The Follicle Files

Don't fib. I know you want to know. "What is the hair situation with her, underneath those dreadful bandannas and that wig?"

About a month ago, I noticed little sprouties of white hairs peeking through my scalp, as my A/C regimen was ending. There's a bit more fuzz now. It mingles with the tiny, short pieces of dark stubble that's still clinging to my skin from when I had my husband shave my head. The stubble was a real problem, as it clung to headwear and irritated me when the follicles got rubbed the wrong way.

Finally, I slathered a washcloth with Clarins skin cleanser in the shower and rubbed my scalp with it, which removed most of what was still hanging around. But at no time has my scalp been 100% bare. Right now I look — and feel — like Zippy the Pinhead. No one other than my husband and child have seen me with my head uncovered, and I only started doing that about two weeks ago.

I feel practically no need to say much about the "other hair," not being of the generation that grooms it so. (I REALLY want to know where this obsession originated.) I stubbornly had not waxed my legs since December, hoping that hair would rub off when I bathed, but nothing doing. I broke down and waxed my legs about three week ago, and they seem to be staying relatively hair-free for a while.

With Taxol, Dr. Popular said I "shouldn't" have more hair loss, like my eyelashes and eyebrows. Ha. My lashes are getting very sparse, as are my eyebrows. This pisses me off, as my eyelashes are one of my "things," a thing I was born with that I really like about my physical self. A friend who has had treatment before said, "I felt like David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth." I'd like to amend that to read, "I feel like The Woman Who Fell to Planet Cancer."

A few nights ago I had a dream that I woke up, ran my fingers through my scalp and found that all of my hair had come back, exactly the same length it was before all of this crap started to happen. I felt relieved about it, but I also felt a loss, and wondered if I'd made the most of my time being bald. More about this struggle in another post.