Hi Dilys,
I too have a good shaped head, and look cute with no eyebrows or eyelashes. But I’m very lucky, I could have a terrible shaped head and be none the wiser EVER!
Adrienne x
I’m a skinny minnie, and prior to mastectomy my DD bosom was my best asset. A friend was visiting shortly before my operation was due and “sympathetically” said:-
“It must be awful for you, after all, it’s only your boobs that give you any shape”.
Thanks mate!!!
xxxx
Hi hope you don’t mind me joining in.
my husband and eldest son keep giving me strange looks as I am laughing at your comments, its really cheered me up. It’s good to know that I am in good company as everyone keeps saying I’m brave. What choice do I have? The puzzeling one is when they say you look so well?
best comment I got was from my best friend who asked me what i thought of the deaths on the cancer ward where i was having chemo, my husband had hidden all the newspapers and changed the channels when the local news was on so that i wouldn’t know about it and had told friends and family not to mention it, he forgot to tell this friend and she just assumed I knew about it and thought I’d want to talk about it. husband couldn’t understand why she mentioned it.
My dad did give me an article on radiotherapy which took me a week to decide to read and then I wished I hadn’t. He is well meaning and has given practical help so I forgave him.
I also got a comment your hair is looking nice today - when do you start your chemo? I was 3 weeks into chemo and had no hair left.
Sue
Hi Sue,
I think that Dad’s find it all very hard to deal with. They are not used to talking emotions and such like. My dad would try to gee me up about work and getting some money earn’t. I’m self employed and depend on my ability to earn a living as don’t have a partner. Bless him he was trying to help but couldn’t understand why I couldn’t be ar.ed to do a few simple jobs that would earn a crust.
Ho hum it’s a funny old world. Don’t we see things differently now?
Adrienne x
Hey All
I’ve found the link!!! Having a good shaped head is the reason for BC? Are there any stats about? maybe there is a research fund available? a study group perhaps or at the very least a questionnaire/survey to find out more information on this matter.
Mmm food for thought? or maybe time for bed?
Adrienne
Hi Adrienne
You’re very right about that. My Dad has been very supportive practically even though my Mum is not as with it as she used to be and he is looking after her. she keeps asking what she can do to help time after time as she has forgotten that she has already asked the question several times and keeps asking me if I’m ok several times over.
Do you know what was scary about loosing my hair? I look very much like my Dad and he has more hair than me at the moment, but mine is growing back!
Hope you’re feeling better now. I’m hoping to start back at work in November.
Sue
Omg - Liz, ditch that friend. What a cow!
Just thought of another couple…
The other mum at school who seemed to have a morbid curiosity about chemo-induced hair loss whose questions were just intrusive and nosey. She wanted to know if my eyebrows and eyelashes were going to fall out (answer: I don’t know) and then rshe emembered someone she used to know who they all thought looked “weird” and then they realised it was because she had no eyelashes.
Oh, and a few people who’ve never had chemo themselves and who know nothing about the particular regime that I’m on have told me that the side-effects get worse as you go through the sessions. Er, thanks for that - really encouraging and helpful (and not actually true for me so far).
And MIL is going on and on about how she feels awful at letting us down this week. (I think she’s actually quite pleased she’s got an excuse not to come and help us). I’m expected to respond with “oh no, you can’t help it, it doesn’t matter” ad infinitum when I really want to scream down the phone “SHUT UP!” and other words to that effect. She was due to come over on Wed to look after our 4 yr old whilst we’re at chemo. Well, she’s decided not to come now because she had a bit of a cold (on Sunday) and needed to plan ahead (!) so has decided that just in case it doesn’t clear up that she won’t come. She was originally going to stay overnight tues and wed but I couldn’t even be bothered to argue that she could have come in a taxi on the day and just stayed whilst we weren’t here. At least I’ll have a MIL-free week so it’s not all bad news! Just a big hassle to arrange someone else to look after him as my dad and step-mum on holiday and everyone I could ask is at work. I’m starting to think that making our own arrangements is easier than “help” from MIL anyway.
Nicola
Morning!
Got another one!
“Its amazing what they can do these days!” what the hell is this suppose to mean???
Any ideas because I have not got a clue!!!
Mel
XXX
The sun is shining and anyone want my hair it is curly grey I’m cutting it off soon… any offers it looks just like a grey moggy although I might shave the cat instead… next doors… it keeps pooping in my garden doesn’t he know I don’t want his germs…
Life gets better as you go on as the steps to end of treatment get less… hang in there
W
Hi again ladies,
I just remembered another incident whilst I was bald.
I visited my sister with a hat on my completely bald head ( I hated the wig I got). She appeared quite inquisitive about how much hair I had lost so I asked her if she would like to have a look at my head. ‘Oh God no’ she cried ‘You might not look like my sister anymore and I couldn’t stand that on top of my worry over the cancer’. I might emphasise that I was visiting this sister, she never once came to see me in the 18 months of treatment and has only been once during my latest recurrence.
She doesn’t live abroad just a few miles away.
As I have typed I also remember when I told her and my mum I had BC she said ‘Well as if we haven’t had enough stress with Dad’s death of cancer you have to go and ‘get it’’.
I still love her though, I am just disappointed in her reactions. Funny that though, my brother and I have never been really close but he has really rallied round and has constantly been supportive including supporting me through a holiday in France!
‘Nowt as queer as folks’ as they say.
