Friday, June 2, 2006 - I hear it's all the rage on the runways of Milan...

Yup, I am completely bald. As in "as a cueball". Freshly shaved and smooth as the proverbial baby's bottom.

Right on cue, day 14 of treatment, the hairs started to fall.

Day 15 it was like late Autumn in New England. I could run a comb through and it would look like I had a hair-piece attached to the comb. So, naturally, I obsessed. To keep myself from combing and combing and creating this giant hair ball of my coifs on the bathroom floor, I went Saturday morning to get it cut short. My theory was that short hair falling out would be less messy and less traumatic. I was half right. It was slightly less traumatic, but it was itchy and messy just the same.

By Sunday afternoon, the back where it was the shortest was driving me nuts. I wore a scarf to church, with what I still had on top sticking up, and the back underneath the scarf was itching like crazy. If I scratched it, I then had hair all over my shoulders. I went home and shaved the back w/ the clippers. Yes, myself. Then looked in the mirror and saw how crooked it was across…

I packed up the clippers, Brad's shaving cream and a couple of fresh razors and went to Mom's house. She shaved it across evenly, just the bottom half. It felt much better.

In the middle of the night I awoke and sat at the bathroom sink obsessively combing hair out. When I got up the next morning, I accidentally looked in the mirror as I was getting in the shower. It was soooo pathetic. I looked like a cancer victim. Haha. A few dead nasty looking sad hairs, scalp showing through…it made me cry. I called Mom on the phone, crying, and asked her to shave it all.

I was amazed that I went from starting to fall out to shaving it in the course of 5 days.

Mom had a houseful, (this was on Memorial Day), so she told the kids what we were doing and she and I went to her room and closed the door. I strategically avoided mirrorage as I perched on the stool w/ a towel around my shoulders in her bathroom doorway. She shaved it with the clippers first, then gave me the full barbershop treatment w/ a hot towel first before lathering me up for the razor.

Mom and I have established an adult relastionship. It is not overtly affectionate or demonstrative, or even verbally affectionate. She shows that to the grandkids, and I take that as vicariously for me as well. But Monday, as I sat on that stool, she so gently lathered up my head, talking through it soothingly about getting the hairs softened up, being careful w/ the razor, how I'd feel better getting it all off…powdered and brushed me off when she was finished, smoothed it with her hands. It was so nuturing and caring, I was almost in tears from that alone. I felt like her baby again, being diapered and powdered and put down for a nap, and I lay on her bed for a while afterward in the quiet and cool. As I was leaving later, she said as I walked down the driveway that I was beautiful no matter what was on my head. I want to record this in the journal I got from the class I attended last week, as it was one of those monumental rare touching events. I can't say this all to her, because that's just not how we are. But I think I will get a card or something this weekend for her.

Thank you Karri also for telling me my features were too pretty to look like un-feminine with my short hair cut on Saturday. :-)

Chemo this Friday (5/23) went fine. I wasn't sick from it, just very very tired. Thank goodness I had the long weekend, not only for dealing w/ the hair trauma, but for extra rest. I tire easily, get short of breath and winded easily, break out in a cold sweat just from a 45 minute shopping trip to Walmart, and am generally just physically exhausted. The Neulasta shot didn't affect me as much this time (Tuesday, because of the holiday) but I stayed home Wednesday feeling like something was trying to come on, a cold or something, and getting extra rest. I'll probably feel better again next week, just in time for Round Three. Stay tuned….

Love you all,

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