It was sort of a fun and terrifying game – small tugs at my hair would now yield a clump in between my fingers. On average, I was up to about 30. I read somewhere the human head has about 100,000 hairs. Well let’s be honest, I was already down a few so a couple thousand pulls should do the trick. Or OR I could just have Beeral’s hair stylist come over and do it the right way.
It definitely wasn’t the funnest experience I’ve ever had. The slow crawl of balding helps you sort of come to grips with it over time and if it gets overwhelming enough, you shave it off. The finality of getting my head shaved out of necessity, not really choice, left me unsettled. I suppose it’s a rite of passage and I should just deal. As my friends frequently remind me, it was coming out anyway.
Going into work was fun. I had only told a few people prior to the Monday. So I decided to blast a note out to a wider audience of co-workers on Sunday night. It’s just so much easier to do it this way than have awkward 1-on-1 conversations about my hair. Unsurprisingly, everyone was so cool and supportive. Some people wanted to talk more about it, others preferred to not mention it and carry on business as usual. Hardly an awkward moment.
2 days ago, I had an oncologist visit followed by treatment #3. Dr. Goodgame, very appropriately named, checked my neck and couldn’t feel any of the lymph node swelling anymore. This is obviously super exciting, though it’s just a physical check. The real test will be the petscan after treatment #4. He’s also taking me off the bleomycin (‘B’ in ‘ABVD’) because of my nagging, phlemy cough. It’s just a precaution and studies show it’s not a critical component of the treatment, so he says. Bleo, as it is affectionately called in the medical community, can cause lung toxicity.
On to treatment #3. The Red Woman’s Elixir makes me nauseous just thinking about it. Just the whole thing and having to get it pumped manually and eating ice. Nasty. Well, I made it worse. I had the brilliant idea of throwing some OJ in my crushed ice! “See look, I made an orange slushy” is literally what I said to my nurse pumping that red crap in me. She looked at me and awkwardly smiled. I think she knew it was an awful move and let me do it anyway.
My taste buds are now shot. I asked Beeral, “have you ever accidentally tasted your ear wax?” Her quick response: “Uh no” and so I quickly respond, “yeah, me neither” False. That’s what my mouth tasted like, with a faint hint of orange. I had a Chi’lantro spicy chicken burrito yesteday and it didn’t taste the same. Then we got out of the house and watched Deadpool last night while Mom and Dad babysat. Great flick. The worst part of the experience was having 1 of my great vices in life – movie nachos in all their fake cheese glory – and even that didn’t taste the same. That’s what I call taste bud rock bottom.
All in all, besides the taste bud thing and the 2-week old cough that my depleted immune system is almost done defeating, I feel great. Nausea has been minimal this time around, as has fatigue and dizziness. Let’s do this! 25% done!