Remember when I told you “shit can happen”? Well… it's true. Right when you think breast cancer and chemotherapy are enough, you get hit with more stuff out of the blue. Just like that.
For the first four chemo cycles, my hair did pretty well. In fact, it did so well that Dr. K. kept calling me a "poster girl”.
I was told chemo cycles three and four would be the biggest hair challenge and, after that, hair loss would plateau. So, imagine my surprise when, after chemo five, my hair began to shed more than usual…not fun.
What did I do? The logical thing: I freaked out.
It all began two days after chemo five, when I noticed more loose pieces each time I ran my fingers through my hair —if you are wondering why I kept running my fingers through my hair, the short answer is that I needed to see it to believe it, and I couldn’t control the urge to check how much of hair was falling out each time. Sigh…
The hairs were falling out like lifeless leaves from a tree, and it was not just a handful of loose hairs. It was A-L-O-T of them!
I am losing my hair! I am losing my hair! —I cried in the kitchen—, and, as usual, my girls were there, right by my side.
It’s OK —said my oldest daughter holding me in her arms. Just let it all out. You are juggling SO much right now. It’s healthy to cry, and it’s good for us to see you fall apart from time to time.
Being held while crying made me feel better, but the anxiety and the fear were still there… I know my hair is such a trivial thing compared to the phantom of cancer, but seeing it fall out was scary, and it felt like a slap in the face.
You see… for as long as I can keep my hair, I can pretend breast cancer never happened, but, if all my hair falls out, there will be no more place to hide. It will be a constant reminder of my cancer-chemo existence, and that is no fun place to be in (I can assure you that).
A few days went by, anxiety kept building on, and things got only worse when I washed my hair and witnessed SO much of it shedding out. BUT, after a good long cry, a few more hugs from my girls and a chat with a friend about reframing things and finding optimism, I went back to my Half-Time Recap take-aways and decided to follow my own advice: When shit happens, you get back on the horse and fight.
Although I cannot control hair loss and stop it, I can regain control of my mindset. It is not easy, and it does not flow naturally, but there is no downside in trying and the alternative is to keep sinking into a gray hole of sadness and pain.
First, I stopped running my fingers through my hair. It would either fall out or not, and the constant hand-check would only hurt my cause.
Second, I reached out to a colleague whose daughter had also gone through chemo and hair loss —sometimes you need some good old phone-talk therapy to gain new perspective and connect the dots.
Third, I paused, took a deep breath, and made the conscious decision to put a new spin on things, do a one-eighty, and regain some control.
Your daughter lost her hair halfway through chemo, didn’t she? —I asked my colleague on the phone.
She did —was the first part of her answer, and then she continued. She lost about fifty percent of her hair, two-thirds into her twelve-round chemo protocol.
So… she didn’t lose it all? —I asked relieved, as I began to stop fixating on the glass half empty.
No, she didn’t. And, after chemo, she grew back all the hair she had lost.
The words “fifty percent” kept lingering in my head… Was I falling, once again, into the all-or-nothing trap?
I ran to my bedroom and took a look in the mirror —not a look through the eyes of my fear, but a real look. Despite the unexpected extra shedding, I could see a head full of hair. I mean, literally, it was F-U-L-L.
This got me thinking…
Between losing no hair and losing all of it, there is a wide ocean of distance. And, while the anxiety of hair loss is real, before driving myself into panic mode, I have to pause, open my eyes and see what is truly happening in that in-between.
So, when seeing is believing, here’s my take-away on this one: Don’t look through the eyes of your fear and get fixated on what’s missing. Take a real look, see what actually is there, and also picture what else can there be.
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