hair today, gone tomorrow...or at least sooner than I thought

Well, at least I am starting to feel a bit better. My appetite it returning slowly and my cranky stomach is settling down for the most part, with the distinct exception of having to go in for a blood test this morning at 7AM. Apparently, my stomach is not a morning-person. A dose of anti-nausea medication helped to get me to my appointment.

So, as you can see by the title to this post, my hair is already being effected by the chemotherapy. They told me when they gave me my chemo treatment that it was VERY likely that my hair would be gone the next time they saw me (2 weeks). Yesterday, I started to notice that my entire head was itching like crazy. It wasn't until the afternoon that I suddenly realized it might be the beginning of the end of my hair. By last night, my head felt as if I had sores on my scalp, though Hannah assures me that I do not; she checked. Apparently, when the hair follicles die, they itch and make the scalp feel irritable and sore.

This afternoon, I was running my fingers through my hair, trying not to scratch my itchy and sore scalp, when I realized a number of hairs were in my fingers with the roots attached. Thankfully, Ron had just arrived home because I started to cry. At just that very moment, the door bell rang and Curt and Andree Baker had sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers that had just arrived. Talk about the loving care of our Heavenly Father who made sure my husband was there and even had flowers delivered within minutes. (Thank you, Curt and Andree, as always, your timing is amazing and you are hearing from the Lord!) So I sat there with Ron and my beautiful flowers and cried for awhile.

I didn't think loosing my hair would be so hard, it sort of caught me off guard. Since I had already gotten a wig and some scarves, I thought I had already worked through it, but as with most things, there are layers of grief and sadness. God graciously lets us go through the layers as we can handle them. Sometimes, like today, when dealing with grief, I got to go through the next layer with my dear husband, beautiful flowers and wonderful friends who are praying for me. For that and for you, I am grateful.