WEEK 14: Chemo #2 & The "Joys" of Hair Loss

On Thursday, May 6th, I went to Rexburg for Chemo #2. Back to Kylie's Fun Room! Same routine - inserting a needle into the port in my chest - and then pumping in all of the toxic chemicals. It takes almost 5 hours from start to finish. My dear, sweet, youngest son Chase drove up from Provo, Utah to hang out with me for the day. Part of the time he helped me with this blog. At that point in time I had barely gotten it going. Chase has been my technical support and "editor" on the blog. Thanks, Chase - couldn't have done it without you! Sometimes when I get to worrying that I'm too wordy or boring, he reminds me that I am doing this for me, not for any crazy soul who should decide to read it. He's right. This blog is sort of cathartic for me, and will always act as my record of the experience. So, sorry if I'm too wordy or boring, but OH WELL!

One of the big trauma's of Chemo is losing the hair. I had many friends tell me that they would wake up in the morning to big piles of hair on their pillow. Most reports say it happens 1 to 3 weeks after the first treatment. I would wake up every morning slightly paranoid, sit up, and look down at my pillow with great trepidation. Never happened. My experience was more like Laurie's; the shower was where most of the hair loss occurred. A few weeks after my first Chemo, washing my hair would leave my hands all covered with hair. But brushing out my wet hair - ouch! - that's where it really came out in globs. When I was in Provo with my friends for Women's Conference, it got pretty bad. Thanks to my paranoia, I had been packing scarfs and bandannas every time I went out of town since my first Chemo. I had some at Women's Conference. Though my hair was definitely thinning, RaeAnn & Lori didn't think I needed to resort to the scarves yet. But this picture shows the hair loss from one shower that weekend.

After the trauma of having the surgery on my incision the day after Women's Conf- erence, my sweet sister Barb, who came to hold my hand through the event, took me home to her house in Bountiful for the night. She told me there was absolutely no way I was riding the bus home. The next day she drove me home to Dillon. That just so happened to be her husband Steve's birthday. I told Steve, "Now we know who's more important around here!" Thanks so much, Barb! Sorry, Steve. I hope Barb threw you a good birthday party when she got home! (Of course when we get to be our age, birthdays aren't such a big deal anymore, are they?)

Barb spent the night at my house that night. While there, I had her go ahead and chop most of the length off of my hair. Shedding 8" strands of hair all over my clothes was starting to get old. Every time I would hold one of my grand-babies, they would come away with a hand full of hair. Yuck! I was getting grossly thin on top, and on the sides, but baseball caps worked good cause I still looked like I had thick hair poking out the bottom of my baseball cap. But I was ready with my scarves and wig when the cap no longer did the job. (Don't you love my "wig-stand"? It's a glass pitcher with a balloon taped on top. I was too cheap to pay $15 for a styrofoam one.)