Recovering From Hair Loss After Treatments
“Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair. Flow it, show it. Long as God can grow it, my hair”
I ran into a friend the other night, and though it had been a while since I had seen him, his greeting caught me off guard.
“OY!” (he’s Brittish), “I got a pair of blunt scissors in me truck!” he said with his big friendly grin.
It had been a while since I had seen him, and for those who have not seen me in a while, I have continued to let my hair grow. And for a very good reason.
I lost the majority of my hair back when I was treated for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma back in 1988 from chemotherapy. Radiation therapy to the back of my skull left an odd pattern down the middle permanently.
I have always been sensitive to this. And one of the things that I swore I would never do, is ever take my hair from granted again. It was bad enough that baldness ran in my family. But it is odd, hair loss, is one of the major concerns that a cancer patient has. We cannot wait for the hair to grow back.
I will admit, that I get a little confused and concerned when I see hair colored lime green, or shaved into some bizarre tribal symbol. I am not so sure that those people would do that if they had the chance that “cut” or “style” was permanent, or if some other change against their hair style desire was done.
And so, throughout the 1990’s, I made a promise, not to cut my hair (except for styling it). Unfortunately I did a very bad thing, and it pretty much ended up being “mulleted.” Sorry, plenty of clip art for that, but it actually turned my stomach trying to select a picture. But you all know what a mullet is.
At any rate, I ended up cutting my hair after all just into the new millennium, and up until last year, I kept it a fairly short length again. It was not what I wanted, but for the most part, what everyone else wanted.
Well, it has been a year now, and only “trims” being done, and I am almost back to the length that I was comfortable covering up my “skunk stripe” on the back of my skull. It may seem silly to some people why this would be so important to someone, but unless you have been in this situation, you really cannot understand it.
Sorry, no selfie of the length just yet, but to give you an idea…
Paul's Heart 
I like the look!
I completely understand. Had Hodgkin’s stage 2 in November 2009. I can remember asking my oncologist if I could have the type of chemo where your hair does not fall out (my vain self, lol) – and he said no :0′ It is hard to lose the hair, eyebrows, eyelashes. Cried many times – although I think cleansing tears, which can be good. Every new day is a blessing. Keep on keepin on Paul!