Life with Breast Cancer: An Impostor (looming guilt)

I feel like an impostor. To the unknowing eye, I wouldn't appear to be a cancer patient. I probably just look like any other late-twenty-something girl, albeit with crookedly painted on eyebrows, steroid bloat, acne of a 12 year old, and the days where I choose not to care about hiding Penny from the world, somewhat bionic.

Because I still have most of my hair.

It seems silly, but it was one of the first things I was worried about losing. I remember sitting, fairly calmly, in the oncologists office last December, my list of questions burning a hole in my purse. I already knew the answer to the question I cared about most, but I had to hear him say it. Dr. Shek gave the answer to my question before I even had a chance to ask it. As gently as he could, he told me I was going to lose my hair. Not that I "might" or that "there's a possibility", but that I would. I tried incredibly hard to take that news in stride, and listen to the other side effects I might endure, but I wasn't hearing anything else he said. I turned my head towards my mom, hiding behind the curtain of my hair, hoping it would shield me from this news, starting to sob.

Worrying about the loss of my hair seems incredibly superficial when I'd just been told I had cancer, but it's such an important part of your identity that it's hard to grasp not having it. It also screams "cancer patient" to the world, and at the time of my diagnosis, I didn't want many people to know. I started searching for short hair cuts, trying to resign myself with the fact that I'd always wanted to try a pixie cut, but never had the nerve, so now would be my chance. I started to have hair envy - I would gaze longingly at women's hair, saddened by the fact that I was going to lose mine.

At the end of December, I went to a young women's breast cancer support group. It was only 3 days after my lumpectomy, but I wanted to go to meet other young women. Ironically enough, though, no one else came. But it was nice because I got to have an intimate session with the breast care coordinators. They mentioned scalp cooling and how one of the women in the group had done it, and saved most of her hair, and they asked if I wanted to get in touch with her. I said yes, and gave them my information. About a week later, Rebecca called me, and we talked for over 2 hours. In that conversation, she informed me of cold capping, what it entailed, and how she saved her hair. I was due to start a new job in January, and I wanted to look like myself as much as possible. And I really just couldn't imagine myself bald (I fell down a lot as a kid. I don't think bald would've suited me well).

So, I did more research on the topic, asked my oncologist if he was okay with me trying it, and went from there. For each of my 6 infusions, I got 50 pounds of dry ice, loaded it up in a cooler with these caps, and took that to the hospital with me. During the infusion, I would change the caps every 20 minutes, for a total of about 6-7 hours. They were pretty cold... -34 degrees. The whole idea is to constrict the blood flow to your scalp during the infusion so that the chemo drugs wouldn't damage the hair follicles, causing alopecia (hair loss). It was uncomfortable, expensive, and time consuming. And I almost gave up on more than one occasion, because I still lost hair. But family and friends convinced me to endure it since I'd come so fair, and no matter how much hair I lost, I would still be ahead of the game when chemo was over in terms of growing new hair.

I'm happy to have most of my hair, even though I long for the days when I could wash it regularly, blow dry it, and straighten it. But, the past few days, I've felt an onslaught of guilt because of my hair. As though I'm not actually a cancer patient because of the fact that I still have hair, like I'm an impostor. I didn't go through the entire "cancer experience". But I know that's silly, and I need to brush it off, because I did what was right for me. I needed to feel like I still had control of something, when it felt like I was losing control of everything. And just as cancer won't define me, neither will my hair.

I doubt that I'll ever feel or look like my old self again, because there's not denying that this has had a profound impact on my life. But that's the beauty of life - we're constantly changing and evolving. I hope that this allows me to start believing in my own beauty, and to realize that I'm more than my hair.

July 2014