Week 4

So, its week four already I can not believe it! Time goes so fast after chemo. When I was still in active treatment it seemed like time went so slow. Probably because I dreaded every other Friday more than anything in the world. I wish my hair would just grow already. The waiting game is irritating but they say good things come to those who wait! I was also thinking about what to do with all my wigs the other day once this is all over. I think I will definitely keep the one that I wore the most, but I just do not know about the other two. Life throws curveballs every now and again so I can never know who will need them in the future. But no one in my family has long brown curly hair! Maybe I will go to Rainbows Children's in Akron in a few months to see if any girls' hair there matches the wigs I have.

ANYWHO. I have a few things I have been doing to try and speed up the process. I take hair, skin and nail vitamins twice a day. Also I use a shampoo/conditioner called Nioxin. My mom's friend from work said she knew someone with breast cancer that used it and saw progress. It's not designed to actually make your hair grow per say, but it is supposed to clean your scalp and provide an optimal place for hair to grow. I mean my hair is growing kind of as you will see in the pictures. But I'm not sure if it is due to the Nioxin or what. I still use it though just incase =]

My stepdad bought my mom, my sisters and I a day at the spa, and when I was there I asked what else I could be doing to get  my hair to grow and they said Biotin? So that may also help too.

Just as a side note- I am so glad that I got diagnosed in the fall. Being able to wear hats throughout the winter time is so nice. I don't know what I would do if I had to deal with this nonsense during the summer!  So if you get cancer I recommend getting diagnosed around August or September... HAHA just kidding.

my vitamins, which smell terrible by the way
you can get them at any health food store probably. I went to a place called Earth Fare, or probably somewhere like Mustard Seed or GNC would have the same type of thing.

my shampoo and conditioner that may or not be working haha

peach fuzzin

its tryinggggggg!

Week 3

Just went to see my oncologist, and set my appointment for the next CAT scan which is thankfully in SIX MONTHS! from now =] I am glad that I do not have to worry about chemo or anything like that for a while. Hopefully for forever!

And these pictures are all a week apart believe me. I sometimes just don't get around to uploading them right away.

My hair is growing, but not the way I want it to. It is just the weird peach fuzz hair that I don't really count as hair to begin with. Oh well. Everyone has said that by 3 months I should have a nice covering. It has only been 28 days so far so I have got a few more months to go. No sign of eyebrow or eyelash growth either =/ Ill post those pics next time.

you can see hair, but it is not all over yet.

The good news

Oh, by the way, I AM CANCER FREE!

Just found out today around 5 o'clock actually. January 20th will be a day to remember! I had a second biopsy of a lymph node in my neck after a PET scan showed some reactivity. It is up near my jaw on the right side. Turns out it was nothing! So, I am left with 2 little scars. Not so bad, I can deal with that =]

Now I just have to focus on getting into Ohio States nursing program. Which is turning out to be a fiasco in itsself. But hey, what can you do. Nothing in life is easy as I have learned.

Week 2

I was supposed to post this 5 days ago but havn't gotten around to it. I really don't do anything so it's out of pure lazyness. Still no sign of gowth though =/ Makes me sad. I thought it would all be back by now but I guess I was just delusional. I don't think my eyebrows or eyelashes have grown any either. Hopefully it starts soon becaause I am getting a little bit sick of looking like a cancer patient!

Week 1

And so it begins. Week one. Bald as an eagle. Barely any eyebrows and a few eyelashes.

fresh out of chemo

Now that chemo has ended, the fun can begin. I will try my best to remember to post a picture every week in order to see how my hair has grown back. Just as a pre-warning, some of the pictures won't be pretty. I actually look like a weird sick cancer patient when I have no makeup on or anything. BUT for your sole benefit I shall post the pictures anyway.

By the way, I get my PET scan tomorrow to see if all this nonsense is gone. Lets hope for the best here! The doc said there was a possibility of no radiation if the scan came back clear. That would be just the bees knees but I don't want to get my hopes up.

see? not real hair haha =]

at least I've got a nicely shaped head

Here are the pictures of the weird fuzz I mentioned. It grew between the beginning of December and now, so I don't even think of it as real hair. That's why I shaved it off in order for it to grow back normal.

Ways to hide the bald beastlyness

As I previously said,  I have many scarves, hats, wigs and hooded things to try and hide my head. I don't really like non-family or close friends to see my head. It's sort of embarrassing in a way. I know that I can't help what I look like and it's not like people would make fun of me or anything. Its just that I am used to looking one way. It sounds bad, but I am used to looking pretty and now that I don't see myself in that way, it's hard for me to go out looking like an ugly naked mole rat. The way I look is important to me, and until my hair, eyebrows and eyelashes grow back it will be hard to look in the mirror and see a beautiful person.

ANYWAYS, my wigs. Funny story with those. My mom and I drove around the entire northeast part of Ohio one day looking for wig places. We probably went in at least 15 places. Most were really sketchy and had ugly old lady wigs- like short and curly and nothing I was looking for. So we eventually happened upon this one place that does custom human hair wigs or 'hairpieces' as my mom prefers to say. They take down the exact color of your hair and order just a plain wig, and once you get it they cut it into your exact style and everything. I mean for some people its probably fine but I just ended up never wearing the ones I got. I preferred hats and scarves. But the wig did look completely natural and I definitely recommend it to anyone that would want one. The hats and stuff are just easier to throw on. Especially when you feel like death from the chemo 85% of the time and don't have any reason to leave the comfort of your home anyway.

