More Fun with Cancer

OK, folks, today promises to be a very challenging day for me on a number of levels so I giving you some specifics to share along with me today. Cheer me on, rally me home, 'cuz I know it will go better for me if you are all behind me!

First of all, much of my hair fell out last night. There is still enough there that I will have to do something about it today, either continue sloughing it off or just shave it already, because the sporadic pink (no, I'm not really sure why they are pink, they just have a pinkish tint to them) tufts are beyond disturbing.

You know, when you contemplate the actual losing of your hair, you don't really consider the actual moments of when it is physically dropping off your head. You think of how chic you might look if you happen to have an attractive scalp and how bold you may be in proclaiming bald as beautiful with scarves and shiny oil, but you don't really ever think of how each of those hundreds of thousands of individual hairs are going to come detached from your head and how that prolonged separation might affect you.

Once you notice the tufts dropping, do you help them along? Ignore them in hopes that they'll hang on a few more days? And how to do this while hoping your kids (and worse their teenage friends) don't get scarred for life?

Well, I have no answers, folks, but I will share what worked for me rather peacefully last night. I put on the Sound of Music, darkened the room and de-tuffted into a giant pile while I sang my way happily thorough "My Favorite Things", "Do Rey Me", and "I Am Sixteen Going on Seventeen". By the time we got to the puppet show, about 60% of my hair was in a pile, I looked a little like a crazed Jack Nicholson in the Cukoo's Nest with my hand madly running through my hair and an insane look in my eye, but it was painless for me and the kids didn't notice a thing except my cheerful and likely irritating singing, which they are totally used to anyway. So, probably not your most conventional method, but worked for me. By the time I had removed all I could for the evening I had my night cap in place and all was well.

As for the remaining tufts, I will see what to do. Shaving concerns me a little because of the radiation irritation on the scalp, but we shall see. I believe there is a specialist at the wig store at UCLA who can help me break through to the other side successfully.

On another note entirely, something has gone terrible wacky in my stomach over the last few days. For no clear reason, my abdomen has distended (and I mean really distended--I look like I am ready to give birth any minute to a full term baby which happened to grow in the span of about 40 hours). My children were astounded, thinking they were suddenly getting a sibling, no joke. This is not a normal side effect of the brain radiation or the medications I am on as far as the two doctors who have seen me in the last two days can ascertain, so I get to go to the hospital today for pokes and prods and scans to see what the heck is going on in there before I actually pop.

Could be fluid, could be blockage of some sort, we shall see. I am not in any pain, and it is a good thing I am so used to looking and feeling pregnant because I am just going with it. What else can one do? The waddle, once you've had it, never leaves you, it turns out!

Nonetheless, I can't imagine there is any really good or positive reason that this is happening, so I give this to you, along with my balding woes, to think good thoughts for me and say more prayers that this will all go well so I can get back to the business of cheerfully spending time with my family rather than doctors (who really can be great, but enough already, OK?).

Wish me luck, and I'll keep you posted.