Hair

Monday, 5 September 2022
I washed my hair for the last time today. I woke to find I was shedding long, fine threads – not the usual scruffy bits that regularly clog up the vacuum cleaner. I measured the longest to be about 40cm. I am distraught. Some people go full tilt, ‘take control’, shave it off at the first sign but I’m going to hang on to my locks for a little longer. As long as I can. Until I start looking like a beat-up, flea-bitten, worm-riddled alley cat whose fought its last fight. Yup. I’ll be hanging on by a thread – literally.

I sat in the shower and cried. Washed my hair with some beautiful Aesop shampoo Simon had in the shower (or at least I think it was, he has a habit of mixing and matching … ) then saturated it with a rich coconut conditioning treatment. And sat. And cried. Washed it off, got dressed, got a coffee, logged on to work.

One of the reasons I washed my hair, apart from sharing some quality-time with it, was to get it nice and clean in case I am able to donate it. They ask the hair be clean and free of any styling products so I’ve dried it au naturale. Oh, and when I don’t put any products in or style it, it kind of resembles Worzel-Gummidge-meets-Bon-Jovi (circa 1984) so I’ll be spending my last few days – with hair – looking like a rock and roll scarecrow.

Tuesday, 6 September 2022 – AM
The hair is now falling out 6, 7, 8 strands at a time. It is really really distressing. I glance down and notice some of the ‘other hair’ is also falling out freely. Curious. Guess I won’t be able to blame anyone else for the pubes in the shower ….

I drop Simon off at work early then turn around to hit nightmare morning traffic. My 9am meeting is drawing closer and Google says I am still 40 minutes away. Shit. Slow, steady, breath, pull over at Moore Park to join my Teams call. I give the team a demo of my new party-trick being pulling out strands of hair en masse. They are politely startled. Finally home I settle into work.

I send a picture of the dead wiry threads to my friend Tara suggesting we could make some merkins. She has an even better idea: an Abbie-Action-Figure – with real hair! I’m delighted and honoured at her suggestion. Being a down-to-earth kind of gal, she has suggested salvaging some of the pubes too so we could make the action future super authentic. I knew there was a reason she was in my life.

Midday I have a (pre-booked, private) appointment at a wig shop in Darlinghurst. It is not as fun as I thought it would be. The shopfront, the staff are dated and the wigs look … fake. A woman in her 70’s leaves as I arrive. Apparently, she is a regular and her and Roz have been having a good ol’ chin wag for the past 2 hours. Disappointingly, I can see the hairpiece the woman is wearing looks a lot like … a hairpiece. A short, high perm in a colour that is definitely not natural. Roz and Cheryl squeeze various wigs on my head – yes, maybe, no, definitely no, mmmmm …. I feel deflated and undecided. Right now, I don’t want a wig at all. What a fucking awful experience.

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The standard wigs cost around $500. I try on a natural hair wig – just for the hell of it – looks ok but price: $3,000. Nope! I have narrowed it down to 3. I try another to check the colour. Much to my surprise I find I quite like the style too – something I would never have thought to try. My new hair gets popped in a box with some shampoo and conditioner.

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Tuesday, 6 September 2022 – PM

It won’t stop. My hair is now falling out in bundles. I am horrified. Everywhere I step there is soft straw strewn across the wooden floor. I get the broom to try and sweep it up but it keeps on coming. It sticks to everything. I bundle my hair into a cap to stop it falling out.

It is a very weird feeling – it is not painful when the hair comes out. All you see is the threads falling around you. It’s not flesh falling off, but it is still something leaving your body that shouldn’t be. I feel deeply stressed and ill looking at the volume of it. I want it to stop, paste it back on, press ‘undo’. I am now starting to resemble a beat-up, flea-bitten, worm-riddled alley cat – there are random gaps on my scalp where hair should be but isn’t. I feel mutant and ugly and cry and cry.

Wednesday, 7 September 2022
Today is a busy workday – hooray! No time to worry about hair loss, let’s crack on. But the hair is still coming out, I can’t stop it. I can’t control it. I can’t do ‘this’ for how-many-days?? The oncologists, nurses recommended I have my hair cut short(er) – to minimise the stress on the scalp and so I get used to having short hair …now I know why. They knew this was coming. For someone with longer hair, it is super confronting.

