Cancer and chemotherapy have made some quite far-reaching changes in both my body and my outlook. Some of those changes will almost certainly be permanent, such as the much shorter outlook on life, while others have been temporary. That second group is the one I’m going to write about today.
I have written before how my sense of taste has changed, making meat tasteless, and marmite horrible. I began to notice, a couple of weeks ago, that I was once again craving marmite for my breakfast, so I tried it — carefully. It still doesn’t taste the same to me now as it used to, but the taste is once again at least tolerable.
That experiment led me to try eating steak and chips again. Previously I had found these two foods, which I once loved, we also tasteless, or even downright horrible. Thankfully the trial turned out to be successful, and steak is back on the menu again.
Turning from food to hair: I shaved all my head hair three weeks after my first chemo cycle, when I found that it was falling out of its own accord. It was simply too ghastly to contemplate the mess I would leave behind me. But rather than wait until I knew for certain that the course of chemo was over, I started re-growing it four weeks after the fifth cycle. I had thought that it would just grow back normally, but that hasn’t happened at all. Instead, only about a third of my hair came through at first. I was very glad to see it until I realized it was so thin. I was extremely concerned about it for about a week, that is until the missing hairs finally decided to show themselves. They’re still a little thin on the ground, but now I’m confident that my hair will grow back normally. Phew!
The biggest change wrought by the chemotherapy is, unfortunately, also temporary. That is, it has fought back the tumour and made it possible for me to lead an almost normal life for a while. There are still pills to take, and there is some residual back pain, but even the pain is coming under control. This reversed change is one that I have to expect will re-reverse itself in the course of time. I wish it were like my hair and my sense of taste.
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Hi C & G! Stephanie has returned to the UK, and I have put a couple of pics up for you!
Glad to hear you can play with your menu a bit more now, that must be a relief.
The hair thing is funny – I have a couple of friends who went through chemo, lost their hair (one shaved it all off, just like you did!) and when it came back in, it was all curly. Both these ladies had stick-straight hair before! After some time, this hair was shed as normal and their straight hair came back. I guess this is just another way your body shows the weird trauma of chemo!
Hope to be hearing of more some improvement, —sue h
Sorry, for the slow reply, Sue, but connectivity here is very patchy and every time I tried to respond the connection dropped, which was more than a little annoying. I was trying to say that Gillian had given up on ginger hair, but still held out for curls. Who knows, she may be lucky yet, but I doubt it…
Glad to hear that steak and chips is back on the menu – are the chips well done 🙂
The hair will grow back once the first growth has come and gone
Yes, the chips are well done, but the steak is (medium) rare 🙂
Good to hear about the hair. Say hi to B for me.
Will do
PS – We had a baby boy called Ben
He is almost six months old and making his presence known
I’m praying for you
Wow! Congratulations. Glad to hear that you’re taking care of a B&B 😉