my eyebrows, that is.
Yes, last time I reported, they were falling out. Strangely they did not fall out evenly. Instead, the hairs closer to my nose fell out first. Eventually I had no eyebrows close to my nose and only the half closer to my hairline were left. I woke up at 4 am one night and looked at myself. More eyebrow hairs had fallen out while sleeping and I looked completely ridiculous! I grabbed my tweezers and next thing I knew, all eyebrows were gone! Whew! "I'm going to regret this in the morning," I thought.
The next morning I brushed on some eyeliner where my eyebrows used to be and it looked horrible! What a disaster! After a bunch of smearing with a tissue and other emergency maintenance, I eventually looked acceptable enough to show up at radiation and work. So off I went!
My hair is definitely growing back, thank goodness. As soon as my scalp is no longer visible, I'm going to stop wearing hats, scarves, wigs, etc. I'm estimating that will take another two or three weeks and then I'll be in a new phase of survival.
As my mom said, the fact that I actually care about my appearance is a very good sign that I'm feeling better!
Friday, March 18, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Some Hair Here, No Hair There...
I've survived two weeks of radiation and so far, so good. It is a huge pain to get off the train, hop on the subway and then walk 10 minutes to Sloan Kettering - EVERY week day. And having moved to the suburbs, I forgot how dirty the subway is. I guess because of my heightened consciousness about my health I now notice it more. I see and hear people hacking and coughing left and right and it makes me nervous. Even though I'm done with chemo and my blood counts should be back to normal, I still feel I should be avoiding these sickly people. The first thing I do at Sloan is douse my hands and wrists with purell. Luckily they have dispensers everywhere!
Other than that, the big developments are hair-related. Eyelashes: Gone. Eyebrows: Almost Gone. Hair on Head: Growing back. Very strange that some of the hair is still falling out and some is already growing back. Also, this might be TMI, but the hair under my arms and on my legs has, as of yet, not regrown. That's a nice thing. My showers still only last a few minutes.
So I'm actually looking quite strange. If you don't notice the lack of eyelashes, you definitely notice the weird eyebrows. That's because they haven't fallen out consistently. All of the ones closest to the bridge of my nose are gone but there are quite a few farther out. I guess you could say I'm the opposite of a unibrow! I'm not sure what to do about this - do I draw in hairs closer to my nose? But that would look weird, too - it would be obvious that I'm drawing in fake eyebrows, I think. To date I have done nothing because I don't know what to do. People seem to be looking at me a bit strangely and so when they ask me how I'm feeling I always say, "Very tired. And my eyebrows are falling out!" I say this just so that they know that I know that I look bizarre. I'm not sure what I think I'm accomplishing by doing this but anyway, that's how it's going.
The hair on my head is coming back. It's very fine - like a baby's first hair. And unfortunately there's a lot of white appearing! Otherwise it looks like it will end up my normal color (the oncologist told me to expect anything). Guess I will need to look into getting it colored when it gets long enough. Boo! For now, I'm still wearing my crazy hats. I'm getting lazy and too tired of trying so I'm down to wearing black, grey and navy.
Other than that, the big developments are hair-related. Eyelashes: Gone. Eyebrows: Almost Gone. Hair on Head: Growing back. Very strange that some of the hair is still falling out and some is already growing back. Also, this might be TMI, but the hair under my arms and on my legs has, as of yet, not regrown. That's a nice thing. My showers still only last a few minutes.
So I'm actually looking quite strange. If you don't notice the lack of eyelashes, you definitely notice the weird eyebrows. That's because they haven't fallen out consistently. All of the ones closest to the bridge of my nose are gone but there are quite a few farther out. I guess you could say I'm the opposite of a unibrow! I'm not sure what to do about this - do I draw in hairs closer to my nose? But that would look weird, too - it would be obvious that I'm drawing in fake eyebrows, I think. To date I have done nothing because I don't know what to do. People seem to be looking at me a bit strangely and so when they ask me how I'm feeling I always say, "Very tired. And my eyebrows are falling out!" I say this just so that they know that I know that I look bizarre. I'm not sure what I think I'm accomplishing by doing this but anyway, that's how it's going.
The hair on my head is coming back. It's very fine - like a baby's first hair. And unfortunately there's a lot of white appearing! Otherwise it looks like it will end up my normal color (the oncologist told me to expect anything). Guess I will need to look into getting it colored when it gets long enough. Boo! For now, I'm still wearing my crazy hats. I'm getting lazy and too tired of trying so I'm down to wearing black, grey and navy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)