My friends all know about my cancer now, and their reactions
have been very diverse. But the most remarkable of all – which I got from two
different people, mind you – was: “So will you be losing your hair?”
The first time, it caught me completely off-guard. The
second time, I had an answer prepared: “Probably. I can put it in a box and
ship it to you, if you’d like to have it.”
Honestly, though, I wonder if I brought it on myself. (The
hair loss, not the cancer.) I have bragged more than once about the nice thick
hair that Heaven granted me. Only this last spring, two of my (younger) colleagues
were commiserating about the fact that they were balding. “I don’t have to
worry about that,” I gloated to them. “I don’t have the gene for it. Look at
what a nice thick handsome head of hair I have!”
They laughed dutifully, but they were both glowering at me.
And, you see, Karma is now paying me back.
The radiation therapy, being directed very specifically
toward the tumor in my throat, will cause only a little hair loss – perhaps part
of my beard and some of the hair on the back of my neck.
The chemotherapy, however, will probably take care of the
rest. In the words of one website: “You will very likely wake up one morning
with all of your hair on your pillow.”
Delightful.
But, as I keep telling people: isn’t that what hats are for?
And, thank goodness, I look charming in hats.
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