Losing my hair, just don’t care…..

I don’t even want to touch it. Even looking at it makes me feel sick. If I wash it, webs of it wrap around my fingers and collect on the shower floor. If I dry it, it cascades across the room. My scalp hurts. Every sensation causes me to run my fingers through it, grasping for the inevitable strands that have come loose. This week, my hair is my torment.

 

It’s a strange. Prior to my diagnosis, my hair was one of my things. I’d say, more part of my personality than my identity, but it helped me express who I am. I enjoyed having a full head of it that lent itself to a style that received compliments wherever I went. I was blessed that it coped well with dyes and styling products. And it was relatively quick and easy to maintain, which is a good job, as doing so was always high on my priority list on any given day! It took all of 10 minutes, washing, drying, funking it up with a bit of wax and heading out of the door, but I enjoyed being able to take some control of how I felt about the day, or night shift, ahead, just by being able to look good. Even a “bad hair day” was never actually bad.

In the course of a week, I now find myself in a space where styling products are the last thing I want to put on, even though they help disguise what’s happening. My hair sticks to the wax. Loads. I’ve lost enough, without helping it. Even though people say they can’t tell, I look in the mirror and see limp, fading, scalp-revealing remains. Looking at it literally makes me feel sick. Not because I’m repulsed by it, but, I think, by association. It reminds me of the chemo. And for a large chunk of the time the chemo makes you feel sick.

In actual fact, I’m finding that I don’t care. When my consultant first outlined my treatment plan, starting with six cycles of chemotherapy, I was immediately concerned with how I was going to keep up appearances. I looked at the specialist nurse and said, “Right, I want to know about wigs, false eyelashes, nails, the lot”. When I read about women who didn’t really want to wear their wigs, I couldn’t quite fathom it. I haven’t completely lost my hair yet, but now I get that.

Maybe it’s part of a grieving process. Maybe, it’s because I’ve had the cold cap, (which is supposed to help reduce hair loss) and I feel like I’ve done all I can. Maybe I don’t believe I’ll fully lose it. Maybe chemo-Helen is here again (it is the right point in the cycle!) and she really doesn’t give a s**t, but here, now, I find myself calmly resigned to it. I’m losing my hair and I just don’t care.

To be honest, the hair issue has paled into insignificance, compared to a far more profound experience. These last few weeks have revealed the greater depths of a truth that I’ve been discovering for the last 17 years. That truth is that God’s got this and, when I’m too weak, weary or indifferent to take any control myself, He’s still got me and He loves me.

I was reading this the other morning and was struck by how these words have been real for me:

For the LORD God is a sun and a shield;

The LORD bestows favour and honour;

No good thing does he withhold

From those whose walk is blameless.

LORD Almighty,

Blessed is the one who rests in you.

(Psalm 84 verses 11-12)

My walk is not blameless, not by any stretch. I mess-up LOTS of times a day. But, the truth is, God desires to draw me close to him all of the time. For all time. He loves me so much that he sent his son Jesus, to pay the price for my cock-ups, before I was even born! Because of Him, my walk is blameless.

And now, because of what He did, not because of how good I was or how well I performed, I get to be bestowed with favour and honour, even at my weakest.

I have been blown away by the love and support that has been poured out by those around me. It has felt like a great big cushion. In this wilderness of uncertainty and unpleasantry (not a word, but I liked it!) the outpouring of love, both practically and emotionally has felt like favour and honour that I don’t deserve. When I can’t pray, I know that others are. Their prayers give me confidence that God will be my sun and my shield. When I can’t, others do. Even when I can, others are upholding me anyway. This is provision from the God of Heaven who loves me. I am resting in Him and I am blessed. Just like the psalm says.

Someone asked me yesterday, whether I have felt angry towards God at all. Genuinely, no. I have never felt scared and I have never felt angry. Surely that’s “the peace of God that surpasses all understanding”? It’s real. I know beyond all doubt that He loves me. He is allowing me to walk this road and I have every confidence that it will be for the greater good- mine and others’. The lessons we will learn on this journey will have glorious consequences. For me, losing a bit of hair is a small price to pay!