Seeing Myself Again
On self, appearance, and the power of a good haircut
On a random Wednesday late last month, I saw myself again for the first time in years. I looked in the mirror, and there she was--the me I'd known for the first 30-some-odd years of my life. It came out of nowhere, this feeling. It hadn't even occurred to me I might feel it, because I didn't know it was possible. I hadn't ever really registered a feeling that she wasn't already there.
It's hard to explain what that felt like. The sudden sense of knowing, and of feeling a bit more comfortable inside this new person I'd become. It struck me sideways, seeing that some of the old me, the familiar me, remained. She was in there, along with everything else, old and new as one. I'd missed her. I hadn't realized it, hadn't felt it consciously, but I'd missed her. But in a salon chair, 3.5 years after I began cancer treatment, some of her resurfaced. It felt like a homecoming. It felt profound.
I had just gotten the second haircut since the early weeks of treatment. The first cut had taken place in the fall of 2023, just under 2 years after I began treatment: a clean-up when my hair was only a few inches long. This time my hair was past my shoulders, decidedly overgrown, and just for fun, mostly curly too. My beloved hairstylist Alice cleaned everything up, shaping it in a low-maintenance shag, and then played a bit with my color too, using a gloss to bring back some of the vibrancy my red hair has lost as it cedes ground to silver.
This might seem silly to some. This focus on my hair, and the profound feelings that arose when I saw myself with a style just like I'd worn in years past. But it made me feel more embodied. And if you've been through cancer treatment, you know.
When you have cancer, your body has betrayed you--cells mutating into weapons that threaten your life. And treatment is about surviving. It isn't about feeling good, let alone looking good. At least in my case, it was. My life narrowed down to doing what I had to in order to stay alive, one more day at a time.
When you're treated with chemotherapy, the cocktail of chemotherapy agents you receive determine whether or not you lose your hair. Some chemo drugs don't really cause hair loss. Others do. It makes sense when you think about it. Your hair cells divide and multiply pretty rapidly--that's how your hair grows. Some chemotherapy drugs are designed to find and kill cells that divide and multiply quickly, because that's also what cancer cells do.
As far as I can tell, I was on a pretty noxious cocktail. Called R-EPOCH, it contained several drugs that are known to cause hair loss: Etoposide Phosphate (E), Vincristine Sulfate (O, Oncovin). Cyclophosphamide (C), and Doxorubicin Hydrochloride (H, Hydroxydaunorubicin, aka The Red Devil). That left only two drugs that aren't as highly correlated with hair loss: Rituximab (R), a monoclonal antibody, and Prednisone (P), a corticosteroid.
Both my doctors and some experienced family friends who worked in oncology warned me that by Day 17 or so, I would see substantial hair loss. When I showered on Day 15, I knew. Too much hair came away from my head while I was shampooing.
I felt very strongly that I needed to shave my head, in the way I think so many cancer patients do. But that wasn't the only change that occurred during treatment. I also lost damn near every hair on my body (not the chin hairs though--those bastards were THRIVING), dropped insane amounts of weight without trying, barely had the strength to lift my legs to climb stairs, took enough prednisone to give an elephant moon face, and generally wore soft and comfortable things because anything touching or pinching or squeezing caused me physical pain. Turns out repeatedly destroying and rebuilding your immune system is, you know, A Lot. It literally hurts when your body is rebuilding every single one of your white blood cells at once.
I'm not going to mince words here. I was born genetically blessed with thick, amazing red hair, and I grew up in the United States, where red hair is admired on women. I've spent most of my life being stared at and fielding compliments every time I leave the house. Some are lovely. Some are... unsettling, to say the least (redhead fetish, anyone?). I think it's unavoidable that having red hair begins to feel like a part of your personality at some point. And I've spent enough years working in the beauty industry to know that people of all stripes feel intimately connected to their hair.
So yeah, I LOVED my hair. And I worried about who I'd be without it.
Ultimately, I found shaving it off empowering. I even chose to forgo wigs, mostly because I realized I didn't care if people knew I was sick. Instead, since it was the dead of winter, I stuck with hats for warmth, though those were shed during my frequent hot flashes. Chemo causes those--fun!--but I was also in a medically induced menopause, so I'm sure that didn't help.
It wasn't until the last round of R-EPOCH that I finally lost my eyebrows and eyelashes. Which honestly seemed rude. (They'd held on for so long! Why couldn't they make it any longer?!?) Combined with the moon face, that's when I really started to look sick. To be honest, I still didn't care that much. I was sick. But I was staying alive. In the end, that was what I cared about the most, and that was where I put all my energy.
I ended up loving my buzz-cut as it started to fill out after my first-line chemotherapy. I loved my hair short and messy with emergent chemo curls. I even appreciated the stage where I looked like my Grandma Joan after a wash-and-set, regardless of my brother's amusement. It was giving Gritty, and I was into it.
But post-cancer, nothing about my body was the same. I gained back all the weight I'd lost, and this time, it went to all different places. (Probably because this time I was in menopause for real.) Most of my strength returned, but my pelvic floor is still questionable, and I've had to re-purchase my wardrobe several times over at this point.
The way I'd changed was about more than just looks, though. My body had, for so long, been given over to cancer, and treatment, and barely holding on. I'd lost touch with it. And my person... the sum total of me--soul, spirit, energy, whatever--was also radically altered. I emerged with PTSD, which my doctors and I treated swiftly, and a new outlook on life. Getting to know the new me became a priority. Understanding and supporting her through the transition back into "real life" became my second job.
I've made a lot of progress, I think. There are parts of my new truth I'm still working on living into reality--working less, prioritizing movement more--and parts of my body I'm learning about anew. Of course there are.
But on a Wednesday afternoon, in the salon I've been going to for seventeen years, a little piece of the old me came back. It slotted into a crack I hadn't even realized was there. And that... That felt good.
And just like that, a little bit of the old you showed up for the new you.
Love you and love your work.