Sunday, October 10, 2010

Chemo Hair

Today is a fluff piece to observe the passing of my "chemo hair".  When my hair first came in after chemo, it was soft and fluffy like newborn skin to the touch.  Indeed, I made people feel it (much to their dismay, but no one wants to offend a cancer survivor!) because it was so unusually soft.  I expected it to stay like that for a while but several weeks ago another cancer survivor told me that the same had happened to her and her hair texture changed after a few months to curly!  I have never had naturally curly hair.  The only curls I have had were heat or chemically induced.  And at this point in my life I have little interest in curl.  But sure enough right after my fateful meeting with this cancer survivor, my hair started to get longer and show a few curls and waves.  Here is a picture of me from a few weeks ago that reveals the wave and shagginess.

In the past few weeks, it has only gotten longer and shaggier so I broke down yesterday and had it cut, even though there still is very little hair on my head relative to my already short normal hairdo.  My hairdresser cut off all the soft hair, which she called "chemo hair" and characterized as "very common".  I shuddered since being common is one of my great fears.  Now my hair is shorter, stylish I hope and much closer in texture to my pre-chemo hair.  More evidence of being on the mend.

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