I know we have a few folks on the SDMB who have gone through chemo. I’m very curious what you did about your hair loss. I’m curious because there’s a woman I sort of know (she’s a volunteer who shows up but doesn’t really “do” much but yap and complain about her personal life, so I have a hard time with her), who is going through a 2nd round of chemo and has started losing her hair. She’s doing the same thing as the first time, just - letting it fall out in whatever pattern and way it’s going to go.
It makes her look like a crazy person, and I’m really curious about what others who have been through it have done. Personally, I’m absolutely certain that once mine started falling out in clumps, I would shave it and wear bandannas, scarves, and cheap, fun wigs. Or just be bald - though if I really think about it I probably wouldn’t do bald in public.
I wonder if she’s doing it as a badge of honor or something, or if she really just doesn’t give a crap that she looks like a crazy person with this thinning/patchy/unkempt/every-direction hair. Last time it was down to a teeny, 4-inch long patch in the back that was put in a rubber band and made a tail about the size of half a pencil, while the rest of the little wispy stuff was just left to blow in the wind. I’ve known several people who have gone through hair loss, and I’ve just never seen someone who didn’t take an iota of care in appearance like this.
We have hair clippers here, if it’s a matter of not having any or not wanting to spend the money at a salon to shave it all the way off, we totally could do it here, and have done it for a couple of employees who went through chemo in the past. I can’t be the one to offer, though, because there’s just no way to approach the subject between me and her!
I don’t want to be an ass for thinking about this, but I do feel badly for her. What she’s going through is no fun. But maybe she really just doesn’t care?
It sounds like you’re just looking for yet another reason to feel contempt for this woman. And that’s fine, she may well be contemptible, cancer doesn’t bestow sainthood. And I’ll tell you, you won’t find many people more “You’re going out like that?” than I am, but really, her hair is the least of her problems, and I just wonder if you really dislike her that much, or if it’s just that her visible illness makes you that uncomfortable.
I had people coming out of the woodwork with various offers to help, including free haircuts and custom wigs made of my own hair (I worked in a stage theater at the time). I didn’t take any of them up on it, but went to a regular salon on my own instead. Charity is surprisingly un-fun no matter how non-charity-esque the offers are.
What I did: Got a buzz-cut and bleached the remaining stubble very blonde. (I’m brunette and usually wear it very long, though it was a little shorter than shoulder-length before the buzz.) This meant my scalp didn’t show in as much contrast in the patchiest parts. I wore a hat over that sometimes. I could have gone bald, and did think about it – I was in my 20s and lived in a hip Seattle neighborhood, so I wouldn’t have stood out if I had. But the blonde thing was fun.
My WAGs as to why your acquaintance is doing what she is… some combination of denial that it looks bad and attention-seeking, maybe? Or just wanting not to have to tell people she’s sick? There’s really no more striking signal that announces “CANCER PATIENT HERE” than that patchy-hair-loss look, and people do comment and commiserate.
BTW, DianaG, I think the OP has a legitimate question that could come from a generous-spirited curiosity, and needn’t be at all contemptuous. I found with both my cancers that people had NO idea what might be gong through my head and really wanted to know.
I’m perfectly open to that possibility, but the OP does come off as a little “Seriously, what’s wrong with this woman? Is she crazy, or does she just enjoy the pity party?”
My sister just finished up chemo and radiation for breast cancer. I was shocked at how quickly her hair fell out…it was a matter of days. She was all prepared with two wigs, and a selection of free hats from the cancer clinic for around the house. She is the least vain person in the world, and frightfully lax about her hair, but she went to her stylist who cut it shorter, then told her it was time to just give up and shave the scruffy bits off since she was wearing the wigs for teaching anyhow. Now it’s growing back in, though really short on top and faster and longer at the back…OMG, I just realized she has a natural mullet! She’s still wearing the wigs.
Maybe this woman feels so comfortable there with you all that she feels she can go wig-less, and saves her wig for other times? Or maybe she just is trying to fool herself into thinking it looks okay, and she really isn’t going bald. I know it was a hard thing for my sister, to look in the mirror and see it dropping out by the handful. Maybe she doesn’t know her insurance might pay for a wig?
