Hair today gone tomorrow

Auntie Lorraine and Mum came for a visit 🥰 Lorraine is just back from holiday and is all tanned and fabulous!

I did ask Mum to help me do this but it timed perfectly with my auntie hairdresser coming for a visit 😌

So they came, I had a little of my dinner of hummus, pitta bread, cheese, chicken and tortilla chips 🥰 Half way through we decide to wash my hair and I can finish my dinner while my hair is drying so that’s what we do.

Lorraine spies the ultimate chair in the shower room and cleans it ready for us to use. I have had some optimistic Shampoo and Conditioner in my bag since day 1 which I am delighted to get out. I am so bloody excited to have clean hair 🥰

Lucky for me, I have a side room with a big old sink so off we go 😃

As I flip my head back and Lorraine is ready to comb it through, she realises just how knotted it has become some how … not even knotted but matted. We take a deep breath and think.

There is only one way through and that is with a comb, time and patience.

So Lorraine smothers it in conditioner and gets started.

Most of the problem is that there is so much dead hair in there too so for the small amounts of hair that is freed … a huge amount is going into the bin. HUGE … not unusual for me to loose hair when unwell but I have been very unwell for a long time so it would make sense … but fuck me this is heartbreaking. I can’t see auntie Lorraine’s face but I can see mums. She can tell that it’s a lot coming out and mum doesn’t hide a worried face well. I reach out and hold my mums hand.

It is a long … slow process that takes us way past visitor time. By 22:00, Auntie Lorraine has made huge progress but there is still a long way to go. Mum and Lorraine need to go, it’s getting late, they cannot stay here all night.

Reluctantly they leave, I can tell Lorraine wants to stay and finish the job but there are hours left in there and she has done so much already! ❤️

I felt horrible for Auntie Lorraine, to bring her into this situation. The outcome would have been the same whether she helped me wash my hair or not. I can’t imagine how she felt but the issue was my body and my hair – last night, today, tomorrow the outcome would have been the same.

When life hands you lemons, somehow it will squirt in my eyes. 🍋

Good nights and I love yous for Mum and Lorraine. As Mum gives me a kiss on the head, I do a little cry. I can’t help it. In my heart and I am 5years old and want to hold onto her leg and kick and scream and never let go, stay with me or take me with you. I feel this way whenever Mum and Dad leave. Some days I hide it well, other days I have a little cry or start grumping at them so they leave or hang up quicker before I start crying.

They listen to me cry so much these days, I am making a real effort to cry at other people or even better, not at all but they are my go to speed dial. My people. I owe them so much.

Anyway, after mum and auntie Lorraine leave, I sit for a little while and work on it and then the lovely Nurse Dani appears, she brings me a cup of tea and tells me to eat my dinner. She has a couple of things to do and once I’m finished, she will be back to help.

True to her word, Dani came back and started combing my hair out and telling me about her little girls. They sound like really lovely girls, I tell her that I think she is doing an incredible job and I know that she is so busy so to take the time to come and help me means a lot. Dani stayed as long as she could before the ward started to busy again and she needed to rejoin her colleagues in the action. But she left me with a sense of calm that I didn’t have before.

Sometimes talking, that brief moment of normal really is the best medicine.

As Dani left I carried on working with the now much smaller Matt but also become increasingly aware that more of my hair was ending up in the bin or on the floor than running down my back.

I am messaging cousin Kerry, hairdresser extraordinaire at the same time. We have multiple plans on the go for my hair at any given time so in itself, I’m not worried, shock is probably more the word and actually I suppose worried that I have lost so much hair that it will be too thin to achieve even the short hairstyles that I am interested in. But Kerry is somewhat of a wizard and whether the style is what I would usually have chosen or not, I am sure that she will make it work.

But still there is not a lot of hair left on my head, it is mostly in the bin. What is left is thin, whispy and I am terrified that what is left is just waiting to fall out too 😭.

I just cry and cry and cry. I am not vain, but I do love my hair and my hair does look great because of my friend the #DysonAirWrap! What now? I already have a bones sticking out of my malnourished body, a stoma bag and now next to no hair.

I was starting to feel good in my body, regaining control, getting my strength up, I can now get out of bed easily and unaided – I felt like I was getting someway back to myself.

Now, I don’t feel good. I feel skeletal, I feel sickly looking, my hair used to be my super power and my way of feeling awesome, that was in the bin that I just watched a hospital cleaner empty. I am afraid to touch my hair incase even more comes out.

Feeling sad, I decide to get up and walk it off. I walk up and down the corridor a bit and then decide to go to the toilet.

Tears are falling freely, I don’t even try to stop them. Why bother. I am so sad.

I’m not even just sad for this moment, I look to the future, people coming round the house, going out for dinner, getting back to the office, running an event and not feeling or looking like myself. I can’t see this. I don’t want to.

I see Nurse Dani on the way back to my room. I ask for a cup of tea and she says to head back to bed, she will finish a few things and she will be in for tea and a chat.

Again, true to her word, Dani appears with tea and time for a chat. She took the cannula out of my hand as all of my medication is now in tablet form and just talked to me. Talked about my hair (lack of) and then just talked for a while.

I thanked Dani, she turned it around. Without her my day would have ended with me crying into my pillow. I still feel sad, beyond sad but I am not crying hysterically right now and surely that is a better way to end the day. I put on a scarf to try and protect what is left and head to bed.

Just remember – Tomorrow is a new day, Hair grows, and Everything will look better from home 🏡 I just need to get there.