Running For My Life - Is Bald Beautiful?

I started this running blog in the spring of 2009.  I thought it would be fun to write – not so much about training – but the love of running, the camaraderie, the joy it brings to people.  I started off tentatively, but hope I have developed a voice that conveys to people the FEELING running invokes.  I’ve met some cool people, attended some great events and hopefully conveyed that to my readers.  When my life took a hard left turn with a diagnosis of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in April 2009, I started a journal of my experiences, chronicling the good, the bad.....and the ugly. So, over the next few weeks, I hope you’ll let me share my story of a sometimes hard, sometimes funny journey, and how I used running and the lessons it taught me to make sense of it all. You can from the beginning here: Part One

Late October 2009

I feel great the week of treatment once I get by Tuesday’s chemo ‘hangover’. It’s probably the Prednisone.  I even play golf the Friday after treatment with a group of friends and have a great time. But then Saturday hits me square in the gut. I wake up in the morning with horrible stomach problems.   My guts feel like I ate a bowl of melted cheese, with a side of melted cheese and a little man is inside me churning his way through the melted cheese.  I can’t think of another way to describe it – a stomach full of melted cheese. I have cramps, feel disjointed and distended and cannot get out of bed.  I can barely move all day.

The next day and I’m a still a wreck and dog-tired all day.  I’ve been warned about the side effects of coming off Prednisone.  I’m taking huge doses during the first 5-days of treatment, but then get cut-off until the next cycle in three weeks.  I’m jittery all day with my emotions swinging from anger, to sadness and overwhelming frustration. The broccoli I’m chopping for dinner doesn’t stand a chance.  I have to go outside and take a breather. If I didn’t feel so crappy, I would go for a run to chill-out.  It doesn’t matter, I need to do something about this; this cannot be healthy.

I will continue to feel like junk through the chemo downtime.  While I can function and get through my daily routine, I have a constant, underlying feeling of fogginess, aches and a general malaise.  It is a feeling I will come to call throughout this entire process, as ‘feeling thick’.

November 2009

They’ve warned me to expect the side-effects I’m having, along with hair loss in the first 10 days.  But here it is 10 days post-treatment and, while I do feel like crap, still no hair loss. Win!  However, just a few days later I wake up with my scalp burning, like that feeling you have when you bump you head on an open cabinet door.  As I try to recall the incident, I panic and realize this is the first sign of my hair falling out.  There is no visible loss and Christina doesn’t see anything, but it still disconcerts me.  I usually wear my hair short, and a little spiky, and my fears are soon realized as I put product in my hair and tufts of it stick to my fingers.  I’m looking like a bad radiation special-effect from a B-movie.

I decide to get my hair cut SHORT this week; ‘high and tight’ we used to say to our ROTC friends in college.  I figure that once my hair falls out in 2 – 3 weeks, most people will be used to me with little or no hair.  I use the free coupon to Sports Clips that we handed out at the Pumpkin Race to all runners, but chicken-out on getting it shaved.  The girl cutting my hair flirts with me, telling me how ‘cool’ it looks and that it makes me look ‘young and hip’. Right.  I know she is lying because it doesn’t fit my big, giant and now almost bald head.  She’s looking for a tip, and I’m not mad, just laughing about it. I tip her the amount of the haircut - $13.

I’m starting to get odd emails from people I don’t really know wishing me well, and runners have started talking about it in the community.  I started this treatment process in April, wanting to keep it close to the vest and not tell the world.  Handle it on my own. The reactions from the few I’ve told range from shock, concern, jokes, personal stories and even separation.  Everybody deals with it in a different way, but I guess I should have realized that not everyone will keep it as close to the vest as I would want.  Exactly the opposite of what I wanted to do, control the message.  Maybe it’s because I don’t want them to feel sorry for me?  Think less of me?

I’m having constant dreams about hair loss – but on my calves.  In my dream, I’ve lost hair on my calf in odd, geometric designs.  I know this is an allegory of my fears of losing my hair in patches.  My hair continues to fall out and I continue to ignore it, choosing to see the remaining hair ON my head, (not on the floor or in the shower), like a true bald dude. But when I run my hand through my hair, it looks like I'm petting a shedding dog, large chunks of hair floating through the air to settle on the floor.

November 15 – Is Bald Beautiful?

It’s November 15 and my hair is really starting to fall out in clumps.  I make the mistake of blow-drying my hair this morning (well what’s left), and I feel like a balding guy in a wind tunnel.

I decide it’s time to buy a hat, so it's off to the mall to see what I can find.  I have baseball hats galore, but I want to find some cool hats that will cover more of my head.  I’m all over the mall, but can find nothing except hats for people with tiny, perfectly shaped heads.  I finally stumble into the Hat Works – duh, that’s all they do, hats. They have a wide variety of hats (logo hats, stretch, etc.), but I want to look cool, not hip-hop or like a skater boy.   I try on a million different hats while this poor kid behind the counter watches me with a wide-eyed, horrified look on his face.  I think he is judging my selection of hats, but soon realize that each time I try on a hat, more and more of my hair falls out.  By the end of my time there, my hair is a matted, patchy mess.  I pay for my hats, trying not to make eye contact and get out of there. I still wonder what was going through his mind that day.

When I get home I shave the rest of my head with a razor. Now, I’m totally bald and have chemo the next day. This sucks. I could get through one round, but five more times? Ugh.

The next entry is here.