Hair

The hair loss has begun.

It wasn't unexpected of course, but it's still quite a psychological blow. She had gotten it cut because she couldn't care for it anymore, and now it's deserting her.

I held her as she cried, holding a handful of hair from her brush. I told her it will grow back, and that I will love her even if she never has hair again. It didn't seem to help much.

The good news is that the chemo drugs are working. Chemo is primarily used to keep the cancer from spreading in the bloodstream, it targets any rapidly growing cancer cell and destroys it. This will keep the cancer localized so that the radiation will kill it off.

The bad news is that hair and nail cells are also rapidly growing cells, and the chemo drugs do not differentiate between them. They simply can't tell the difference. This is why the hair falls out and the nails get brittle.

I can't say if the Propel sports water would have helped or not because she hasn't been drinking it. She was sick on the first day she had chemo, and had been drinking the Propel all day. Now the two are linked in her mind, so she doesn't even want the Propel. It may have helped, it may have not, there is no way to tell now.

Her doctors are very happy with her progress, they are talking remission without surgery now which is different than what they were saying before. This is a good thing. Of course that means the treatments will drag on longer, which means more rounds of chemo, which means a longer time before the hair grows back. That's not so good.

But she is feeling better, less pain and easier breathing. I think her positive attitude has been a definite help. I'll feel better when she feels better, I'm hoping it won't be very much longer.