Ozark Oddments: Fallout...

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Fallout...

One expects that hair loss will occur as a result of chemotherapy. We were not exactly prepared that this would happen to our son as a result of radiotherapy, although now that I think about, it seems obvious that it would. If the purpose of the radiation is to kill any remaining cancer cells, hair follicles would likely be killed as well.

This picture was taken on the last day of June...

as we waited for his second radiation treatment.

On Saturday, about 2 weeks later, he brushed his hand through his hair...

and came away with clumps of it in his fingers.

More came out on Sunday.

By the time we walked into the hospital yesterday morning for his second operation, the bald patch on his head told the story of what was happening to him to all who saw it.

His hair continues to retreat. The surgery went well, and tomorrow, when he will be OK to drive again, I think I will suggest that he go to the barber in town and have what hair he has left shaved very close.

2 comments:

Oklahoma Granny said...: So happy to hear his surgery went well. I continue to keep everyone in my prayers.; 5:15 PM
Donna. W said...: That's what most people do when radiation makes their hair start to fall out, they just cut or shave it all.; 10:50 AM

Post a Comment

Thoughts to ponder

Most of us go through life so absorbed in the cocoon of ourselves that we rarely stop to consider the other. Of course, we think that we do; indeed, we may pride ourselves on our capacity for empathy; we may be considerate and thoughtful in our dealings with others, but how often do we stand before them. so to speak, and experience what it is to be them?--Domenica Macdonald

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, by Alexander McCall
Smith

+++

Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering -- because you can't take it in all at once. --Audrey Hepburn

+++

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all, I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.--Agatha Christie

+++

Life can be wildly tragic at times, and I've had my share. But whatever happens to you, you have to keep a slightly comic attitude. In the final analysis, you have got not to forget to laugh.--Katharine Hepburn

+++

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

"Two people... told me that the word "Christian" would turn people off. I wouldn't mind if to be a Christian were accepted as being the dangerous thing which it is. I wouldn't mind if, when a group of Christians meet for bread and wine, we might well be interrupted and jailed for subversive activities. I wouldn't mind if, once again, we were being thrown to the lions. I do mind, desperately, that the word "Christian" means for so many people smugness, and piosity, and holier-than-thoughness. Who, today, can recognize a Christian because of "how those Christians love one another"?--Madeline L'Engle, "A Circle of Quiet"