“A woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life”- Coco Chanel

I ran my hand over my freshly cut hair as I stared at my face in the mirror. ‘Wow’, my face is big’, I mused in my head.

“It looks so good on you!” Ann exclaimed as I continued to check out my new G.I Jane look. She was right, it did look good. It was weird to see all of my face not framed by any hair, but it was not bad look, it made me look tough. I needed that.

When I awoke that morning the sides of my hair had mostly fallen out. My hair was not necessarily just falling out from the roots it was literally breaking off. My hair had become brittle; it would just break off wherever I touched it. I took a scissors and chopped it off in a haphazard way; large chunks of hair from the top of my head because the heaviness of hair was becoming painful to my scalp. My head looked like a lawnmower had run over it, I kept it tied up until Ann arrived to shave it off with the buzzer, in what turned out to be a moment of hysterical laughing as I would tense up and get ticklish at the approaching sound and touch of the buzzer.

I had not expected to lose so much of my hair in under a month but chemotherapy affects everyone’s hair differently. Most people think that chemotherapy drugs always cause hair loss. But some don’t cause any hair loss at all, or only slight thinning. Other types of chemotherapy may cause complete hair loss, including eyelashes, eyebrows, underarm, leg and sometimes pubic hair.

Hair loss happens because the chemotherapy affects all cells in the body, not just the cancer cells. The lining of the mouth, stomach, and the hair follicles are especially sensitive because those cells multiply rapidly just like the cancer cells. The difference is that the normal cells will repair themselves, making these side effects temporary. Cold caps that protect the scalp from burning up from the drugs can help but this depends on the type of drugs being administered as it does not always protect against certain drugs and dosages.

Shaving my head helped me to have some sort of control over what was happening to my hair, it was easier emotionally to affect the change myself and not draw the painful process out. Because cancer doesn’t attack just your body, it attacks your mind and spirit one must have a certain amount of vanity and lots of self-love to deal with its physical results, there are wigs and makeup out there to fix the ugly side effects- because that’s what cancer does, it makes you look ugly, it strips down the mask for all to see and leaves you naked faced and feeling vulnerable- but inner beauty, strength and positivity will always shine through the veil of superficiality and that’s more powerful than any fix from eyebrow gel. (Next week: Round two chemo and more side effects.)