and got shorn.
All I can say now is, the rest of it bloody well better fall out.
The nice young fellow who did it took such minute care to make sure the bits over my ears were straight, and that it all came out even, and to tidy up the stray bits at the back, I hardly liked to tell him it was going to be entirely gone by the end of the weekend.
~
Friday, July 08, 2011
Gone
Today.
With hat.
With other hat.
Clearly, need more hats.
It was just horrifying to pull out clumps of hair and it was getting me down, so last night, Chris paused the movie (Canadian Bacon) and said, OK, we're cutting your hair.
It took a bit of convincing, but it was clear that it really is all going to go, completely, so best to take charge of things. As a friend said, at least this way it will be something I did, not something being done to me. And I had had a hard night the night before, waking up every few hours in a fright, thinking I would wake up bald or, perhaps worse, patchy. Enough stressing.
We did the best we could with the sewing scissors, and Chris said it was coming away in his hands as he cut it. It looks very patchy, and that is only partly because of the limitations of the barber. This afternoon I'm going to the local parruchiere to get him to run the clippers over the rest of it. It is still coming out, but at least now is not scaring me so much, and I expect to be quite smooth by Monday.
It came at just the right time, since in the last day or so, the temperatures have shot up from a reasonably comfortable 27 to 31 today, and 32 tomorrow. Last summer it was so hot I was tempted to shave my head anyway. There is still a breeze off the Med and I must say it is a weird sensation to feel the breeze through the straw hat and on my scalp. Weird, but not at all unpleasant.
Next week is my one good week to organise things - shopping and stocking up and cooking and freezing - before Round 2. The neuropathy has eased a bit, and the pain killers are doing their work, so I can get around a little better, though even little walks to the shops leave me flattened afterwards. But at least I will be able to go to the local profumeria and see if I can buy some false eyelashes and a few eyebrow pencils. I've seen pictures of people with chemo-face and the no eyebrows/eyelash thing is rather frightening. Don't want to scare the locals.
~
Thursday, July 07, 2011
Going...going...
Lost about half my hair yesterday, expect the rest to go today. Got a friend to cut off what was left this morning. Looks pretty good in a sort of 1920s bob sort of way. And it makes my favourite straw hat fit better. I'll probably cut off whatever is left tonight. The hat works pretty well with a lightweight white silk scarf I bought the other day.
There is something viscerally terrifying about your hair falling out. Your frontal lobe, talky, rational brain can tell you all day long that it's ok, that it was expected, that it will grow back, but it doesn't stop that choke of terror when you run your fingers through and come away with a handful. That is something that goes way deeper than talking or rationality.
~
Wednesday, July 06, 2011
Sharing too much
I've got some Thoughts for y'all tomorrow on what chemo is like and how much fun it is to have cytotoxins eat your nerve cells.
It's late, and I'm too tired to write anything (besides, it hurts to type...yes...it's called chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy and it's great fun) but I thought I would take a moment tonight to frankly ask for prayers.
I'm not actually doing too terribly well, and have been told that the second round, set to start July 18, is going to be worse than the first. The nerve damage has made things difficult in ways I didn't expect, and it takes months for nerves to heal, if they are going to do so at all. So with only three weeks in between doses of poison there isn't enough time for the nerves to re-grow and the damage is going to be compounded. It means a lot of pain, difficulty walking and falls. Which in turn means a lot of lying around at home unable to move.
For the first week, they gave me the wrong kind of painkillers so it wasn't much fun. I've got better pain medication now, but it is a lot stronger and is leaving me pretty addled, so it's a bit difficult constructing sentences. (I'm fine with that last part, actually. Thinking too much has been one of the biggest fun-killers of my whole life, so it's a relief to have an excuse not to do it at all for a while.)
My Evil Brain is also getting in on the act; seeing I'm weak and taking this opportunity to attack, the monster that lives between my ears and spends all its leisure time trying to figure out how to kill me, has started whispering all manner of horrible things to me. Your brain is not your friend. Don't forget it.
Truthfully, I don't remember ever being this ill and helpless. It's annoying. And boring. And painful. And frightening. And lonely.
And since going into the hospital, I was thinking, "Well, at least I can get to the Gardone conference," but as it turns out, even though I am out of the hospital, I'm so flattened that I can't get to the end of the block, never mind getting on a train to the top of the Boot. It's killing me that I'm lying around at home while all these cool friends of mine are here, having fun without me.
And just to add to the press, all of this is turning out to be very hard on the people who are trying to help me.
So, not much fun around here, I'm afraid. But praying helps, so I'm told, and at the moment, I'm not really up to doing it myself. So...
HJW
It's late, and I'm too tired to write anything (besides, it hurts to type...yes...it's called chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy and it's great fun) but I thought I would take a moment tonight to frankly ask for prayers.
I'm not actually doing too terribly well, and have been told that the second round, set to start July 18, is going to be worse than the first. The nerve damage has made things difficult in ways I didn't expect, and it takes months for nerves to heal, if they are going to do so at all. So with only three weeks in between doses of poison there isn't enough time for the nerves to re-grow and the damage is going to be compounded. It means a lot of pain, difficulty walking and falls. Which in turn means a lot of lying around at home unable to move.
For the first week, they gave me the wrong kind of painkillers so it wasn't much fun. I've got better pain medication now, but it is a lot stronger and is leaving me pretty addled, so it's a bit difficult constructing sentences. (I'm fine with that last part, actually. Thinking too much has been one of the biggest fun-killers of my whole life, so it's a relief to have an excuse not to do it at all for a while.)
