Hair loss is accelerating. Today I pulled two large hairballs out of the shower drain. And yet … if you hadn’t seen me in a while you might not notice much difference. I can tell that it’s thinner and shorter, but the casual observer certainly wouldn’t peg me for a chemo patient. Yet. I keep wondering which day it will be. Tomorrow? Next cycle? Time will tell.
One silver lining to the hair loss: I am cleaner than I have been at any time in the last two months, i.e. since my surgery. The easiest way to get rid of the loosening hairs is to shower, so I have had a record three days in a row of showers.
“Eeewww,” I hear you say. “Don’t you usually shower each day?” Well, yes, I used to. Like many things in my life, taking a shower is harder than it used to be. It requires waterproofing the Hickman line through which I receive my intraperitoneal chemo. This is a tube, about the diameter of IV tubing, that runs into my belly and is sutured to my skin, and then covered by a dressing. Waterproofing it can be accomplished one of two ways: with a patch of adhesive film called Tegaderm (if you’ve had an IV lately, this is the stuff that secured it in place), or by taping plastic wrap securely on all four sides. It’s tricky to position the Tegaderm, which is just slightly larger than the dressing, and the taped plastic almost always leaks. One way or another the dressing needs to be changed afterwards. So, it’s not as easy as just jumping into the shower whenever I feel like it.
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