Artistic hair

Uh oh. The most dreaded side effect of all has appeared: I'm losing my hair. When I first started the treatment a friend of mine told me that she lost a lot of hair in the last three months of her treatment with Interferon. This woman has a lot of hair -- much more than she needs -- so possibly she just didn't notice the loss until nine months into her treatment. I, on the other hand, have extremely fine hair of medium abundance, and I noticed almost immediately that it was thinning in the front. I've got male-pattern baldness, with that uneven receding hairline that some men get. Soon I'll just have a patch of hair on the top and a horseshoe shape on the back and sides. Actually, the hair seems to be falling out all around the edges, so I have an all-around receding hairline.

I'm not really all that upset about it. If I had long, beautiful hair I would probably be plunged into deep mourning, but my hair is very short and very bleached. There's not enough of it to mourn. Probably when it gets really thin I'll just shave my head and have fun with wigs and hats. Well, with hats, anyway. Wigs are too expensive. The American Cancer Society web site has reasonably-priced wigs for sale, but nothing I would be caught dead in. They're all much too matronly. I talked to a couple of people about it at the meeting last night, and when I said I might buy a wig, one of them said, "No! You don't need a wig. You have a beautifully-shaped head. You should just let it be bald." I thanked him for those few kind words but explained that I'm a bit long in the tooth to walk around with a bald head. I've shaved my head several times in my life, but I was young then. What looks good when you're twenty doesn't look so hot when you're forty-four. I like having bangs. They hide a multitude of sins. The man steadfastly disagreed with me, telling me that I would look good with a shaved head at any age. Well, I suppose we will find out which of us is right before we're much older.

I've dealt with this before, the loss of hair caused by medication. One side effect of thyroid replacement is hair loss, but only in the first few months of treatment. When I started on Synthroid I had shoulder-length, dyed-black hair, and I noticed right away when it started falling out because it was all over everything. There it was, in the bathroom, in my car, on my clothes. I swear I left a little trail of hair behind me wherever I went. I never did have to shave it off, though. I decided, after examining it in the mirror and seeing how pathetically thin it was, that it might be a good idea to cut it short and bleach it. Short hair can be volumized and bleach makes each individual hair thicker, so I could create the illusion of hair. So I went to my stylist and had her give me the haircut I had for most of the eighties: short and bleached and spiky. I liked it so much that I've kept it ever since, with frequent modifications as I get bored with one style or other. That episode wasn't overly traumatic, but I have a feeling that this time I'm in for a lot more hair loss. I've already lost more hair in the front this time than I did last time; I'm having difficulty styling it so that the sparse patches don't show. Also, the texture is different. Each hair seems thin, dull, dry and brittle. Continued use of the blow dryer may have fatal consequences to the little hair I've got left. The man I talked to last night has a pair of clippers, and he told me to call him whenever I'm ready. We shall see.

Apart from that, side effects have been minimal this week. My lungs are okay -- not perfect, but good enough. The farther away I get from my last cigarette the more I see that smoking did contribute to the problem, because even when I'm feeling breathless now it's not anywhere near as bad as it was when I was still smoking.

I can't think of a damned thing to add to that. I seem to have nothing on my mind this evening. I'm just waiting for it to get dark so I can get cozy and watch the movie I rented. Ah, well, maybe I'll be more entertaining next week.