denail you are a a good person.  Thats great you could get her to open up a little and get her mind off chemo.  I hope I am with people like you when I start .

apple.  wow,  I m not wierd or anything but man you look great.  I hope I look that good.

I am going to get my treats at teh oncs office too.  I was wondering how this works.  some people go to the hospitol for 6 or 7 hours and some go to teh oncs for 2 hrs. 

Oh, apple, your daughter is gorgeous! Adorable. I think it is almost the most lovely age (for girls anyway), 5-8, then they go all "tweeny" on you. Still adorable, but different.

denail - way to go, helping someone else like that. She won't ever forget you, I bet. Wow, is it normal in the US to have a private Onc Chemo clinic?? I am in a yuckky hospital ward, blue plasticy chairs, awful. But we are on the top floor, so at least the view is good!

terri - glad you are doing well. I am really feeling progressively more tired, but I do think you get used to the "chemo" feeling. hard to describe to others though...

Well, I don't know what I did to that to make that so enormous....LOL! I'm not mad, really....

Sometimes I feel like I have a cat on my head!!

The big font is cracking me up!!

Sunny and warm here today, it finally feels like spring may actually come this year after all.... Isn't it funny how a few nice days can really lift your spirits... (also no accident that both my kids were conceived in Spring...!)

I am leaving in 30 minutes to go get my head shaved.  My hair is falling out - it started very early this morning.  I wore a scarf out in public for the first time since I normally wear my wigs and I had to take hair from the middle of my head and cut it and pull it forward to look like I had bangs.

I am going to a friend's house - she is a breast cancer NED and a really nice friend I met at the horse barn several years back.

So tonight hopefully I will figure out how to post some pictures - if not I will just change my avatar for tomorrow.  But then again I might be too emotional to deal with this tonight.

XpectMiracles - LOVE, LOVE, LOVE THE PICTURE.   If only I could look 1/2 as good as you bald then I would be able to deal with it better.

ouch...

can you put pillows or something under your waist?  ouch..

i bet your muscles are strained from the new sleeping positions..

Hi, Furies ~
I have a question for you:  most of you are saying "shave" in reference to your heads.  Are you really shaving or just getting really short buzz cuts?  Maybe some are doing one thing and some the other, hmmm....

I buzzed mine to 2 inches.  Most of the sides and back fell out after that, but I swear what's left on top is growing!  I'm wondering if I should buzz it off and/or shave it.  I want it to be all the same when it starts to grow after treatment, so I'm needing to know what I need to do for now.

I know you ladies can help a sister out!

Hugs to all,
Artemis

At first my son buzz cut my hair to 1/2 inch.  But it was long enough that I could pull it out.  I DID NOT want little half inch hairs falling down my back and all over my pillows.  So he shaved to the lowest, so now it's like beard stubble.  I'll have him shave it with a razor soon probably.

Artemis - I used a pair of dog clippers.  I have the equivalent of 1 days growth of a man's beard - maybe 1/16" of an inch.  I am leaving it that way.  I am not one to walk around bald so I am wearing my nice soft sleeping cap during the day and it will catch any hairs and I am also going to use Webbie's trick of taking a lint roller to my head several times a day.

Do I feel good about shaving my head?  Absolutely not!  Was it as devastating as I thought it would be?  Not really because I had 2 glasses of wine and a valium to help me through it

I will say that I FEEL much better because my scalp was so sore that I couldn't even tough it with my hands without hurting like crap.  My scalp hurt for about 1/2 hour after shaving it and now I have no pain left at all.

Judy who shaved me said that she took some duct tape and took off that little last layer of hair - there was no way I could have done that last night with my scalp hurting so bad but it is an idea.  She never used a razor and I personally wouldn't do that either because it is too easy to nick yourself.

I would share some pictures but the disk I put in my camera didn't operate last night  *$&$^#%^^#&$&&$&(%*$*&#%^$^.   Judy took some but now I am on hold until she emails them to me.  She did start with a mohawk - her idea - not mine but I was glad she did that so I could show xpectmiracles what my mohawk looked like.  The hard thing was trying to get it to stand straight up with some gel because my hair kept falling out everytime she touched it.

I was so embarrassed to show my bald head to my husband last night but he was very kind and compassionate.  I did sleep downstairs only because I am so constipated from the meds I took some laxatives and knew I would be up and down during the night and I didn't want to disturb his sleep.  I did take the sleep cap off while sleeping and it felt weird putting my bald head on my pillow.  I haven't shown my stepson my head yet - thankfully he went to spend some time with his mother ( he doesn't like going over there) and so I have some privacy with my hubby today for awhile.

