HAir HAir HAir

Today I finally went out without hair cover.
It really felt nice especially since it was another warm day.

My hair was pretty long before I learned about my cancer but I had it cut short before I had my operation. Then on the onset of the 3rd week after my first chemo it started falling off. I would have wanted to see the extent of the fall off -- that is how long my hair would actually stay but it was a problem on the drain so I had it cut further just skin head, with 1 cm still on my head. Whoa... I thought I looked pretty cool! But even the very short strands were a problem in the pillow and it might just go in my nose so I decided for a full shave on the 3rd week after the second chemo. The hair fall was like a cycle, it would grow a bit but would always fall off on the onset of the 3rd week after chemo.

Even my body hair fell off and stopped growing but that was okay until my eyebrows and eyelashes started falling off on the 3rd week after the 3rd chemo. I was very careful in washing my face making sure that I don't scrub my eyebrows to make it last longer... but it started thinning and thinning until I could just count the number of strands in my eyebrows 20 on the left and 15 on the right... 7 and 5... 2 and 1. Now that didn't really look nice at all. With a bald head but with brows one could still look cool but with NO eyebrows one looked doubly bald! And since I don't use eyebrow pencil I looked pretty bald the last cycles of my chemo. As someone said, I looked like the portrait in the paintings (of women without eyebrows and large forehead). Hahaha!

But thanks God the hair came back, slowly at first then rushing out pretty fast the last days. The eyebrows came back fast and now my head is black as fine black hair are growing and there are lots of white hair sticking out also which are longer and coarse. The hair is still pretty short so they almost cling to my scalp and it feels nice to touch my head. Even without hair I would still shampoo my scalp and sometimes even ask my mom to smell it, telling her "It smells nice, huh?" then I would also borrow her comb and stroke it in my head as I look in the mirror and Esming, our help would smile at me and I would tell her "Just practicing!" But now it is no longer a practice ! My hair is back and I don't have to cover my head anymore!