Carol
When my hair started to grow again, best friend said “Your hair might not grow any longer. Some people don’t get much hair after chemo.” Thanks a lot and how do you know?
Friend of 40 years will only communicate by email now - strange.
Someone I barely know sent me loads of presents when I was going through chemo.
Someone I know even less phones me regularly.
Strange world indeed!
Margaret
It is a strange world.
At dx I phoned my best friend (she was 4 yrs post her lumpectomy and throughout her treatment I took her to hospital and supported her) she made no real comment at all except “oh that is a shame” and “if there is anything I can do” and the proceeded to tell me that she had a bad day as her daughter had decided to leave school - I ask you???
Throughout the past year this so called friend has phoned probably 8 times and back in June said again “I am thinking of you and anything I can do” so I actually said well as you can’t even make the effort to drive the 6 miles to see me after 6 months of being ill etc etc… I then went and met her and SHE CRIED…
Now another 5 months on I have not seen her and she had only rung me to tell me that she is on the BC website as a model at the fashion show - and then she had the audacity to say that “I did it for you”… shame you still can’t drive the 6 miles to see me then!
I now have new friends who I am constantly amazed by - they keep me going and my family are suberb. The only time they tell me they are poorly (colds etc) is when I have low neutrophils and they don’t want me to get it!
Like many others on here I have been told that my DDs werre one of my best assets - the “how are you going to manage without them” comments… like we have a choice!
The illnesses I have no sympathy for are the self inflicted - like hangovers… now if someone moans about a hangover I feel compelled to go for the jugular!
I finished all my treatment in une (op, chemo and rads) and have worked throughout, apart from when having the rads. I was working with a colleague who felt that i was “undermining” her by doing the petty cash. I was actually thinking that I was helping. Anyway, she then said “I’ve been off work for 3 months with depression” to which I replied “I’ve been AT work with cancer, and I haven’t exactly been on top of the world”.
On Friday I went out for a meal with some friends. One woman, who I don’t really know turned to me to say that she had paid £2.00 for cakes at work (50p each) and only took one for breast cancer fund…to help me!!! I just kept saying oh how sweet, and thanks. She must of said it at least 4 times!
Whilst I was having treatment, the guy I was seeing (now long gone) told me that I didn’t have cancer, it had been cut out. He apparently knew people who had “real cancer”…Also on a night out told me I looked better with my wig on as it made me look human. And this is the classic…Look at how much weight you’ve put on…ME: It’s the steroids…HIM: I had steriods and I didn’t put on weight…Oh and another classic ME I think I’ll take at least 4 weeks off work at the end of my treatment HIM You’re just lazy, I only took 2 weeks off when I got bit by a dog.
Sarah xx
Some bizarre remarks:
“What a cool headscarf - at least you never have to worry about bad hair days”
“With wigs you can have a different hair colour every day - I’m stuck with the same colour all the time”
And one checkout operator who leant over and said in a stage whisper “I bought my Christmas cards from the Cancer Research shop this year”
But thankfully the numpties are outnumbered by the friends who do manage to be sensitive and supportive.
Sarah you are definatly better off without him! What a self centered ******
I too had ‘I think I prefer your wig to your old hair’…from a work colleague that I bumped into in town on a good day, who then went on to say the usual 'don’t you look well, you’ll be back at work soon then! I had just had my 4th FEC …fec fec fec!
On a positive note though, unlike some I have a great hair dresser who when I came out of hospital after a mas and recon sent me two shopping bags full of M&S yummy meals, puds and the all important bottle of wine!
Better still though after my 1st FEC, styled my hair for me - well cut short really - just before it all came out, didn’t charge me then or when it was growing back until there was enough to warrent calling it a dry trim. Now that is a friend that I didn’t know had but will definatley be on my christmas card list.
xxx
I am going to have my hair cut again tomorrow.
I am expecting to have further chemo treatment soon ( I’ll know for definite 6th Nov)
As long as the hair dresser who knows about my BC doesn’t say ‘Is it worth the bother?’ I’ll be ok. If she says it, she won’t be ok. Yes I’ve been bald before but in winter? No.
Cheers all
Carol
Some of the comments are so thoughtless, or stupid.
My G.P. said after my initial diagnosis (knowing that i had worked in palliative care). I bet you never thought it would be you needing palliative care!!!
My aunty said after initial dx,- God its so upsetting that your beautiful body will be mutilated!!!
The same aunt said during my radiotherapy,- How does it feel to be in that CANCER world??? Great?!
My best friend said that we could not go out as we did before because i would be no fun!!! She keeps telling me how hard it is for her and then cries?! She makes excuses not to see me.
Ive had some laughs at other silly remarks on here too
Julie XXX
Hi Carol, I’ve been bald in winter, no problem. The wig or scarf were just like hats that I had never been able to wear before as hats don’t suit me.
I can remember Christmas day, I had a short red wig on and my daughters angel wings ( shes 18) cooking lunch with a glas of bubbly in my hand, and that was during my 2nd FEC! The only way to get through it me thinks…
Mariaxxx
Thanks for that Maria,
You have made me laugh, I can picture what you said, I can imagine me bald with those reindeer antler headband on.
Bye
Carol
Hi Everyone again
Bald is good! It does teach you (well me) something about vanity and taking stuff for granted. I have loathed beng bald but will be soooo grateful when it comes back.
Someone asked me this evening if I had been to a funeral. I am wearing a black turban to matchg my black trousers and cardy. Expect I asked for that one!
Lots of love
Dilys
xxx