Dispatches from TransplantLand: Day +14 (Hair Container)

When my husband and son visited over Labor Day weekend, my son and I trekked from the ABMT Clinic through Duke Hospital over to the Bryan Center to buy him some new Duke t-shirts. He happens to be a big Duke basketball fan. Beth requested something with "Duke LaCrosse" on it, not because she's a big LaCrosse fan, nor a fan of racist alcoholic college athletes gone wild, but I think as a protest against the out-of-control prosecutor. Maybe I'm projecting that onto her. Anyway, we got her a shirt and a baseball hat, knowing that her hair would begin to shed about two weeks after the chemo.

Last Saturday, while my other sister was here, she was designated the chemo barber. When the hair starts to evacuate the premises, it's a lot less messy if you've cut it very short in advance. So, my other sister took the electric clippers to Beth's hair. I was afraid to go near it, because I have no experience with said clippers and because chemo makes one's platelet count go down and I was terrified of accidentally drawing blood. Other Sister was braver than I, so we all went out on the patio and she clipped away.

Beth has been wearing the Duke LaCrosse hat most of the time since then. Not having had any experience with this kind of hair loss, I didn't realize that it's not so much a hat as a hair container. It keeps the short fluff from drifting off on the breeze like seeds from an oversized dandelion. When she takes it off there is a soft nest of hair in the crown. She says the hair follicles are somewhat painful at this stage. The small bits of hair that cling to the scalp are irritated when she lies on a pillow or brushes against anything. The hat helps with this too, because it keeps the hairs immobilized. We considered the possibility of getting her a do-rag to sleep in, but most of her head is already bald at this point, except in the back where there is a leopard-like pattern made by the remaining tufts. It will probably all be gone in a couple of days. This is her second experience with hair loss, as she had cytoxin before harvesting a previous batch of stem cells that was never used.

I dropped her off at the clinic this morning and went to The Blue Coffee Cafe downtown with a friend from college days. He's been going through a lot lately, including his mother's terminal esophageal cancer. While we were talking Beth phoned and said that the Physician's Assistant told her she would be discharged tomorrow! Apparently it might have been possible for us to leave today, but we would not have had time to pack and prepare to leave.

Beth's WBC has dropped to 3.5, but that was to be expected because she hasn't had Neupogen shots for the past two days. The platelets have increased and all the other labs were good. I picked her up and then she realized that she was supposed to get a potassium pill at the clinic but somebody forgot to give it to her. We drove back a couple of hours later to retrieve it, after my swim and her Reiki.

My husband and son sent Beth a card in the mail and it arrived today. Good thing they didn't wait any longer or we would have missed it. Here's a hint for caregivers: give the mailing address where you're going to be to the patient's friends and relatives as soon as you know it. Cards and letters are a nice treat, especially in this electronic age.

Now we have to start packing!