You Heard it Here First, Folks

I discovered a little bit of a surprise today. I knew that it was coming and that's why it is only a little surprise. Now, please read carefully the following so that you don't go and do something drastic as a show of solidarity.

Today I started losing some hair. That's right, just fell right out.

But it wasn't from chemo, so don't worry about that.

This is a very important distinction to make. When you lose your hair as a result of chemo, you lose it all and it doesn't stop at the neck--body hair goes, too.

When you lose hair from radiation, which is why mine is falling out, then it only falls out in the area of the skin that has been irradiated. Make sense? So, in my case, I'm receiving radiation on my neck and some various other upper chest areas. Today I noticed that whatever stubble I had grown up to this point in the weekend started to fall out whenever I scratched my neck and even when I didn't. It's not completely fallen out but it's getting there. A bigger surprise was how high up the neck they are treating. I know exactly the size of the treatment area now because bare skin corresponds with it. So now it looks like I have a recent trim on the back of my neck, but only on the left side. Looking at it with a mirror today confirmed my suspicions--it just looks weird. I need to get to the barber soon to make sure that it at least sort of matches up on the other side.

Since tomorrow's Sunday, maybe I'll get around to doing that on Tuesday when the barber shops generally open back up after the weekend. If I can endure the scorn of public life for the next couple of days, I think I'll be okay.