I get where you’re coming from, Diana - I was pretty sure my OP would come off that way. I can’t deny I don’t like this woman very much. We have come to an understanding over the years, and exchange pleasantries when needed, and keep everything civil. I hear a lot about her personal life, because that’s what she does when she’s here, she talks - a lot - to whoever will remain in the room while she’s talking.
While I don’t like her, I certainly don’t wish ill on her. I have known her now for the better part of 8 years, so some empathy on my part is unavoidable, really. I’ve seen her every week for years, and I have to give her credit for at least showing up pretty much no matter what. Part of where I’m coming from is that she’s disadvantaged enough as it is, and going through cancer treatment is just something she doesn’t need (well, who does), but looking even more terrible on top of giving bad first/second/third impressions in the first place is something I would think she would try a little harder to avoid.
Mostly, I’m wondering whether other Dopers have or know someone who has just let it all hang out in a similar fashion, and maybe it’s not as unusual as I suspect. I truly am curious, and not trying to be mean-spirited. Life is too short for that!
My mom has recurrent cancer and is going through chemo right now. She’s lost most of her hair, but evenly (no bald spots) and for a while was trying to do a comb-over type look but eventually just buzzed it all off. She’s been wearing scarves and hats – her wig is way too full and looks odd on her. She’s always had exceptionally thin hair and has a very small head (she’s a very petite lady in general), so this big poof of hair would probably look normal on, say, me, but on her it’s just silly.
The last time she had cancer, a friend of hers got her a bright purple wig and she loved wearing it out.
My Mom had plaited my hair while I was in the hospital. I had been too weak to move around much so it just stayed like that until I went home. The first thing I wanted to do when we got back was wash it because it was itchy. Dad was going to pick me up and put me on the counter so Mom could wash my hair in the kitchen sink. I could only stand long enough to walk to the bathroom. I had already been on chemo about two weeks at that point. When Mom went to undo the plaits the hair just started coming off. Each braid just came right off as soon as you pulled on it. All of the hair was gone and in the trash can in couple of minutes. I was kind of stunned. There was hair and then there was none. Almost none. I had about a dozen or so hairs that just stubbornly clung to the top of my head and stayed with me the whole time.
My parents, without really talking to me about it, ordered a $150 wig. It was made from real hair. I was so creeped out by it that I never wore it once. I just wore hats. Even when I went back to school.
Have you ever seen this lady wearing a hat? Maybe you and some of the other volunteers could pitch in and buy her a nice one. Something that’s very soft inside. Just tell her that cold weather is coming and you thought she might like something to keep her head warm. I was cold all the time during treatment.
My hair just thinned, and for a while I thought I would have a receding hairline like a balding man, but it never went past the point of looking like a healthy woman with thin hair. My sister shaved hers once she realized it was all going to go, and wears bandannas in public but goes bald at home. She has a couple of wigs but said the wigs and bandannas are really hot.
If it’s cost that’s the issue she can get free makeup and wigs from the American Cancer Society’s Look Good Feel Better program.
Me, I was really devastated about my hair. I had had it in the back of my mind that I would just pick up the clumps as they fell out and braid them together so I could save them. Turns out hair doesn’t fall out in nice neat locks like that. I was in the shower when it started, every time I pulled my fingers through my hair another handful would come away and it would just. not. stop.
I made an appointment with a specialty wig shop (they specialize in cancer patients, and I’d already bought the wig so all follow-up care was free), and got my hair cut into a short pixie cut. She cut the locks off and gave them to me so I could braid it together and keep it. Since I no longer had the weight of the hair pulling it down, the thinness wasn’t as obvious, but I was wearing the wig maybe a month or so later. A couple months after that I gave up on the idea that any of my hair could be saved (it was gone except for whispies here and there), and was sick of waking up with loose hair in my nose and eyes, so went back to the wig shop to get shaved.
I never appeared in public bald. I certainly never appeared with patchy hair. I sort of wish I’d gotten brave enough to doff the wig while at work, though. It was unbearably hot with the hot flashes (chemo-induced menopause); plus I’m pretty sure that’s part of the reason my boss fired me, is because he didn’t believe I was really sick :rolleyes: since I kept showing up to work and didn’t complain about it. Therefore the fact that I was slow and tired was just me being lazy, obviously.
(He fired me over the weekend and over the phone, so for a while I had fantasies of being able to look him in the eye, remove my wig so he sees my whispy almost-non-existent hair, and saying “You want to say that to me again?”)
