Goodbye Hair… The First Time

I’ve seen some people do some epic hair cutting “ceremonies”.  With a big group of family and friends. Some people had their significant other also cut their hair. 

And then there’s me and a bunch of leukemia peeps who found out they had cancer and didn’t leave the hospital for a month. 

I will say that not all chemos make you lose your hair. I didn’t know that! But of course, one of the first chemo drugs that I got, daunorubicin, made me lose my hair. 

I was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday November 14th, 2018. 

I did a chemo regimen called “7 & 3” because it was 3 different chemo drugs over 7 days(constantly). The IV pole was my best buddy who didn’t leave my side.

I finished chemo the day after Thanksgiving on Friday November 23rd. 

When I was diagnosed, my hair was a few inches below my collar bone. I had a lot of thin hair.

On November 18th, my mom and my aunt were visiting me, and I asked them to cut my hair. Not a full cut! Cut a trim of about 6” so that my hair was to my collar bones. 

It was annoying to be laying in bed most of the day & night with a ponytail!

I had it up and down for a few days. 

Since I was hooked up to my IV chemo for a week straight, I didn’t shower. I also had my heart rate monitor on me for the majority of my 26 day hospital stay. 

Anyways, 3 days later, it was thrown up into a bun, and it was up most of the time until I really cut it.

Because I wasn’t showering, I had one of my favorite nursing assistants wash my hair in the sink twice. 

I’m glad I didn’t do it because I think that would have been really hard seeing clumps of hair coming out in my hand or in the sink.

My pillow was starting to be covered in my hair. 

So on December 1st, I had the same nursing assistant get the trimmers that they had, and cut my hair.

At this point, I practically had a few dreadlocks on the underside of my ponytail… that made cutting my hair a little more interesting!

We cut my hair to about 2”. I could easily tell how much my hair was thinning out. Again, my pillow was just covered. Thank God they change your sheets every day!

I posted this picture in my last post about my first month in the hospital(link) with one of my brothers. Everyone has always said that we look alike, but oh man. Once my hair was trimmed, we looked like twins! (He’s 3.5 years younger than me!)

Once my hair really started to thin out, I always had a hat on. 

It was early December in Philadelphia! I also kept my room a little cooler because I loved being bundled up in my bathrobe and blankets.

I didn’t fully lose my hair this time, and I had some longer(2”) hairs stay for quite a while! 

My eyebrows thinned out a little, but not much. Same with my eyelashes. 

I will be doing two other hair loss posts because they were all so different. Good thing I was never seriously attached to my hair because, HA! Losing your hair 3x in under a year and a half in your late 20s is definitely not something on everyone’s bucket list 😉 

What was your hair cutting story like? Comment below!