About My Hair: A Journey to Recovery

An inspirational book for chemotherapy patients
by Marcia Reid Marsted

Book Excerpts

"I managed to keep my hair until after New Year's Eve! I was very gentle with my hair and my head. I barely touched it and my hair stayed looking pretty good (if a bit greasy) until January 6th when it started to fall out."

"This is just about as bald as you can get. My eyelashes and eyebrows were gone, but I got pretty good with an eyebrow pencil. In the winter I wore a hat with no wig mainly because there wasn't room for the wig. When it got warm, I only went once without my wig - I wore a baseball cap to a doctor's appointment and I felt very self-conscious, so I never did it again. The wig looked good. I washed it once a week which was a nice change from the daily wash, which had been my norm when I had hair to wash. Actually, as I mentioned earlier, I bought two wigs at their suggestion, but although they were supposed to be the same, I liked one much better than the other and wore it most of the time. Luckily it lasted. I liked getting compliments on my nice haircut. In a dream, my favorite wig disintegrated from overuse, leaving me with only the second choice."

"Here I am with hair that has grown long enough to cut a couple of times to keep it in shape. It hasn't been dyed. I decided to give that up. Now is a time to avoid unnecessary poisons. I look like a Karakul lamb. My mother used to have a lambskin coat that was almost the same, a curly mixture of gray and brown. When I was a child I had ringlets. Later I had waves. The chemo left me with tight curls. I've been asked where I got my perm. A friend had chemo similar to mine. Her hair grew back straight as a stick. An acquaintance, also a cancer survivor who had chemotherapy, told me her hair had grown in extremely curly. Now, a year later, it is quite straight. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens to me. I try not to become too enamored with my present hair so I won't miss it if it goes straight."

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