Baldness, the most commonly understood sign of cancer. It is a common side effect to chemotherapy. It’s not the head hair though, it can make beards fall out, eyebrows, all your body hair, or you get to keep it all. Tada, common perception and tv gets it wrong yet again. I lost head and facial hair (except eyebrows) while a friend lost everything, and I will get to how weird it looks/feels. And while it didn’t force my body hair to fall out, body hair fall out naturally all on its own at a steady state, the kicker is that in my case the chemo prevented new hair from growing back so the amount of body hair became less and less.
Chemo does not force hair to fall out immediately, it can take weeks for it to start and you will know it’s coming, everyone knows as people don’t shut up about it. The most egregious is when people accuse someone of lying about getting cancer treatment because they have hair, and yes this does happen. In my case I still had some strands of hair that would still grow or refused to fall out and people assumed I was off chemo with my hair growing back, sadly not all strands are affected. The worst thing for me was the stares I got when it started, I looked like shit, the stares and mutters from people just made me self-conscious. It would have been better in my opinion if they had come up to me and asked. And yeah, others that is the last thing they want as it gets awkward and forces them to confront things.
Hair does not just fall out; it takes time and is painful both physically and mentally. For me it stung, each strand of hair itched and burned in my scalp until I literally pulled it out which is one reason I looked so funny. Then when I showered the hair filled my mouth, almost clogged the drain and went everywhere. Not all of it of course as it can’t fall out together, it took about a week for it to all come out so I was shedding worse than a cat. Then I was mostly bald, but yay for not having to shave anymore. Mentally it is a gut punch, a reminder every time you look in a mirror, or wonder if random people will judge you. Hair is so much of a personal thing when it comes to styling and looks and even personality. I loved my rich silky brown hair. The feel of the wind on bare scalp also felt so weird, I never liked hair that short as it didn’t look good on me.
Knowing this would happen though I did take some steps. A week or so before starting chemo I cut it short but not shaved. The reasons were so I could get used to shorter hair as it went from inches down to a quarter inch, the other was so when it started to fall out it would be less hassle. I am glad I did that preparation as it made the issue of it falling out less crappy. If I hadn’t already felt wind on my scalp it would have truly freaked me out on top of other freak-outs. And I wanted to keep it as long as possible because fuck cancer. I did one other thing and told my friends that if they tried to shave their heads in some sad form of support I would insult them. There is no reason for them to shave, it shocked more than a few as that was deemed a standard way to show support or solidarity. However, I did not want them to look as crappy or silly as I would, it took years for them to get their hair to proper lengths or how they liked it. If they wanted to shave it to donate their hair is entirely different but that is not what “tradition” says. And this is a personal choice that every patient and friend of a patient must decide on their own. Did joke about a how funny one friend would look if she lost her afro though, earned me some dirty looks which was quite funny.
And yes, after treatment the hair should grow back, mine took a month to start. Just don’t expect the same hair that you lost. First off it will not grow in evenly; I need a trim to get it to look even as different patches started to grow back first, and my beard came in before my hair. Second it can change color, my hair is now black and not brown and seems to have lost its slight curl, this is a common side effect too, of hair coming back a different color or texture and I have no fucking clue why. Third, hair grows so damned slowly, like a quarter inch a month which is painfully slow when you are used to one or two inch locks, or the even harder foot long. And for all I know it will grow faster or slower, so much I don’t know and can’t seem to find out through research.
Cancer is Bullshit 