While it’s widely believed that hair loss is inevitable during chemotherapy, this isn’t always the case. Some people manage to retain a portion of their hair. Before starting chemotherapy, I did a ton of research and spoke with several women who had gone through the treatment: some lost all their hair, while others retained about 50%.
When I heard about the possibility of retaining 50% of my hair, I felt cautiously optimistic – especially since I had thick, curly hair. I assumed the hair loss would be uniform, resulting in a kind of overall thinning. This wasn’t my experience. Despite using the cold cap, my hair fell out dramatically and unevenly, particularly across my crown. It was incredibly distressing, and there’s no way to sugar-coat this. All I can share is that a) it’s mostly temporary b) there are many ways to deal with it and c) people are kind.
I did all the right things: my research, bamboo cotton sleep cap, washing just once a week, combing gently every day with a wooden comb… But nothing prepared me for the hair loss. My scalp started to feel sore 12 days after the first chemo cycle (it was a persistent tenderness/tightness of the scalp) and then on a Saturday in September 2022, while shampooing, it came out in clumps. I fell to my knees in the shower and howled and howled. My eldest daughter rushed in and froze at the sight. She gently led me out of the shower and hugged me tight. I lost about 70% of my hair that day, one of the most distressing moments of my life.
I can only share my own experience and losing my hair felt like a seeping away of my essence: a fading, a disappearance. The falling hair was EVERYWHERE, a constant cancer reminder. I didn’t recognise myself. I felt I looked like Mr Potato Head with six strands of hair – and this is a really hard look to pull off! I was so unhappy with my bald patches and scraggly strands, and my hair was so, so thin. Curls gone. What was left – clinging on for dear life – made my scalp hurt.
I found that I was using up so much energy in trying to keep the ever-thinning strands of hair that I decided to shave what was left off. There was a HUGE liberation in this and I did feel that I was clawing back a tiny bit of control in an out-of-control situation. I bought some cheap hair clippers from Asda, sat in my kitchen with a black bin bag around my shoulders (the glamour!) and my daughters shaved my head. We cried. A lot. But once it was done I did feel a sense of empowerment and ‘f*ck you, cancer’. I didn’t hate my new look. My friends and family were so supportive – I received a lot of ‘you rock this look!’ comments. Outside of my circle, people were kind, too. I remember going to Aldi to do the shop with my head uncovered and several people approached me and said ‘get well soon’ and other such kind things. I was very, very moved.
I felt so much of me fell away with the falling of my hair, and this is something that I found wasn’t talked about much. I’ve always loved my hair and so much of our identity and power lies in it: our ‘crowning glory’. It makes us who we are to the outside world; part of the amour. So while shaving my hair was empowering – and stopped my scalp hurting – I did feel exposed and ‘outed’. What was a private matter became public with no hair. It’s a physical manifestation of ‘sickness’ and it was no longer a secret or something I could keep for my bubble. I felt raw and pulled from my shell: I was FURIOUS about this. It’s valid anger and I rolled with it.
As my chemo treatment ticked on, I had very little hair – just the odd tuft – and a lot of exposed scalp. I didn’t wear a wig (I’ll write about this in another post) but did wear headscarves (again, deserving of its own post). A lot of the time I went around bare-headed. I want to share that this tragic hair love story does have a happy ending. Just over 18 months after the end of my chemo treatment, my hair is back to its former glory. I feel fortunate because this isn’t everybody’s experience but it is mine and that’s all I can share. Having lost it, I’ll never take it for granted – and the longer my hair grows, the more it moves me down the line of recovery.