Be back later!

I love that picture!  That's how I want to feel when I get my head shaved on Tuesday. (I've got a lot of work to do between now and then! 

Cheryl, I'm glad that you mentioned why not to use regular razor blades on our heads. I was going to try this, to avoid buying an electric razor with all these medical bills piling up.  But now I'll make sure I get an electric razor today. Why does the hair continue to grow, even as it's falling out? It doesn't make sense to me.  

Another question:  has anyone needed to have their wigs styled?  Mine are so smooth, sleek and weird looking that they make me look like a drag queen.  That, in combination with the weird greenish color that my skin has become - not a good look!! 

Yeah, wigs, when you have to wear then because you're bald underneath, just feel so...artificial. Just so not part of you. I just can't figure out which is going to feel more distasteful to me - that wig feeling, or the hat/scarf look, in public domains.  At home, I'll just be content in my sleep caps.

Thanks, Jancie.  Yes, I've been reading since the beginning, and I know that you're our resident wig expert!  I think it's great that you took this situation and turned it into an opportunity to play. My wigs just need some tweaking to look good in relation to my face, so I'll have the lady who's shaving me modify them a little with a razor/scissors. Can you post some more photos of you in your various wigs - that would be an inspiration to me! (On the other had, I still can't figure out how to get my photos up on this board...)

Liz - it would be faster for me to get some pictures to you via email as I still have to figure out this photo stuff myself and just am too nauseated to deal with it today.

Hopefully I will feel lots better tomorrow so when I get home from church I will have my hubby take pictures of me in all of my different wigs other than the one that is on order and won't get in until early next week.

I searched for the perfect shape for me so that all I had to do was get the bangs cut.  I have always worn bangs and I am glad because typically my bangs went down to my eyebrows so nobody could see those anyways.  When I have to "don" fake eyebrows they probably won't even be noticeable.

I am going to the Look Good Feel Good class put on by the American Cancer society on Tuesday from 11 am to 1 pm.  I heard it was better to wait until you were losing hair/bald/or lack of eyelashes or eyebrows so that you have a clear idea of what you are working with.  All I have lost is my hair on my head.  I still have my hairs down south - they are being stubborn

Jancie- I'm sorry you're so nauseated today! Just for the record, I hesitate to take any meds at all, but I needed to take an ativan last night for my severe back pain - and it's my new best friend!  I'll use it sparingly, but for me, it removed my queasy feeling entirely.  Maybe you could try it. I know that early after treatment, nothing really helps too much. 

My email is elizzim@yahoo.com. No rush on pictures, but I'd love to see them! 

Liz - I have some antivan, along with valium but don't take them simultaneously.  I take the antivan in the mornings and if I am going through a major nicotine mental withdrawal fit I will pop a valium and that helps.  The oncologist told me to take the antivan for nausea.  I did so much better last round when I had antivan and compazine but then I had that allergic reaction to compazine.

I was given Zofan to replace the compazine - doesn't work so well.

Then I griped, biatched, and moaned about not being able to sleep at night due to the steroids and was given Tramadol to take at night.  Can someone explain this one?  Tramadol is a narcotic pain reliever for chronic pain.  But what the heck it puts me to sleep.  Just now that I know this - I need to be more cautious about when I take my valium and my lortabs because sure as heck don't want to start mixing all of those up!

I feel like a freaking drug addict everytime I walk into Target and get meds.  Just the fact that I started off with Ambien and Valium and now over to Tramadol - forget the fact that I have a stash of about 30 Lortabs on top of that - oh and the Antivan. 

I have gotten to the point where I walk in with ALL of my prescriptions (normally around 3) and tell them "My oncologist wants me to try these instead"  I don't want them to think that I stole a prescription pad and am writing prescriptions for myself illegally since most of all of these are narcotics to begin with.

I am so thankful that my husband has such great insurance coverage - I can walk out with 20 lortabs and it costs me a whopping $3.52

One other thing that I think is totally weird - I am nauseaus and the one type of food that helps me get through that is spicy food.  I had Indian food last night and chili tonight for dinner and I feel so much better.  You would think that bland food would be great for nauseau but I swear sometimes I am wired ass backwards because spicy foods help me get through stomach aches and nausea better than anything else.

Anyone else do better on spicy foods or am I the odd ball?