Yesterday, I messaged a new friend I made through an angiosarcoma group. She is going through the exact same thing I am, only she’s four cycles ahead of me. So I asked her when her hair fell out. I was curious because I’ve been noticing hairs lazily falling out in the past few days. She said, “Probably about the time you are at.” I didn’t know how right she was until today.

As I was organizing the house so we could get a head start on Christmas decorations, I noticed my hair wasn’t lazy anymore. The few hairs I would notice before turned into thirty hairs at a time. Then the thirty hairs turned into clumps. Cancer suddenly felt very real and I began to cry. But I wasn’t crying for my hair. I had said goodbye to that on my own terms weeks ago. I was crying because, up until this point, the journey has been relatively smooth. I’ve been positive and upbeat, and the chemotherapy did not seem to affect me as badly as everyone said it would. It almost didn’t seem real. But, now, as I look in the mirror at my half-bald self, the reality is very hard to unsee. I have cancer, the cancer has the potential to kill me, chemotherapy is in my body. 

The hardest part of my bad hair day was the way it affected my daughter when she saw me. She burst into tears, ran away and hid. My heart broke when she couldn’t look at me. At first, she didn’t want to talk. But, after I put on a hat and gave her a little time, we were able to talk about it being okay to be sad. That life was changing and change can be scary. We also talked about the bright side; Mommy’s hair could grow back and be crazy curly or it could grow back a different color! She asked if I would get a wig. I told her that we could maybe pick one out together. She thinks Mommy should go blonde!
Despite the reality check this afternoon, I’m still smiling. And I’m still going to kick this cancer in the ass. I’m just going to do it with a different hairdo. I’m just praying my eyelashes and eyebrows hang on, though!

And for anyone reading this going through something similar, I highly recommend taking that little bit of control back and say goodbye to your hair before the chemo takes it. When the hair began to fall out, I didn’t find it all that traumatic. Not only did I know it was going to happen, it was short so the handfuls were already smaller than they could’ve been.