Dear Bevstar -- sorry, I haven't been checking your Forum lately, I have been very busy working on my garden which was neglected during the time I was busy having cancer -- as I am about to submerge into hospitalization again with a knee replacement coming up in August and wanted to have somewhere nice to escape to afterwards!!
Yes, I used the cold cap and would throughly recommend it! It didn't exactly "save" my hair, but I did have enough left to wear a cloth cap and look as though I had some hair. it did, however, make me feel that I was a bit in control of my fate; and I am convinced that as a result my hair grew back more quickly! When it began to grow well (which was within a month of my last chemo), I had the old hair cut short, so that it all grew in together. I never found the cold cap to be terribly uncomfortable. It did make the chemo sessions much longer -- but my attitude to the whole thing was to go with the flow, so I didn't really mind spending the whole day at the unit.
Another one of the the Valentines had even better experiences with the cold cap. Her hair thinned considerably, but you never would have guessed what was going on. Her mistake was that she didn't cut her hair shorter after chemo and so went through a funny sort of period with rather tired looking longer hair and lovely soft curly new hair growing through!
So -- my general advice would be to have a shorter haircut, try the cold cap and see how it goes. If it is clearly failing, you can always discontinue it.
You ask how I am doing now. It has taken a long time -- I had FEC-T x6 and then 24 radiotherapy -- but finally I am begining to feel fairly normal. It did however take almost a year to begin to feel normal. Unfortunately, the one thing that takes even longer is fear that something is wrong again! I have trotted back to the oncologists twice already convinced that it was all started again. They were wonderful, as usual, and assured me that everything was alright. Perhaps, someday, I will lose the fear.
By the way, my friend -- she is Cowgirl on the June Forum -- seems to be doing quite well. She is on a TC regime and seems to have at least one good week per cycle, which I never had. Hope things go well with your treatment! Lots of Love, Yankee
ps the picture of me that appears with my post, was taken about 6 weeks after my last chemo--if you click on my picture, you will see some other pics of me -- before chemo, in my redhead wig, and the way I really looked with the bald bit on top, but quite a bit of hair elsewhere Incidently, I saved all the hair I lost to make a false chignon. It is magnificent, only trouble is my new hair is every so much grayer -- I am nearly 70, so not unexpected -- so don't know that I can ever use it!