My Evil Brain is also getting in on the act; seeing I'm weak and taking this opportunity to attack, the monster that lives between my ears and spends all its leisure time trying to figure out how to kill me, has started whispering all manner of horrible things to me. Your brain is not your friend. Don't forget it.
Truthfully, I don't remember ever being this ill and helpless. It's annoying. And boring. And painful. And frightening. And lonely.
And since going into the hospital, I was thinking, "Well, at least I can get to the Gardone conference," but as it turns out, even though I am out of the hospital, I'm so flattened that I can't get to the end of the block, never mind getting on a train to the top of the Boot. It's killing me that I'm lying around at home while all these cool friends of mine are here, having fun without me.
And just to add to the press, all of this is turning out to be very hard on the people who are trying to help me.
So, not much fun around here, I'm afraid. But praying helps, so I'm told, and at the moment, I'm not really up to doing it myself. So...
HJW
Friday, July 01, 2011
Our Emblem Dear...
Happy Dominion Day, everyone.
One long post of all things Canadian today...
The 48th Highlanders. You can't be Canadian if you don't like pipe bands. It's a rule.
A grand Canadian tradition: the Tattoo
Halifax has one of the best in the world, and I went twice. I know someone, who lives now in Toronto but grew up in Cape Breton, (which is the source of all Canadianness) who flies back every year to sing in the Tattoo choir.
Stan,
Oh, how I wish you hadn't left us. Things would have worked out better...
The Canadians arrive: Devil's Brigade.
I've got this movie. It's about how the clean-cut Canadians went to Italy and kicked the tar out of the bad guys. (Yes, that's Cliff Robertson marching in correct Canadian form at the front. I was taught this in army cadets, you make a fist with your thumb straight up on top, and bring your arm up so it is level with the top of your breast pocket.)
It is one of my all time favourite war movies.
Canadians war-like?
Best neighbours.
Big!
But of course, no one likes Toronto.
I went to PEI once. There were LOTS of potato fields...
"...anOTHER big load o' buddados..."
And if you're in Halifax, always get your chips at lunchtime from Bud the Spud, parked in his own officially reserved spot, outside the library.
Big Things! (It's kind of a Canadian thing)
Big Things in Canada I've seen:
The Big Nickel
The Big Hockey Stick
The Big Easter Egg
The Big Blueberry (admittedly, one of the smaller Big Things in Canada, but blueberries are big, both literally and economically in the maritimes...)
Curling! Paul Gross! Leslie Neilsen:
Three other Great Canadian Things no one outside of Canada has ever heard of.
(plus a funny scene with beavers)
Mounties!
(Real Mounties aren't really like Paul Gross in Due South. I thought I'd just say that in case anyone gets confused. For one thing, he never had the regulation mustache. And he wasn't a living embodiment of political correctness...)
(Speaking of PC, Dorothy seems a little down in the dumps this Dominion Day. I've told her that it's because she's an ex-liberal from Toronto, the Source of All Badness in Canada. Being a Toronto ex-liberal can leave deep scars. Toronto liberals are always raised on high-irony diets, which in later life can lead to Bitter Conservatism in which you can't like things any more. One way or the other, Toronto knocks all the cheerful out of you. Go on over there and cheer her up about Canada, OK? Go on. Quote her some funny Canadian poetry or something.)
~
One long post of all things Canadian today...
The 48th Highlanders. You can't be Canadian if you don't like pipe bands. It's a rule.
A grand Canadian tradition: the Tattoo
Halifax has one of the best in the world, and I went twice. I know someone, who lives now in Toronto but grew up in Cape Breton, (which is the source of all Canadianness) who flies back every year to sing in the Tattoo choir.
Stan,
Oh, how I wish you hadn't left us. Things would have worked out better...
The Canadians arrive: Devil's Brigade.
I've got this movie. It's about how the clean-cut Canadians went to Italy and kicked the tar out of the bad guys. (Yes, that's Cliff Robertson marching in correct Canadian form at the front. I was taught this in army cadets, you make a fist with your thumb straight up on top, and bring your arm up so it is level with the top of your breast pocket.)
It is one of my all time favourite war movies.
Canadians war-like?
Best neighbours.
Big!
But of course, no one likes Toronto.
I went to PEI once. There were LOTS of potato fields...
"...anOTHER big load o' buddados..."
And if you're in Halifax, always get your chips at lunchtime from Bud the Spud, parked in his own officially reserved spot, outside the library.
Big Things! (It's kind of a Canadian thing)
Big Things in Canada I've seen:
The Big Nickel
The Big Hockey Stick
The Big Easter Egg
The Big Blueberry (admittedly, one of the smaller Big Things in Canada, but blueberries are big, both literally and economically in the maritimes...)
Curling! Paul Gross! Leslie Neilsen:
Three other Great Canadian Things no one outside of Canada has ever heard of.
(plus a funny scene with beavers)
Mounties!
(Real Mounties aren't really like Paul Gross in Due South. I thought I'd just say that in case anyone gets confused. For one thing, he never had the regulation mustache. And he wasn't a living embodiment of political correctness...)
(Speaking of PC, Dorothy seems a little down in the dumps this Dominion Day. I've told her that it's because she's an ex-liberal from Toronto, the Source of All Badness in Canada. Being a Toronto ex-liberal can leave deep scars. Toronto liberals are always raised on high-irony diets, which in later life can lead to Bitter Conservatism in which you can't like things any more. One way or the other, Toronto knocks all the cheerful out of you. Go on over there and cheer her up about Canada, OK? Go on. Quote her some funny Canadian poetry or something.)
~
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