Going, Going, Gone

     All right, I'm going to want to know who won the When Is Andrea Going to Lose Her Hair pool?  I know I didn't win it. What date did I guess, you ask?  Well, I have a little secret.  Come closer because I'm going to whisper:  Despite all the bravado on my part, in my heart of hearts, I really, truly, didn't believe I was going to lose ALL my hair.  Like every little last strand.  I really really didn't.  Thought the Red Devil was going to give me a pass on that. 
     That's some hardcore denial, baby.  My mental powers of spin are astonishing, even to me!  Even as I was ordering various hat/headwrap dealios for the eventuality, I didn't think it was going to happen.  Even as I was pulling it out in handfuls.  All day long.  Silly, silly girl.

Going...

  I was totally psyched about my new short 'do!  I got such supportive, enthusiastic feedback from friends and family, and I still looked like "me" even with the super short hair, and I was having a preview of what I'm going to look like when my hair grows back...all positives.

     Then...dun dun DUN...zombie patches hit!  I think I internalized that because cutting my hair so short was such a drastic move on my part, my hair would be done doing whatever it was doing because I already did something drastic. So my hair didn't have to do anything more drastic.  Again, powers of denial in action.  

     Hair all over the pillowcase in the morning.  Anytime I touched my hair, more and more came out (yes, the "so don't touch your hair" advice did occur to me).  I wanted my hubs to see the short 'do in person when he got back from an out-of-town trip, and I wanted my mom to see the new 'do in person when she flew in on Saturday afternoon, so I just trusted that enormous quantity of hair product the stylist used would act like glue and keep my hair stuck on until they arrived.

     

Packed to go somewhere?

Nice bags under those eyes! Sheesh!

    

As soon as I could check those two boxes of Mom and John, I washed my hair.  I couldn't get a really good picture of the bald patch that showed up on the very top of my head when everything swirled down the drain, but I can give you some idea of how Zombie Head was shaping up.  Not pretty.  Mange, anyone?

Going...
     Clearly, the above look was going to be unacceptable.  UNACCEPTABLE!  So I made the decision to go for the Boot Camp Buzz Cut.  We made it a family affair--we all headed down to the barber who normally cuts my hubby's and son's hair, and we had a great time (well at least I did) because we all were laughing and joking through the entire process.  No tears, no sadness, no "isn't this terrible that she has cancer and her hair is falling out."  Our family approach:  It just means that the drugs are doing their job!  How can that not be a happy thing?  And once the barber finished with my head, my hubby and my son stepped up and did the very same thing--now THAT was cool!  I have the best family!
     So here is the buzzy hairdo:

      All I can say about this is:  WOW, it's COLD!! I vastly underestimated the amount of insulation that little sassy cut was still giving me!  Walking out of the barbershop, the "cool breeze" was FREEZING!!  Glad I brought a hat! (Proactive hat purchasing--I highly recommend it!  Because when that hair starts going, well, you don't want to be doing desperation shopping at that point.  You want to have some hats you like already in place.)
     And then back at my house--wow, is my house drafty or what?!?  Who knew?  (Of course, my kids always tell me it's cold in the house--I regret all my scoffing responses.)  I have had to wear a beanie to sleep, my head is so cold!!  

Gone

       So that was all well and good.  I think going to the sassy  hairdo before going to the buzz cut was a good move for me psychologically.  It made the change not-so-drastic to go from pixie to buzzy.  I think I might have had a rough time going from the uber volume of hair that I had straight to a buzz cut.  So aside from being colder and wearing a hat indoors (although, my coziest hat was ruled by my daughter to be unacceptable for wearing out in public because, in her opinion:  It's such a CANCER hat!  She is trying to keep me focused on being fashionable...a losing proposition, I think, but I appreciate her efforts), I didn't feel so much different than I did with the cutie hairdo.  
     Except NOW the ever-increasing bald spots looked really stark in comparison to my darker head stubble.  Blech.  Looks like illness.  Okay, I know that a woman with a bald head usually does broadcast illness to an onlooker, but the patchy effect looks like contagious illness--and yes, for whatever reason that distinction matters to me.
    

    So I decided it was time to cut to the chase.  I asked John to take as much off as he possibly could.  He tried the Norelco, which turned out to be not quite up to the task of tackling the hair that still wasn't ready to fall out.  He had to break out the razor and shave it--still a daunting task, because my hair is stubborn and tenacious.  If it wants out, it will jump out.  But if it's not quite ready, it REALLY doesn't want to go!  But John did a fabulous job battling with my follicles, and now I think we can say that I'm bald. Doesn't matter if I have five o'clock shadow on my head, I think I qualify as being bald. 

Benefits:  Save money on haircare products, use less water in shower because it won't take as long, no bad hair days, can roll down the window in the car and not have hair blowing in my mouth, more room in the bathroom drawers without all the clips and scrunchies and whatnot, no hairnet needed if I go into food service employment, no one can gain an advantage over me in a fight by grabbing me by the hair...um...help me out here.

Drawbacks:  Uh, I'm bald.  Duh! 
     It's interesting because a friend asked me if chemo was as bad as I thought it would be...hard to answer, because it was just really bad in a different way than I was anticipating.  But I was worrying that losing my hair was going to be worse than I was fearing. I was feeling preemptively embarrassed about being gutted by losing my hair.  I mean, it's only hair.  It's just stupid hair.  It will grow back.  I know that.  To fret about it made me feel vain and shallow.  Intellectually I am fully on board with the irrelevancy of hair in the scheme of what is at stake here.  But emotionally...dude...I'm a chick with long hair. I mean, I WAS a chick with long hair (aaaaauuughh, past tense now, aaaaaahhhh).  Long hair gals, back me up on this:  Hair is a Big. Flippin'. Deal.  
     My hair has been part of my identity for so long.  And honestly, my hair is the only thing I ever liked about my appearance.  So to lose it...well, I was worried that I was going to look like a grumpy old man (no offense to old men in general, but yes, I do mean offense if you act all grumpy all the time, snap out of it, for goodness' sake).
     I'm sure there are many Ph.D. dissertations about women's hair and culture and psychology.  In many cultures women cut off their hair when a spouse dies, or women's hair is forcibly cut for public shaming, or women cover their hair in public for religious reasons...all kinds of hair things tied up in our perception of self and in how we "present" in public and what we feel our hair is communicating to others about who we are and our sense of self.  It's fascinating.  But if I'm completely honest, I really didn't want to explore that psychology firsthand. 
    This whole cutting hair thing has been, amazingly, nothing but positive, empowering, and fun, even...up until this last, wee little bit.  I know that it seems ridiculous that going from having 3 millimeters of hair to bald would seem like any kind of a change at all and, if so, such a tiny change at that.  But psychologically this one was the harder. Because it makes me feel like I am a dude with male-pattern baldness.  I think I could somehow translate all the other versions of my hair to woman, but this final change doesn't say that to me as readily.  And it's just a little harder to wrap my brain around. Just a little.  But I'll get there.  I'll get used to having to use a lint roller on my head every now and again (a story for another time). 

     To anyone who is worried about the loss of hair from chemo:  I am not trying to downgrade the fretting and the worry and the fear.  And if you think I didn't have to wrap my head around a drastic change, all you have to do is look at the amount of hair I had.  But in the end, really, I think everything I imagined was so negative and extreme that, when it actually happened, the reality was truly no big thing.  
     To quote Macbeth:  Present fears are less than horrible imaginings.

Cancer shouldn't get to dictate how you feel about yourself!  Bald is (cold but) beautiful! Embrace it!  Gotta go through it to get to the end of it!