To baldly go

Getting your head shaved is one of those big moments. It’s such a bold statement. You can no longer pretend cancer hasn’t happened. Some people get it done as soon as the treatment starts but I waited as long as possible.

For most of my chemotherapy I wore an ice cold cap which protected the hair follicles by freezing my scalp. It worked pretty well but was so painful that in the end I had to ditch it. Thats when the hair loss began properly.

I didn’t go completely bald. Oh, no. I was left with big freaky tufts of soft fluffy hair. It was a cross between a mullet and a mohican. A mullhican if you like.

Meet the mullhican

I really needed to get it shaved off so it would all regrow at the same length. It’s more than five weeks since the chemo ended. Amazingly my eyelashes and eyebrows have already started to reappear. It won’t be long before my hair also comes back to life.

It was good to be doing something kinda normal again. The last time I visited Daniel Galvin, my hairdressers in London, it was a few days before my massive cancer operation. I had a cut and a bouncy blow dry. I wanted to go into hospital with it looking lovely. I’m sure the surgeons appreciated the effort.

My friend Angela has been cutting my hair ever since I moved back to Britain. When I was abroad I had plenty of bad hair days – it had been “accidentally” dyed orange and subjected to many dodgy styles. Angela helped to nurse my hair back to good health. It was finally in great condition and I really liked how it looked. Now I was getting her to chop it all off.

As Angela set to work, she kept checking that I wanted it all gone. I certainly did.

Here come the clippers

It’s taken me months to feel okay about losing my hair. Compared to what I’ve been through it shouldn’t have been a big deal but it was. It’s bad enough to have to fight a killer disease twice. I didn’t want to have another Sinéad O’Conner. However, I slowly got used to being a skinhead again.

Sitting in the busy salon with my tufty mullhican I wasn’t upset or even embarrassed. I was ready for my new look.

I’d thought I was going to get a baldy head, all smooth and shiny. I was worried that I was going to look awful. Instead Angela gave me a number three all over. I managed to avoid getting a close shave. I’’m really happy at how it turned out.

Hey cancer – look – I still have some hair!!!

Tah dah!

Before the drastic cut, I was scared to touch my hair because it would just fall out in my hands. Strands of the stuff got everywhere. It’s now very very short but it feels thick and strong.

With my real hair sorted it was time to introduce Candice and Raquel. This was their first trip to the hairdressers. I needed Angela to work her magic on my wigs and she couldn’t wait to get her hands on them.

The trouble with wearing a wig is that it can so easily look fake. Like a lump of unnaturally big hair that’s been plonked on your head.

Angela, me and Raquel

After both getting a trim, they looked much better and a whole lot less wig like. Even so, I won’t be wearing them all the time. They’re far too hot and itchy.

I’m so glad to have finally got rid of the fluffy mullhican. It was actually making me appear a lot sicker than I was. I had started to hate what I saw. This was something that cancer had done to me.

I’ve taken back control and now when I look in the mirror I see a new start.

Just one more

Exhausted, so exhausted. But also I was slightly excited that I managed to make it through chemo number five. The end of my cancer treatment is really in sight now.

For the previous sessions friends have come over for a chemo coffee on the ward with me. I was too ill for that this week. Although I did have a cheeky chocolate muffin before it started. Then all I could do was to lie in bed.

Not only do I want this to all be over but so do my veins. They’re beginning to give up on me and I don’t blame them.

They appear normal but once a needle goes anywhere near them they seem to disappear. During my emergency stay in hospital last week, it took three people to get just one blood sample and some rather spectacular bruises.

The chemo is delivered via a needle that has to stay in a vein all day. My evil chemo cocktail is so toxic that the nurses wear gloves when they’re handling the bags of liquid. If the drugs escape from my veins into the surrounding tissue this could be really dangerous. So the nurse has to hit a good strong vein.

One way that I cope with this is to play the alphabet game. I look away from my arm and silently name countries of the world from A – Z. Usually I get to Egypt or France. These days I end up in Kazakhstan, Libya or even Mexico.

And that wasn’t the only pain. I’ve been persevering with the pink cold cap. The hat with a rubber lining that’s frozen to -5c and helps to stop you from going bald. I love my new wigs but I’d still rather have my own hair even though it’s very thin now.

Of course the more exposed your scalp is, the colder your head gets. Normally the frostbite feeling gradually subsides but not this time. This time it hurt so much. After two hours I couldn’t stand it any longer. I gave up.

So that’s it, there’s no real chance that I’ll keep my hair. It was a sad moment but I was too tired to get upset.

That’s the best thing about being so shattered all the time, you don’t have the energy to worry about much. You just focus on getting through each day. When I had chemo before, it was this period between the fifth and sixth session that I found the toughest. It seems like your body is screaming at you that it can’t take any more of the poison and yet you know there is still one final dose to go.

Since the chemo on Wednesday, all I’ve done is sleep. Mostly just waking up to be sick, take tablets and eat. My life is almost completely on hold but I’m hoping that the Olympics will help me to feel a little bit better.

Before I was diagnosed with cancer, maybe before I even had the disease, I got tickets for London 2012. This Sunday I should be there watching show jumping and basketball but the Sunday after chemo is normally my worst day. However I’m determined to make it. Even just for a few minutes.

Not only that, I’m going to wear one of my new wigs for the first time. While I won’t be going for gold, I’m quite looking forward to being blonde and proving that I won’t be beaten by the chemo.

Diary of a chemo girl

I’m still so deliciously happy at properly getting rid of the cancer.

Yesterday I had more chemo as it was back to the business of keeping it beaten. Today I’m feeling oh so incredibly sick. I still have a few more months of treatment to go but at least I’m now officially half way through!

