To Wig or Not to Wig

So many choices! What’s a girl to do?

You might not think you’ll need a wig when your hair starts falling out, but my advice, you should have one just in case. You don’t know how you’re really going to react until it happens to you, kind of like when you give birth to a child. So, having one on hand is a smart bet.

Now that my hair is three-quarters of an inch (at this point I’m about a week or two away from doing chemo), I have many options. Do I go with the familiar and get a wig that’s just like my old hair? Ahh, cue nostalgic feeling. Or do I go bold and wild, maybe pink, blue, hell, maybe the rainbow? This is THE time to explore my alter egos. Where are you Sasha Fierce? I know you’re in there.

But, as it turns out, I opt for a human hair wig similar to my old hair. I also pick out a synthetic wig that’s similar to my old hair and a dark curly one, but I only wear it once. Doesn’t feel like me. I find myself needing the familiar. I found my human hair wig at Compassionate Creations http://compassionatecreationswigdesign.com They can also make a wig from your own hair.

The wig I wore in my CBS News story was given free to me by a chapter of the American Cancer Society through their Look Good Feel Better Program http://lookgoodfeelbetter.org. Totally worth checking out!

Tip: If you buy a human hair wig, make sure you take it to a stylist so that it doesn’t look too “wiggy.”

So, although my Sasha Fierce didn’t make her entrance, I chose to wear what made me most comfortable. And that’s what you want to be when you’re going through chemo, comfortable.

The Hair Cutting Ceremony

Knowing your hair is going to fall out just. plain. SUCKS!

So trust me, as one who’s been through it, it’s best to cut your hair BEFORE chemo takes it out. I had beautiful long hair and the vision of clumps of it falling out in the shower was enough to send fits of terror down my nerves worse than the shower scene in Psycho.

My stylist cut mine to three quarters of an inch. I chose to pay my hair forward so that it could be used in a wig for someone else.

Here are the photos and video of the moment I cut my hair. Thankfully, my soon-to-be-husband (we’re getting married September 10, 2016) and my friends were there to support me.

My hair in rubber bands ready for cutting

My good-bye video where the last few strands are cut

My stylist cleaning me up (and that's my hair on the table)

I lost my hair but gained a simple yet profound outlook, and that is, I’m just so grateful to be alive! Something I’ve always appreciated, but now, I feel it even more. Life is more than my hair and I have to remind myself of that.

My Achy Breaky Port

The next step in my walk with breast cancer is placing my port. Oh, what joy, when is all this fun going to end.

After my four-hour double mastectomy followed two weeks later by my excision of skin surgery above the area where my tumor was (which, lucky me, I was wide awake for, listening to eighties music in the operating room. Oh Cher, if I could turn back time…), I now have to place a port on the left side of my chest to welcome chemo.

Easy peezy? For most people, probably yes. For me, not so much. I’m TERRIFIED! 

I hate the operating room. I hate the needles. I hate the drugs. I’m semi-awake as they place me on the cold, hard table.  The drugs give me a woozy sensation. I shiver and the nurses swaddle me like a baby with plenty of warm blankets. The doctor says a few words and I’m out for the count.

I wake up. Another foreign object in my body, check. I feel like crap, check. Some pain, double check!

After a few days, the pain subsides and now my port is just this achy thing that tugs at me like an annoying itch. Sometimes, I feel it; sometimes, I don’t even remember it’s there.

During my reconstruction surgery, the port is removed. Like a lover parting ways, he came into my life when I needed him, but now, it was time to go. I’ll never forget how he helped me SO much during chemo. I don’t know what the veins in my arm would’ve done without him. I’m forever grateful to my port.

Every once in a long while, I can still feel a pang, an ache in the place where he once inhabited my body. My poor achy breaky port… he was worth it.