My Hair Went to Boca for the Winter

When most women are diagnosed with breast cancer they run through an array of emotions from disbelief to sadness to anger and finally acceptance. I didn't. I spent maybe about a week or so saying "I want my 80% back." This was the odds that my surgeon quoted as the likelihood that the "anomaly" would be nothing. Then I moved into the 'let's get it out and over with' phase, which was easier said then done. It took two months and more tests and surgeries than I care to mention. I remember saying, "I thought they said it was the size of a grain of rice, what gives?"

By the time I was ready to sit down with my "oncology team," I had dubbed my surgeon Sister Mary Sunshine, because I swear she could deliver the most terrible news with the most optimistic outlook. I knew walking in that I was facing chemotherapy and radiation, but being the first in my family to go through cancer, I really had no idea of exactly what that would mean.

Yet, I remained oddly optimistic myself. Maybe Sister Mary Sunshine was infectious? Maybe I was just in denial and I would soon crash as everyone was expecting. As I sat there listening to statistics and possibilities, I realized that while they could give me an idea of what could happen to me during chemotherapy, they couldn't tell me exactly. They hedged their bets on everything from fertility, to menopause to nausea and pain. I came away with a clear understanding that they were absolutely sure of only one thing: That I would go completely bald during the course of my treatment.

I laughed out loud when my oncologist with all sincerity told me to consider frozen embryos. "Doc, I just broke up with my boyfriend and now you want me to interview sperm donors? Besides, pre-fab kids work for me."

"Pre-fab?"

"Not of my womb. No nausea, hormones or pain!" He had to laugh when he realized that I was talking about adoption if my maternal instinct ever kicked-in. Then he asked me if I had any questions. I had just one and a request. The question was for him to tell me exactly what my stage was and what the length of the treatment would be. And, then I told him that according to all the new fangled books, I did everything wrong so far, by not researching everyone, lining up sperm donors and advocates etc. However, I felt that I had lucked-out in finding a comfortable niche where I was and that I only asked that they never tried to sugar-coat information. Tell me exactly the way it is. I am not going to fall apart. In fact, the worst thing that they could do was to keep something from me, trying to be kind, and let me discover it on my own. That would freak me out and as we are supposed to be working together and keeping me positive, I think they would agree with me that it would be counter productive to freak me out.

On behalf of the entire team, my oncologist promised to be completely honest with me and tell me when he just didn't know, which brings me back to baldness. He couldn't tell me for certain that I would be sent into early menopause, or that I would definitely be infertile at the end of chemo. Everything changed when I asked him how much hair loss he was talking about, he didn't bat an eye: "Completely bald within 10 days after the first treatment."

"Ok. Well if it's going to go that fast, we'll just have a farewell party for it the day before the first treatment and shave it off--one less thing to worry about."

"Your going to shave it off before treatment?"

"Why not? It's only a matter of 10 days, so why not let me say when." He didn't say it, but gave me a look like 'I'm gonna like this one.'

He wasn't totally truthful with me though. It didn't completely fall out in 10 days. I did shave it down to a very short wiffle, which didn't look too bad. I went through the first treatment and saw it start thinning, not really noticeably at first to the casual observer, but I could tell. Then I had my second treatment. It was just about five days after the treatment and I was sitting in my yard, my head was itchy, so I wiped my hand across my wiffle and came back with black fur. My first reaction was that this was odd. My hair has never been darker than a dark ash blonde, so to see this black fuzz in my hand gave me a surreal moment of wondering if I had just wiped the fur of a dead animal off my head. Hey, I was in the yard, anything was possible.

That lasted only a moment and then I realized it was time. The end of the wiffle and any denying that chemotherapy was impacting me was here. Sighing, I headed in for a shower to wash away the last bit of normalcy I would have for a while. I stayed in the shower much longer than I usually do, letting the water wash over me, feeling it puddle around my feet and knowing that the drain was getting clogged. I stood there in the safety of the stall for a bit, not ready to face the mirror. How drastic could it be?

The image that faced me was disturbing, not because I was vainly missing my golden locks, but more because I felt like a cartoon caricature of myself. I found myself crying out of shock. Blinking away the tears, I began to laugh. The cartoons of my childhood filled my brain and I remembered Tom & Jerry. In one episode, Tom (the cat) sneezes, his fur puffs up and falls out around his feet. There he was standing and blinking with a stray hair or two still attached to his naked cat frame, then he gathers is all up and knits himself a sweater. Now, here I was the real life version of Tom, standing with a few stray hairs still on my head, wonder how to knit a sweater out of the hairs in the drain.

I called my sister later that day and told her "Hey, got some news you should know before you see me."

"What's that?"

"Oh nothing much, I sneezed and my hair fell out." We laughed and I told her that in two weeks I will be meeting with my oncologist and he was going to get a spanking for lying to me. It took 3 weeks for my hair to completely fall out!

I've since told my friends, although they seem to be ok with it. What they can't believe is that I'm doing so well. Really I am. I am so happy to have people in my life who have not reacted to this as a death sentence. No one has rejected me or looked at me as if I were the plague. I am so much more aware how friendships, even casual ones, mean so much to us and that we take them for granted.

I have a certain group of friends that I do a lot for and they can't understand why I'm not asking for them to help me, but what they don't understand is that they are helping me. They are letting me focus on them, which is so much easier. So, I spoil them just like I spoil my nieces, but its good therapy for me. When all is said and done they will find out they have given me so much more than I have given them, but that is a discovery they will come to on thier own. I will just let them shake their heads, enjoy the journey and wonder how it is that I can be so stubborn. When they ask me if I'm ok with everything, meaning my hair loss and treatment, I wink and tell them, "Oh sure, my hair has just gone to Boca for the winter."