I Don't Care What Color It Is, I Want Some Hair!

When I began my chemotherapy late last February I asked the nurse, "Does everyone who takes this particular chemo (carbo/taxel) lose their hair?" You see, I was hoping I would be one of the lucky few who might miss out on this particular aspect of chemotherapy.

She looked at me with a mixture of sympathy, matter-of-factness, and certainty. Then she responded. "Yes."

I could see by her eyes she wanted and needed to give me the truth, regardless of how much I wanted to hear otherwise. Up until that moment I was hoping that maybe SOME patients, myself included, might escape the norm. But when she looked at me like that and answered with that one-word answer, I Knew. Every last one of these gray hairs would be lost.

I can truthfully tell you, "I'm just glad the chemo doesn't cause us to lose our teeth!" For it would indeed be bad to lose teeth. Teeth do not grow back. Hair does. ("I hope!", she said with a wry smile.)

I see friends who are several months further down the road than I. Their hair is growing back. Sometimes a little patchy. Sometimes slowly. But growing! I rejoice with them!

In the meantime I've completed my six rounds of chemo. I will be continuing to receive the trial drug Avastin (or a placebo, neither I nor my doctor knows which) but the trial drug will have no effect on my hair and it should begin growing back. I figure it will take about 3 months before I can truthfully say "I have hair!".

I can't, shouldn't, and won't complain! No, Sirree! No complaining! Just commenting!

And then I think of today's scripture. Luke 12:7 "Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered."

Yeah, and in my case, at the moment, that number is practically zero! (She said very quietly, determining not to be impertinent before God!)