[alicem]

I started my TCH on Jan. 20th of this year. I never had clumps of hair on my pillow when I woke up even though I kept looking every morning thinking this would be the day. Finally on day 17 as I ran my fingers through my hair, about 50 hairs came out instead of the usual 5. It soon became my "new trick" to impress (or gross out) my friends! By about the 4th week after chemo, I had less than 25% of the hair on my head and was tired of the way it made me look. Besides there was too much hair on my head to make wearing my wig comfortable. So, off it came. A friend who is a hairdresser came to my house and shaved it off and I never looked back. I like to think of all the money and time I have saved. Haven't spent one dime at the hairdressers, or on hair color or shampoo and conditioner. I can go for a last minute workout, shower afterwards and be ready to go in less than 10 minutes because I don't have to do my hair. I took pictures of that day and was even brave enought to post them with this reply. I got a message saying they needed to be resized. If I can figure out how to do that, I will post them at a later time!

My hair never did all fall out, and I never lost my eyebrows or eyelashes. About 10% of my hair kept growing back even though I shaved 2 more times after the initial time. Finally I gave up and let it do its thing. I had my last chemo almost one month ago and you can now see color on my head other than pink. I think what bothered me more than anything was losing my nose hairs. The herceptin seemed to make my nose run and there was nothing standing in the way of the drips!

I'm thinking of you Darlene as you go through this. You will be stronger because of it.