver and I waited to see if anyone was staring but everyone seemed to be far too busy shopping to notice and soon I felt a bit more relaxed, that is until I met my friend Sarah.

“ Wayhey” she said so everyone in a two aisle radius could hear every word.
“I love the wig - it looks like your own hair on a good day and you look 10 years younger”

Now I know why she is my friend!

Update from Jane.

 

2nd session-hope springs eternal

“Well that is a most encouraging result after only one session, maybe now we ( why do doctors etc always say we? Does it mean they intend to join in too?) will only need 6 sessions instead of 8”

“Great” I reply eagerly, “so I will be finished much quicker?”

“Well you will need radiotherapy but we will talk about that later” she replied sneaking that little bit of bad news in so I almost didn’t notice!

So SOME good news from my chemo specialist before I head off to my 2nd session. I arrive just in time to watch the news on their big screen television and to get lunch which was a very tasty cottage pie followed by ice-cream. I don’t know if I mentioned it but I am starving all the time and I have cravings - I have to have two slices of toasted currant bread at least two hourly, still require three full meals and I keep fancying a pizza which I rarely if ever eat - all very strange and yet I am still losing weight. This is a weird kind of diet but hey!

I hung around for a while before being called in to the treatment room where there was no telly just piped music so I missed Neighbours - the day really started to go downhill now! Actually I was amazed at the treatment room - it did not look in the least clinical. There were very comfortable chairs around the room and the only real sign that it was a hospital were the stands for the IV bags-we each got our own which was great for the NHS when you often have to share things.

Two or three people had their hands in hot water and I had to ask why. I was told that their veins had broken down and hot water sometimes revived them - nice! I am lucky (if you can call it that) I was fitted with a Hickman line which goes into a vein in your chest and dangles into your bra or falls out when you are walking around Tesco! It means that you can have blood taken and all your chemo pumped into this neat little tube which is much less distressing to your veins -the downside is it can get blocked so you need weekly maintenance and have to take Warfarin ­ (rat poison) to thin your blood so you don’t get blood clots - well there always is a downside to everything.

Anyway I digress. While I was waiting for the chemo to be set up I struck up conversations with some very nice patients. It was the first time I had been able to talk to any other fellow sufferers and it was quite an eye opener to hear how other people cope or don’t.
One woman after her diagnosis, shut herself in her house for a month refusing to speak to anyone including her husband. Apparently her mum died of breast cancer when she was 12 and she convinced herself that she too would die. It took her younger sister to come back from Portugal where she now lives and take charge. What a wonderful woman she was and what a support to her sister who is now much more positive although she still hates her wig!

So, enough of this. I started my treatment and the nurse made sure I was kept distracted by talking the hind leg off me - we discussed the internet, E-bay, Age-net and as the drugs were being pumped in she explained what sensations I might feel. One drug is a bright pink (this drug passes through your body and comes out a really bright red and if you didn’t know you would think you are dying) and you have to talk to it nicely because this is a real baddy as it can attack your heart muscles - really good! “This might give you strange sensations down below she informed me - sadly it didn’t! This may give you a nasty headache - sadly it did. “Tell me if you feel anything you are not happy abont” my nurse advised. Just at that moment I felt this very icy cold feeling in my right shoulder -it was really strange so a little hesitantly I told her.

“OK love” she replied cheerfully, “I will get someone to close the window”.

Doh - they say you tend to blame everything on the chemotherapy!

Part Three - A Bit of a Wobble!!

 

As my mother got older, she would often remark that old age was no fun and she really couldn’t recommend it. After my third session of chemotherapy I have to echo her words.

Without wanting to put off anyone who needs chemo, I must say that this session has been rotten and I seem to have experienced almost every side effect known to man, beast and everyone else. I have tried really hard to keep my sense of humour although my husband calling me Mrs Tufty has not helped. My hair, after falling out in curls and clumps, has now decided to fall out one hair a day, leaving me with a strange egg-like head with the odd tuft, hence the name. My head also feels strange to the touch, a bit like caressing a horse’s neck so I am tol- I am just grateful it is not like touching a horse’s bum!

Luckily I have Oliver my trusty wig otherwise horse lovers all over would probably feel an uncontrollable urge to touch up my head causing stampedes in Tesco. Talking of Oliver - I usually go head-naked indoors and just put on Oliver if a stranger rings the bell. Last Tuesday I hurriedly put on my wig to answer the door to the electricity meter reader. We had a pleasant and frank exchange about the weather and life and all that and he left seemingly quite happy. I went past a mirror and to my horror I saw this wild hairy woman ­ In my haste I had put Oliver on, upside-down - the poor man must still be having nightmares. I hope he was able to get counselling.

Postmen and other tradesmen should get danger money because having to see wild hairy women first thing in the morning could seriously damage their health unless they are German of course!

 

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