May 30: Back to the Chemo Cafe

More poison today… but no, we’ll think of it as a magical thing, Chema the good witch, perhaps, floating around whapping cancer cells on the head with her wand and screeching “Begone! You have no power here! Jerk!”

Ohhhh, that’s why Stacey keeps puking!

In any case, we can start to have a sense now of how long the treatment will mess her up, when she’ll start feeling a little better, etc etc.

In more follicular news: the hair has started to go. Right now it looks the same, but if she runs her fingers through it and tugs, a handful will come out.

Here was the report from yesterday:
(from e-mail message)

So, I have confirmed that the hair on my head has started falling out. As to the status of other bodily hairs:
* Arm hair, so far, is not falling out.
* Eylashes and eyebrows are unconfirmed (please, NO!)
* Underarm and leg are unconfirmed (please, YES!)
* Knuckle hair seems intact, as does hair on palms of hands
* General body fuzz seems unaffected

Anything I didn’t mention falls in the category of Confirmed.

By the way, I worked in the garden for about 2 1/2 hours this morning. I did the whole last square, including planting all the seeds (2 types of green beans, lima beans, and picking cukes). Yay me! Oh, and everything is well and properly watered.

So — losing one’s hair is pretty rotten, especially when it is such attractive hair. But, she’s out working, playing with Ruby, cooking when she can, just generally living life every day. It’s just that sometimes life includes chemo.

And, we have an appointment for a wig fitting this week (Stacey is more likely to go with scarves and hats, especially in the heat of the summer, but it’s good to have a wig for certain occasions. By the way, if anyone is looking for a great chemo hat/scarf site, I highly recommend Doma Designs — we’re both in love with the concept of simple hats with tons of different ties, scarves, jingles and jangles to dress them up. We’re also interested in the DoDana, a bandana-like affair that is apparently shaped so that it is easy to tie. If the shape of it is simple enough, I can make Stacey as many as she wants. The only trouble with that is that I’d have to go to eQuilter.com, which is a highly dangerous website. I find my hand clicking that “Add to Cart” button of its own volition. Oh well –a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

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