I make the call. It’s gonna come off. Suck it up Abs. Paloma, a salon in Paddington can take me this afternoon. We agree I will braid up the bits I want to keep, turn up, they’ll buzz it off.

For those of you into warm fuzzies (not me), there was a beautiful calm that came over me when I got off that call. It wasn’t just ‘sucking it up’ or ‘giving up to the inevitable’ it was saying, I don’t want to endure the indignity of my physical self withering away day by day. I would rather ….  Speed it up? Take control? Whatever. I’ll leave that to the psychs to dissect. What it did do was give me a kind of acceptance. Yes, your hair is going – will go. But now it’s on your terms sista.

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I trot to Oxford Street with my Braids done (not very well … which doesn’t matter because they’re going to be short-lived). The beautiful Georgette settles me in, gives me the honour of making the first snip and off we go. I am calm, happy. There are perhaps 4 - 5 other customers in the salon, no one looks, everyone just in their own zone, no big deal. We get down to the dags – the stuff that is now falling around me is super-nasty. The bits the colour touch-ups never reached, dense festering wads of hair in various shades of grey fall to the floor – just like the shearing shed in spring. Wow. I decide not to salvage those bits for the Abbie-Action-Figure …

I close my eyes as Georgette washes, conditions and massages my scalp. Bliss. I am not bald. It is essentially a No. 1, as close as they can go without shaving. The fine fuzz will disappear in the days ahead. I look at myself in the mirror … I would like to think I was rocking Demi Moore: GI Jane or Signory Weaver: Alien 3 or Charlize Theron: Mad Max :  Fury Road but  no… instead I’m a poster girl for Schindler’s List, with just a little more flesh on my bones.

I put on a cap, thank Georgette and Ruby and head home. Despite the cap, my head is cold (I’m not sure why I am surprised by that?!)

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I log on to work. I am terrified at Simon seeing me with my hair gone. But when we gets home, he is nothing but kind and complimentary of both my hairpiece and my hairlessness. People surprise you 😊 He shouts me an early dinner at the Vine e Cucina before I head back to Canberra. He now affectionately refers to me as the Khemo Kiwi … albeit with a few feathers missing.

Sunday, 11 September 2022
Everyone says ‘beauty is on the inside’ but let’s get real. As Jim Carrey said in Liar Liar “that’s just what ugly people say to make you feel better”. Beauty, particularly for women, is shallow. We are defined by our appearance. We know men are ‘visual’. My (male) friend in a previous life commented my boobs ‘... aren't that great anyway’. That hurt. Still does. We are judged on our outward appearance everyday. Would men say the same about your liver, spleen, medial collateral ligament? Those are a seriously sexy set of lungs you’ve got there! Nope. Beauty is definitely not on the inside. I am now desperately conscious of my appearance and feel ugly and depressed. Yesterday I did not leave the house once. I hate my head and my face with my hair gone. I was fond of my breasts and my hair - both of which have now been slashed.

My next treatment is in 3 days’ time. I start my regime of support drugs tomorrow, blood test Tuesday then chemo Wednesday. After my horror experience last time round with the Pegfligratenm, the doctor has prescribed me some endone – in case the pain gets too severe. He is optimistic – often the body doesn’t react as badly with the next rounds. I picked up my script today – 5 tablets of endone. Only. 5. For those of you not up on heavy duty meds, endone is an opiate and highly addictive so doctors err on the side of caution when prescribing. I still feel a bit insulted I can’t be trusted with more than 5 tablets. The pattern just seems cruel -the pain kicks in 24 hours after the jab, ie. around about COB Friday, just when the Cancer Centre closes for the weekend. So I am left to manage the the pain on my own until Monday morning – with Panadol and 5 endone tablets.

PS. I am yet to donate my braids. They are sitting in a plastic zip lock bag somewhere. Right now I find them kind of repulsive. It makes me sad and angry to look at them. I know I had good intentions of donating them but I right now I am not coping well with the hair loss, I’m not sure whether they will make it any further than the bin.