Packing away the wig...

I can't believe the only pictures I have of me in my wig are a few selfies.  And I only took them to send to a couple of far away friends and my sisters.  I'm glad now I took them.

Exactly five weeks ago today I ditched my wig.  I finally had enough hair growth, that the wig I had worn since losing my hair to chemo was becoming uncomfortable.  It was getting itchy and I was surprised to find that as my hair grew, wearing a wig or even a soft stretchy hat started making my scalp hurt.  I think it's because the hats and wig were pushing my hair against its natural growth, and my short bristly hairs put up a fuss against the constant pressure.  

To make matters worse, the adhesive used to secure the wig to my head started making it painful to remove once it had a half-inch or so of hair to cling to.  Ouch!  To be clear, wig adhesive is closer to post-it-note adhesive than super glue, but after a few hours of wearing the wig, the adhesive clung to, and became matted into the hair. 

Also, having more hair made it messier to clean the adhesive off when I just wanted to take the wig off and go wigless at home.  A washcloth sufficed when I just needed to clean the adhesive off my scalp.  At some point of the hair growing back, it required a more serious washing off - if I took the time.  If I didn't clean if off well, my hair would stick to any hat I wanted to put on when I inevitably turned cold.  

It was an icky, uncomfortable predicament that I hadn't felt prepared for, but I accepted it as part of the process.  The last straw, though, was when my natural hairline started to compete with the wig's hairline.  Since my new-growing hair was too short to pull back, my only option was to pull the wig down and forward further in front to cover it - and use more adhesive to make it stay there.  All of that just felt weird, and made my wig all the more wiggy-feeling.

The uncomfortableness grew over the course of a few weeks until the fateful day when out-of-town friends were visiting and I decided to be brave and just not wear my wig that day.  At home, not wearing my wig was my normal so I didn't have to overcome that.  And these friends had never seen me in the wig, so I figured them seeing me without it wouldn't be as big a deal as I imagined it might be to my local peeps who I saw and interacted with often.  I thought about it for maybe two minutes, until I concluded our visitors were a very safe "first" for my coming out.  

Not only were they safe, but they were completely unfazed.  Relieved it was that easy, I still wasn't sure I was going to be brave enough to go out into the wild, and to church with such short hair.  But when it came time to, I did what I'd done through the whole body-altering ordeal of cancer surgery and recovery.  I put some earrings on, warmed up my smile, and acted like I'd always looked like this.  I had to practice what I told myself at the beginning of all of this.  I had to show that I was okay.  Then everyone else would follow suit. 

These short-hair pictures are taken today - after two hair trimmings a few weeks apart to clean up some straggly hair growth.  I think it was a bit shorter 5 weeks ago when my short hair made its debut.

Pretending I wasn't feeling it, but quelling my nervousness over showing up in public the first time in my super short hair, I was relieved (and on some level, entertained) at the response I got the next Sunday at church.  I think all the women, who were interested, knew I had been wearing a wig since I had been completely open about it,  They were so supportive - seeming to understand I could use all the encouragement I could get. 

What I didn't expect was when several men commented on liking my HAIRCUT.  To be fair, these were men with whom I'd had little to no interactions with while I was going through treatment, so they were, perhaps, clueless when they saw my short hair for the first time. I good-naturedly set them straight, but I did appreciate the kind words.  In the end, any nervousness I felt was unwarranted, and I am so glad I didn't wait any longer to set myself free from the wig. 

I feel the desire to say as I share these pictures, over the last year I feel I have grown pretty far past my insecurities of looking my age.  Our culture is (and probably most cultures are) brutal to women in regards to their looks.  Perhaps men feel it too, but I am not one so I cannot know what they feel.  As a woman, who has a fair amount of vanity, though not overly given to make-up or fashion trends, and let's be honest...  I've cut my own hair in a bob for the last 25 years! So seriously...  how vain could I be? Yep, I thought I had vanity fairly well contained.  Well...after surgery, losing my hair, spending a week in the hospital (for the most part in a hospital gown) all the while dealing with tiny shedding hairs left over from being newly shorn, now taking a medicine that messes with my metabolism (which is already screwed up, to be completely honest here), and finally signing up for Medicare last week (lol)...  I'm here to tell you, vanity somehow still exists for this old broad.  I am not cured, but the best antidote I have found is to have a sense of humor about it all.  And to be thankful for life and all its variety.  The more we love people, the more lovely we all are.

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The day I stopped wearing the wig felt like Independence Day, and I've never been tempted to put it back on since.  I've kept it on its stand all this time - just in case, but I've finally concluded it's time to wash it and store it away in its box until I decide what to do with it.  I feel like there should be a ceremony or something...

For now I'm hanging onto my wig because, while I don't spend time seriously contemplating the idea of cancer coming back, it's pretty impossible to not have a niggle of that thought go through one's mind from time to time.  Taking a daily pill to hopefully keep cancer from recurring is a continual reminder that it can return anytime it pleases.

I am fortunate to not feel plagued by worry about recurrence, and I'll say I'm very thankful that so far I am not having any bad side effects from the ongoing endocrine therapy. While I am certainly not emotionless, at the end of the day I am a pragmatist, and, for now, I accept the odds - which is not too hard since the odds are in my favor.

It's funny to me that while I felt little emotion as I lost my hair to chemo (mostly, I felt fascinated, to be honest), the relief I have felt seeing it grow back has made me almost giddy at times.  That said, I think I'm wearing it short short at least through the summer.  I'm loving feeling the wind blow through my hair and it hardly getting mussed up.  And getting ready in the morning is super fast.  I could live with that perk the rest of my life!

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I want to say that this experience has opened my eyes and bent my heart to an issue I was largely unaware of before going through it.  I do not even pretend to understand what it feels like to have permanent alopecia, and I am aware that to someone reading this who does suffer from this condition, my words here may feel, on some level, thoughtless.  I am not so obtuse to not recognize that my being giddy over my hair growing back may seem frivolous to one who holds no expectation or hope for that.

And maybe more importantly than saying that, I want to say this:  While I benefitted last year from videos of women talking about their cancer/treatment experiences, it was videos of women who have alopecia who helped me most with coming to terms with submitting to a medication (and continue to take medication) that can cause permanent hair thinning and loss.  Some chemotherapies can and do cause permanent hair loss.  I had no idea of that before all of this.  While I never had a very thick head of hair previously, I had taken hair very much for granted.  While I am thoroughly enjoying my hair growing back, I hope I remain changed by this experience.  I am grateful for women brave enough to talk about such a scary condition.  And to give of themselves so generously as women search for answers, and helps for their hair loss.  To show the world that there is joyful, satisfying life in the midst of such a personal challenge is a gift to women.  I am grateful. 

Enjoying Ben's company on Easter Eve.

A few days after publishing this post, I replaced the picture I originally placed here with a much better one.  I love this picture of me with youngest son.