So, about a year and some months ago, I had a CT, then another, then another, and most of my hair fell out in the next six weeks. It had two more spells during colitis flares where it would start raining down again. I'd have hair on my clothes, in the food, covering the sink, all over the floor, and big old wads in my butt crack that I never figured out how they got there. Seriously, how does a pile of hair the size of a toy mouse get past an untucked shirt and down your pants? Twice a day?
I lost almost all my eyelashes, about half my brows, and a sizeable but unmeasurable portion of my nose hair. I can't really describe the process when your nose hair decides to let go and blow out of your nose. It doesn't look like eyelashes on your face, either. And the carpet still matched the drapes but boy did it get threadbare.
I started with a shitload of dark mouse brown, slightly gray, very bone-straight fine hair. By the time a year had gone by, I was down to less than half the ponytail I'd had in width, it was very flat and straight indeed, and my hairline had reshaped while receding. There were a few weak looking grays coming back but not much else. I didn't need a haircut for months last winter, it actually stopped growing for a while, and my hair usually grows nearly eight inches a year; "My hair is eating my face" is how I describe my need for a bimonthly haircut as a rule. I only got it cut once last year in eight months, and only then because it was so raggedly and broken.
In September, I got hold of some meds which started holding the colitis back somewhat. About a month later, my head began to itch like crazy. When I got some privacy to scratch it, my scalp felt decidedly prickly. I started seeing this kind of crew-cut growing in around my remaining hair. So, now about four or five months later, I have two distinct heads of hair. If it's dry or static-y at all, I have a whole new set of hair about three inches long, most of it stripes of gray, a lot of it wavy, that sticks off my head like a momfro. Or the strangest mullet ever. There are curly elflocks growing in front of my ears. Curls, on me, the flat and lifeless hair queen of the world. Frizz, even. Bizarre doesn't begin to cover it. It's pretty cool to have hair texture, though. I've always heard that your hair grows back different after chemo; I wasn't on chemo that I knew of but I did get convinced that the first CT was an overdose. So, maybe radiation hair.
My abundant chin hair, which had stopped growing altogether last winter for six weeks and then was a little feeble and hesitant, is no longer pussyfooting around. I'm back to the daily hunt and pluck of three of the little bastards at the least. Good thing about that is most of them turned white as well, so they aren't as aggravating as when they were all black. It's weird what cheers me up sometimes.