To celebrate here’s a blow by blow account of what I go through every three weeks. There’s much more to it than having a bunch of nasty drugs…

Tuesday 19th June – Preparing for chemo

9am: Wash my hair in tepid water so that it’s ready for the frozen hat on chemo day. Depressingly loads of it comes out.

10am: Start drinking.

Sadly it’s only non-alcoholic. I need to make sure I’m not dehydrated. Apparently it’s good to drink milk. What’s better than milk? Chocolate milk.

11am: Hypnotherapy at hospital. Once again I go to my imaginary tropical island and somehow it appears to work. The bad but bearable leg pain that I constantly get seems to go.

Lunchtime: Rest at Maggie’s Centre. It’s a beautifully modern building in the grounds of the hospital. Run by a charity, it’s for people dealing with cancer. I curl up on the big sofa in the living room.

2pm: Get a taxi to a different hospital in another part of London. We drive past BBC TV centre. I really want to stop the cab and go to work. I could be starting a late shift rather than another round of medical appointments.

2.30pm: At the chemo unit I get given a pink laminated card and wait for blood tests. It’s like a speedy boarding pass and means I can jump the queue. The tests will determine if I’m well enough for the horrible treatment.

The man taking the blood tells me I have chemo veins. They’ve gone into hiding but he manages to hit one first time. I accidentally watch as he wiggles the needle and then plunges it deeper into my arm to make the blood pour out. It’s pretty gruesome but I don’t actually feel anything.

3pm: Appointment with my lovely consultant, the Professor. As I wrote in my last post, he gives me all sorts of brilliant news, a big hug and sends me on my way.

4pm: My friend, Chantal the flower girl gives me a lift home in her big flower van.

On the way to my flat she has to make an emergency delivery.

5pm: Ring the hospital. Happily the results of the blood tests are good so chemo will go ahead. Rest on my own sofa.

10pm: Start the steroids. I have to take ten of these tiny tablets. They stop me from being sick but they make me feel wired.

Midnight: Still awake. The steroids also make me eat peanut butter on toast and ice cream.

Wednesday 20^th June – Chemo day

7am: More steroids. Another ten tablets and I’m wide awake despite only having about three hours sleep

10am: Back at the hospital, this is where I have to sit. All day. I share the room with five others.

10.30am: I cover my hair in conditioner and the chilly hat goes on. My hair has to freeze before the chemo can begins. It hurts like hell.

A nurse puts a needle into a vein on my left hand. I’m attached to a drip that will deliver the anti-cancer drugs. First though I’m given even more steroids and other clear liquids to stop nausea, pain and any allergic reactions.

These make my face feel funny, like I’ve drunk too much vodka. As the dizzying drugs race around my body, I start to get a puffy face.

11.20am: The chemo finally starts. It’s so toxic that my nurse use gloves to handle the clear plastic pouches. I have two types of chemo, this first one takes a few hours to slip into my veins.

I have to wear two wrist bands. White to say who I am. Red to make it clear that I have a drug allergy. That’ll be the drug that almost killed me after surgery.

11.30am: Listen to my chemo mix tape and attempt to sleep in my chair under a white hospital blanket. I feel so tired and cold.

2pm: A friend comes over for a chemo coffee. She brings a big bag of sweets. I’ve eaten so much cake, chocolate and sweets since I started this treatment. Opps!

2.30pm: I get the second type of chemo; this is the most dangerous one. It makes your hair fall out among other awful things.

3pm: Sleep. As I drift off I try to dream of Daniel Craig and his army of James Bond cancer killers. But instead I keep thinking of the fantastic things I’m going to do when all this is over.

4pm: The last drugs pouch is empty and all the evil of chemo cocktail is now in my body. I’m unhooked from the drip. My hair is frozen to the cold cap so it has to stay on for a bit to allow it to warm up.

4.30pm: I have to go for a chest x-ray. Walking just a few metres makes me breathless so The Professor wants to make sure it’s nothing serious.

5pm: The flower girl picks me up and I start the long journey back to the house where I grew up. My hair is still defrosting. You don’t have to look too hard to see one of my bald patches.

I don’t feel too bad considering but the side effects of the chemo are like a time bomb and you never know when they’ll go off.

8.30pm: Still feeling kinda normal as I arrive at my parents’ home in the countryside.

I know that I may not lose my hair.

But I don’t quite believe it so again I’ve packed Barbarella just in case.

One down. Five to go.

Several big bags of clear fluid later and my first session of chemo is over. But let me rewind my nine hour day and show you how it started.

This is a photo of me taken just before the treatment. Pretty normal, if a little tired. But this picture is important as it might be my last with a full head of hair for some time.

Just before chemo kicks in

Sadly the toxic chemical cocktail didn’t come with an umbrella and a slice of pineapple on the side so instead I had a couple of friends over for chemo coffee. Mum was with me all day, just like before during my nightmare stay in hospital.

I thought about James Bond some more. I hope that the boys did the business.

The most uncomfortable part was the cold cap. A helmet of ice that helps stop chemo attacking the hair follicles, and can leave you with frostbitten ears if you don’t protect them. It was the most painful things and could only maybe prevent my hair falling out.

To add insult to injury, it didn’t even match my clothes.

The big freeze. Minus 5 degrees to be precise.

So how did I pass the time? Some chat, some sleep and some home comforts. Plus of course reading words of support from outside the four walls of the ward.

Morale boosters

Plenty of time to read messages

So far I’m not too tired or sick but I think that’s just the steroids talking. The evening they have also been shouting at me. The steroids made me eat a burger on the way home. Ha, so much for the healthy diet.

When they wear off then I’ll be left with the evil side effects of chemo. By that point I’ll be back home with my parents and back in my old bed.