So after we went to the little place in Beachwood, we decided to venture out again just to see what else was on this list we got from the oncology clinic. There was another place, pretty much exactly the same as the previous one. Who knows why but we ordered one from there too. Both adding up to nearly 3,000 dollars. And now they sit, condemned to a life collecting dust in my closet. It's a shame really because they're really nice. I just thought they looked weird on me I don't know. And who knows, maybe I'll sell them or donate them or something.

You'd think two would be enough right? Nope. I went out and bought another one that ended up being around 400 dollars. This one not human hair but I like it better. I wear it occasionally. I was invited to this Navy Ball at Miami University in November. Thankfully it was on an off chemo weekend so I could go, but I wore it there and nobody seemed to notice nor care. Danced in it and everything. Of course i was scared I'd trip and it fall off or something but no such thing happened!. It ended up being a great weekend!

For a while I just wore this one black hat out that I have a picture of. I wore it everytime I went somewhere. It was just easy and matched everything. Sometimes I wore a scarf but I could probably count on one hand the times I did that. Usually if I was just going to a friends house I would put my hood up. You end up realizing that no one cares what you do. I mean of course I still care and worry about covering my head ALL the time. But it seems that I am the only one ! I wish I could just stop caring but I don't see that happening in the near future.

I have some pictures of some of the things I've used to cover the monstrosity. Pretty much the pictures that I am posting on here are the only pictures I've allowed anyone to take of me in the past 4 months. It is weird to have so little because my family is very camera happy and we have thousands upon thousands of pictures. We document every moment of our lives pretty much. So you guys are lucky!

Oh! My high school did a powderpuff football game in my honor in order to raise money. It was so generous of everybody and it's so great to know how many people out there are thinking about me ! But i was wearing my black hat that I wore everywhere.

pardon the face, but a simple black beanie.

jailbird hat

the black again that I wore EVERYWHERE

one of my favorite scarves

you could even do a blanket!

here is me wearing the synthetic hair wig-you can't even tell right? pretty neat

my wig at the Navy Ball with my friend Gabrielle. 

great smile eh? but this was at the wig store. called Wigs n Things in Fairlawn, Ohio

My third haircut with sister Carli

Before

during the cut (german boy)

during the cut

 AFTER! we are now shaved! Notice my hair looks a lot more thin compared to Carli's.

thuglife

mi familia.

my shaved head. lookin sparce. I also have most of my eyelashes here and eyebrows. This was only a month ago!

not the best quality but you get the picture.

My AMAZING family and friends

My mom - Donated 8 inches!- she got her hair cut again recently and is talking about going even shorter!

My older sister Alicia- she already had short hair but still cut it even shorter to support me =]

love her!

my niece Meredith

she is only 6!

my older sister Jacky- Donated 9 or 10 inches! She loved her hair probably as much as I did, and she cut it anyway.  I truly have the best sisters in the world

We thought she looked older =]

My dad went COMPLETELY bald. Such a sweet guy  I love him!

Three of the best friends I have ever had. Eric, Andrew and Anthony. All sophomores at Ohio State. I came down to visit one weekend and they had all surprised me! Without my friends, I really do not know if I could have gotten through all this. They mean more to me than they will ever know.

my crazy sister Carli- Donated 10 inches. And obviously has had a really good time experimenting with her hair colors. I mean you only live once so why not.?! She has also been bleach blonde and an unfortunate shade of blue that happened by accident lol =]

Family and friends are SO important. You will not get through this process without them. These people and countless others have been such a blessing. To know the lengths the ones closest to you will go is just out of this world.

Starting to noticibly thin.. fun is OVER

 After your hair falls out in big clumps 3 times a day, it will obviously start to thin. That was one of the worse parts. To see it go from relatively normal looking to gross grandma hair. I almost wish I would have just cut it all off to begin with rather than go through the pain of seeing it come out.

Especially in the shower it was the worst. To see the drain be clogged with an abnormally sick amount of hair. It really gets to you. But you just have to remember it will grow back. Everyone tells you that and at first I didn't want to hear it. But imagine if it really never was going to grow back. How horrible would that be?

You can look forward to all the new hairstyles you would otherwise never have the guts to try out. That's what I am looking forward to now!

Pictures from my 2nd haircut

I wasn't thrilled..

not so bad with the headband =]

self explanatory

I do not have a picture from my first hair cut, which I am now regretting.

So, this nice clump of hair is from when I had my hair cut to a little bit above my shoulders...after I donated the 9 inches.

To really get a feel of how much I lost, this is from just one brush through. So I would wake up and then brush my hair until no more would fall out. This clump would be the result. And if I waited till lunch time, I could do the same thing again. And then repeat again at dinner.

Quite depressing.

Pictures from hospital stays

miserable hospitals- can't believe I still want to work in one

My good friend Kory visiting me while in the hospital!