The week that was

Unfortunately since my last blog, I have had an eventful couple of weeks. The Sunday night following my last chemo round I ended up spending the night vomiting and woke the next morning with a 38 degree temperature. When undergoing chemotherapy, a 38 degree temperature is enough to cause a little panic amongst medical professionals as the chemo itself leads to a weakened immune system meaning that you do not have the ability to fight off infection the same way a well person can and things can go downhill pretty quickly. So this lead to a trip into Wellington Hospital ED and even though the waiting room was chocka-block I was seen within minutes of arriving at ED and was hooked up to IV antibiotics and fluids. After several hours I was transferred to the Cancer Ward and spent the next two nights there under close observation. I bounced back pretty quickly, and the worst part was probably that we quickly had to sort out alternative arrangements for the kids for school and preschool pick ups, drop offs, night time routines etc. Bryan and my parents managed to sort all that out, but it really does cause quite significant disruption to everyone's already busy lives that they could do without. Me on the other hand, just had to sit back, rest, and let others take care of me.

At this point I would like to take this opportunity to pass comment about the fantastic level of care I have received since diagnosis. My multi-disciplinary team (medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, surgeons, nurse specialists etc), have been outstanding, as has every other doctor, nurse and radiologist I have come across. Shame I can't say the same for the hospital food, but you can't win them all :o) One of the meals I had during my most recent stay was so bad that I regret not taking a pic of it and posting it to Facebook! All I will say is that runny scrambled eggs, lumpy yet runny mashed potatoes, mashed carrots and soggy cauliflower should NEVER be served together.

On the same day I became unwell, leading to the hospital admission, my hair started falling out. Initially it was quite similar to a change-of-season malt, but over the next couple of days the rate of hair loss accelerated so that by Tuesday it was coming out in small handfuls, and when I washed it later that morning I was getting large handfuls of wet hair coming out. By the end of my shower I gathered it up and put what looked like a small furry animal into the rubbish bin. That's when I decided I had had enough and it had to come off. So on Wednesday morning whilst still in hospital I asked the lovely Health Care Assistant (and resident hair cutter) to give me a #1. Lovely.

A week on, I am still shedding quite a bit of hair, but at least it is short so much less distressing than getting handfuls of long hairs, and at least its not clogging up our shower or vacuum cleaner. I am also aware that some people experience total body hair loss, so that may be coming. The upside will mean no more shaving my legs  :o)  the downside could be loss of eyebrows and eye lashes  :o( Time will tell.

As noted in an earlier blog, this hair loss was not totally unexpected, so I had been to see a "wig lady" a few weeks ago and purchased a lovely looking wig not dis-similar to my own hair at the time. The main difference being it has a few highlights and I figured it would save me big dollars at the hairdresser. For the first couple of days post head-shave I wore the wig in public, and then took it off when I got home as I was much more comfortable without it. When in public I felt like people were looking at me like "we know its a wig - you are not fooling anyone!" and on top of that, it felt like a toasty warm hat and the weather here had been (quite unusually) stinking hot. So I decided to ditch the wig. I figured if I was ok with it then why should I care what anyone else thought.

At first I was a bit worried about what my kids would say, but they both thought my new hair cut was so funny because I had a boys haircut. So we had a laugh and said silly Mum with a boys haircut. They also knew when I was wearing the wig that it was a wig and don't seem to care either way.

Since posting a photo of myself with my bald head on Facebook I have been inundated with compliments about how good I look, which I find quite comical as I never received that kind of attention when I had hair! Regardless, I understand people are just trying to be supportive and it gave me the courage to ditch the wig in public. I get a few odd looks when out and about but I figure people who know me will get used to it, and people I don't know don't matter.

The worst encounter I have had since going bald happened to be with, of all people, a cancer society volunteer (!) at the Cancer Day Ward yesterday when I was there for round 3 of FOLFIRI. The conversation went something like this:
HER "Ohhh your hair is growing back!"
ME (feeling a bit crook from the chemo so a little less patient than normal): "No, its actually falling out"
HER "Oh you should sort yourself out a wig"
ME "Um, yeah, I have a wig but I don't feel comfortable wearing it"
HER "Why is that? I'm sure you will get used to it! There are some really natural looking ones now."
ME "Yes, but I still don't want to wear the wig. It feels fake."
HER "Oh well, there are some head covers you can get from the cancer society that are actually pretty trendy"
ME (steam now coming out my ears, refraining from swearing at her as I am sure I know the hats she is talking about and I suspect her version of trendy and mine are quite different) "Mmmmm hmmm. I will look into it."
Thank goodness for her she took the hint and moved on at this point. I am not sure why, but she didn't seem to be able to grasp that I prefer to go natural. If I am comfortable with my GI Jane look (as one of the young registrars referred to it as) then I don't know why other people should have a problem with it. Rant over.

Lets's hope this round of chemo is less eventful than the last. Til next time......