One of the first things that people bring up when you are diagnosed with cancer is hair loss. It’s something that is mentioned a lot but it just doesn’t feel that important compared to all the treatments, infections, medications, insurance, and everything that comes with cancer.

I thought once I started chemo I would be hairless from head to toe. To my surprise I didn’t notice any hair falling out until around day 20 when I started getting fevers. Looking back I didn’t lose nearly as much hair as I was expecting but after seeing my sister brush out a chunk from the back of my head that was enough for me to have her shave the rest.

I didn’t want it to affect me, it was just hair and it would grow back but I started to realize why they get you used to the idea of losing your hair. On bad days a bald head is great and easy to take care of, on good days it feels like a constant reminder that you’re sick. Shaving my head made hair loss more digestible. It wasn’t as alarming running my hands over my head and seeing hands covered with short hair when the alternative was collecting clumps of long hair.

Now that my hair loss is coming to a close and it is starting to grow again I want to make a new note with the progress. I am expecting to start losing hair again when I receive conditioning chemo for my transplant. I’m unsure if it will be the same or if I will lose more but one of my goals is to update when it happens.