Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Although I've been stricken with more chemo side-effects than I would have liked, I was hoping to avoid the hair loss thing. I don't have a lot of hair in the first place but I kind of liked what I had and was not ready to become a bald guy.

Another hope dashed!

On Tuesday, May 21, I noticed that my hair was falling out. Not fast or by large clumps or anything, but my pillow and hair brush clearly had a lot of 2" length hair in them. I wasn't in any hurry to have it go away, so I took no action to speed up the process.

Through the days that followed, I kept losing hair. It very much seemed like I was losing it somewhat uniformly, with the fastest loss on the sides of my head above and just behind my ears. I could also feel it getting thinner when I touched my head.

By Sunday, May 26, the steady loss of hair became more annoying than the thought of not having any, so I asked my wife if she would help me shave it off. I decided not to go all shiney-bald for fear of it just being too much of a shock, so we used my beard and body hair trimmer with the 4mm attachment on it. I also trimmed my beard to match the length (can I still call it that?) of my new haircut. By the way, I'm losing beard hair, too, but not at anywhere near the speed with which the stuff on top of my head was falling out. Isn't that strange?

Side note: My wife said I now look like Peter Gabriel, who is a hero of mine. I sent my barber a selfie to break the news to him (I had an appointment for a trim in the first week of June) and he said I looked like David Gilmour. Both of those comparisons have helped me deal with the drastic change with much more acceptance than I think I would otherwise have had.