further on being a [not quite] slap head

Tuesday 27th May


Back to the hair [yes, yes, I know, but it’s not ‘just hair’ is it?]

Well. So ideally, it should do one thing or the other right? Either fall out, or NOT fall out. But no, all this stuff about all your hair falling out? Ha – it is far less dignified than that – MOST of it falls out.

You’ll remember that it originally literally fell out in great clumps, then that tapered off to falling out bit by bit. Well, eventually it stops falling out, and grows again! Eek! What is that all about? But probably only one hair in 50 is there, so I have this extremely weird patchy head – sort of like a moth eaten animal skin rug that you find in your attic that makes you scream when you realise what it is.

Stupid stuff – so now I have a grade 2 for the moment – I shaved it down again with Andrew’s trusty beard trimmer, as it’s only growing on the top, and nothing on the sides. So when it grows back I’d look like a woodpecker...a curly haired woodpecker. Superb! At least at that point I’ll be in a good mood again, as the chemo will be finished – apparently it takes about 3 months for your hair to grow back in to any reasonable length – and that just means being able to have it shaped – not that it’ll be anything like normal. I am still missing my long hair – I don’t think I’ll be doing much cutting for a bit once it does come back! I shall adopt the Fraggle effect - have it going in all directions and refuse to brush it. Or cut it.

Interesting factoid: you can colour your hair as soon as it starts to grow back – according to Phillip Kingsley [one of the top trichologist in the country] what happens on the outside of your scalp has nothing to do with the inside of your scalp where the actual hair starts to grow, and the roots are.

Thank goodness for that then!