Pre-chemo Haircut

Chemo starts today.

I had to come to St. Louis Wednesday instead of Thursday because they changed my appointment time to have my chemo port installed. I’m staying at Hope Lodge, which is run by the American Cancer Society. I don’t have a lot of good things to say about the American Cancer Society. If I had breast cancer or cervical cancer, I would be able to get all kinds of help from them. Given that I have ovarian cancer and endometrial cancer, sorry Charlie. I did get a swag bag, however, when I checked in.

Reality is finally setting it. Tuesday night I called my hair stylist to see if I could get a pre-chemo haircut. My regular stylist was out with a bad back so his wife cut it. It’s a very short buzz cut. A friend commented I now have a G.I. Jane haircut. My regular stylist’s parents worked with women with breast cancer going through chemo who had lost their hair. They understand.

She was wonderful. She fit me in at the end of the day and it was just her and I in the shop. I never thought I was attached to my hair until she started cutting and pieces started falling on the floor. She kept commenting that I have a nice head shape. I’ve always been a quick shampoo and out the door girl. I don’t own a blow dryer, styling tools or hair products. Losing my hair is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. There were a lot of tears and hugs that night.

My hair was already super short. I knew the chemo drugs were going to cause my hair to release so I chose to get the pre-chemo cut to have less to lose because I thought it would make the eventual hair loss easier. I didn’t realize how hard this first hair cut was going to be. It’s not so much the hair as what it represents – the end of my old life and the beginning of my new life with cancer. I found myself running my fingers through my hair and catching glimpses of myself in mirrors.

It’s hard to believe in the past I had thought about shaving my head on several occasions. Now that I am going to go bald, I want my hair back. It’s part of me. I want my old life back. I am so jealous of women with hair. Right now I don’t have any control over me anymore. My body is no longer mine. It’s an alien object.

When I looked in the mirror afterwards, I saw a stranger. It wasn’t me but it is me. I feel like a freak show and that everyone is looking at me. Losing my hair is one of many badges of courage I am earning in this fight. God there are days I wish it didn’t have to be me. Walking out of her shop that night was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

I still look in the mirror and expect to see me with hair. Seeing me like this is a shock. I keep rubbing my hands over what’s left and my head feels like a brillo pad. And I really really really miss my hair. Even what little I have will be gone within the next two weeks.

Every day is a reminder that I have 18 long hard weeks ahead of me. I am losing pieces of myself and I don’t have a say in it. First I lose my reproductive organs; now I have to lose my hair. What more do I have to lose?

I don’t know what I was expecting when I heard I had cancer. Intellectually, I knew what I was dealing with. At the deep down emotional gut level where it really counts, I had no idea. I’ve been on an emotional roller coaster since my diagnosis. Thank God I found out one of my many scripts is for Atavan. I never needed mother’s little helper until now.

I don’t know where I’m going to come out on this journey. Everyone tells me to think positive. I’m a realist. No one knows what is going to happen. I just have to deal with it one minute at a time and give myself permission to have what one friend calls the “screaming woo-hoos”.

Battling cancer takes courage. This fight is not for the faint hearted. There are days I am beginning to wonder if I can do this.

The Time Has Come To Talk Of Many Things

“The time has come,” the walrus said, “to talk of many things: Of shoes and ships – and sealing wax – of cabbages and kings”

― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

It’s 4 a.m. on Mother’s Day and I am finally having my breakdown. Three weeks ago I went in for a da Vinci radical hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy. I ended up having a diagnostic laparoscopy, exploratory laparotomy, total abdominal hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, bilateral pelvic and periaortic lymph node dissection, omentectomy, peritoneal biopsy and appendectomy when my gynecological oncologist found a large malignant mass on each ovary.

I am so angry right now. This should not be happening to me. My freelance writing business was finally starting to take off and I had so many plans this year. I was going to Ireland and Scotland for a month. Now I am reeling from not only a diagnosis of early-stage endometrial cancer but stage 1c ovarian cancer and getting ready to start chemotherapy. If my gynecologist had listened to me in 2008 and did the hysterectomy then I would not be going through this now.

It’s taken three weeks for me to wrap my head around this and I am still an emotional wreck. My brain has refused to process this information. I was mentally prepared for endometrial cancer. I had done my research. I knew everything there was to know about endometrial cancer. I knew nothing about ovarian cancer. No one expected this. My surgeon did not expect to find this. It was a shock to wake up in recovery with 25 staples in my belly.

I’m terrified. No woman wants to hear she has ovarian cancer. No woman should have to hear she has ovarian cancer. I’ve been trying to put on a brave face and making jokes but the reality of the diagnosis hit home when I met with my doctor Friday to go over the pathology report and discuss my treatment options.

According to my pathology report, I had synchronous primary tumors on my right and left ovaries. The tumor on my right ovary had seromucinous and clear cell histopathologic features and the tumor on my left ovary had seromucinous histopathologic features. What this means is while my cancer was caught early, it is more difficult to treat and less responsive to chemotherapy. My doctor placed me in the 50 percent or greater group of women who survive.

I start chemo next week. I have six sessions, one every three weeks. I will have infusions of Taxol and Carbo. I’m not ready for this. I am never sick. I don’t even have a primary care physician. Since 2008, when this nightmare started, I’ve only been to the doctor twice – once for a broken finger and once when I got hit by lightning. I survive being hit by lightning only to be taken out by cancer.

I’m not ready to die yet. There is still so much I want to do. I need to finish writing my book. Dying is all I can think about. Thank God for my friends. They have talked me down off the ledge more times than I can count the past three weeks. No woman should go through this alone. I don’t get along well with women. My best friends are guys. But I have discovered such a great sisterhood of women out there since my diagnosis who have been supportive and loving. Women need each other at times like this and I am so grateful for the women in my life right now.

I have stepped off the edge of the world where there be monsters. I must take up my sword and shield and prepare to do battle.