Hair Today and Gone Tomorrow

So here's the short of it,
My hair started falling out today!

And here's the long

This morning in the shower as I was washing my hair, I noticed a small handful of hair as I rinsed. Later in the morning, my scalp started to be itchy and kind of hurting a little - now not really painful, just a weird achy kind of feeling.

About mid- morning, I ran my hand through my hair and !wow! it was just full of hair. All day long, it's been coming out in clumps every time I touch it. It's probably not noticeable to anyone else, except of course all of my family that I've been around have had to hear me say, "Look at this, isn't this really weird!" Several of you who have walked this path ahead of me, told me that once it starts to come out, I'd probably want to go ahead and cut it. You are right! I can't imagine going for days on end having it falling out all over everything! It will be better to just get it cut.

When I first learned that I would have to have chemotherapy - the kind that makes you lose your hair - I talked to the kids about it. Liga didn't want to cut my hair. Valdis, on the other hand, said he'd return the favor. See, every summer for years, he couldn't wait for it to get warm enough for a buzz cut and I kept it really nice and short for him until school started. So I have an appointment with my buzz cutter tomorrow morning between 9 and 9:30. And by now, Liga has decided that she'll help out.

I'm not sad about this (yet). It just feels really strange that my hair is coming out in clumps. Actually in one way I'm really grateful for this sign that the chemo drugs are doing their work. They are killing all my rapidly dividing cells. Since they are killing my hair cells I'm guessing that they are killing any renegade cancer cells that may have escaped the surgeon's knife as well. Now that's a really good thought.

I'm pretty clear by this time, that one of the lessons I'm supposed to learn from all this is that no matter what I think, I really don't have any control over very much at all. That has certainly been very clear today!