Hasn’t every woman secretly wondered what they would look
like bald?
We’ve seen a few
celebrity shaved heads. Remember Sigourney Weaver in Aliens 3 and Natalie
Portman in V for Vendetta? The late Persis Khambata was totally bald in Star
Trek: The Motion Picture. These stars bravely sporting their skulls made me
curious if my thick, curly hair was hiding a head that had a good shape or a
weird one. But I was only curious. I never planned to shave my head to find out
for sure.
I had taken 500mg
of cyclophosphamide a week for five months from December to April. I thought
the chemo medication would cause my hair to fall out in the first few weeks.
But after constantly pulling at my roots, I became satisfied it was staying
put. It was a huge boost to my ego. I looked normal and I could forget about my
hair and concentrate on all the other aspects of being sick. But “normal” was
about to end. On May 7th I would be given seven times the weekly
amount of chemo in one hour, a total of 3450mg of cyclophosphamide. This was to
help boost my bone marrow into making new stem cells so they could be collected
for my transplant. I was repeatedly told by my doctor and nurses that this dose
would certainly cause my hair to fall out. In spite of this, and because for
five months I hadn’t lost any hair, I had hopes that maybe I would be the
exception.
I had already
become fairly vain in the weeks after diagnosis. While I still looked good, I
was dressing up every day, putting on make-up and wearing jewellery that I
hadn’t worn in years. It was a siege mentality. Soon I would be dead and I
wouldn’t get to enjoy any of my nice things, so I had to wear all of it now. It
was like a tsunami was about to hit my house and I had to strap my valuables to
my body. There was another reason for putting on make-up and nice clothes. I
wanted to make sure I looked good if I dropped dead on the spot. If I keeled
over in the middle of the frozen food aisle at the supermarket, at least I
wouldn’t be in a grey sweatshirt with bleach stains on it. It was a variation
on the old wives tale about wearing clean underwear in case you had an
accident. I wanted to have a little class at the end.
So it was
natural, especially after the medical profession’s dire forecast, that I would
start dwelling on losing my hair. It started to consume me. Not in a crazy way,
but in a practical way. As usual, I hit the computer and did some research. I
found a You-Tube video by someone who photographed their hair re-growth over
six weeks. I only watched three weeks’ worth. I could guess how it ended. Then
I watched a video instructing you how to tie a scarf around your bald head. I
started to get agitated. That was not only because I was spending my precious
time watching the two most boring videos in the world, but I was about to join
the ranks of the bald and scarfed. I just prayed I wouldn’t start videoing
myself.
Although I now
knew how to make bows at the back of my bald head, I wanted to know when I
would have to buy the scarf. I typed in the google search box: “How quickly
will I lose my hair after chemo?” There were too many answers, some said days,
some weeks after “treatment”. I hadn’t
lost any hair so far from five months of treatment so I still didn’t know the
answer. After the big dose of chemo in May would my hair immediately drop out
of my head like a cat losing its winter fur? Would I leave it on my hospital
bed or dropping behind me as I walked down the hall in a furry trail? Or would
it fall like rain over a few days, leaving a thousand hairs everywhere I went,
in my bed, in my car and in my latte? Would it take a few weeks, gradually
thinning like an old man’s? Would half my head have hair while the other half
went bald like Two-Face from Batman? How was I going to feel about having no
hair?
I sat in the
haematology reception area in Auckland hospital scrutinising every stranger’s
head. Weeks ago these heads and the people who sat below them only got a
cursory glance from me. I gave them a nod in comradeship to the battle that
brought us all to this war room. But I didn’t linger. I didn’t plan to start
any conversations about blood diseases or commence competitions involving
chances of recovery. But now, over the top of my Women’s Day, I stared hard at
their foreheads and their ears. Was their hair too perfect? When they lifted
their eyebrows, did the hair move with it? Did they ever scratch their heads or
push the hair behind their ears? Or did they conspicuously leave their heads
alone? It was like being in a room full of Stepford Wives. Who was real and who
was wearing a wig?
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