A bright autumn afternoon in Exmouth
I'm moulting, moulting! Ohhhhh, what a world, what a world.
- paraphrased from The Wizard of Oz
So, I was let out of isolation after four days, without mishap. However, on the second day - a bit under two weeks after the first chemotherapy session - I started noticing I was shedding both beard and hair, and within a few days they were so thin and patchy that I decided to cut to the chase and get rid of the beard, and a day later the hair. I cut it short with my Lidl beard trimmer, then finished the job by pulling out the loose hair with duct tape (a tip I got from another cancer survival blog).
It's weird after so many years - maybe 25 - with a beard. People are saying that being shaven makes me look ten years younger, and are noticing my strong resemblance to my father (neither of which are anything to be displeased about). The hair - I guess it isn't so bad for men, when baldness by choice is so common nowadays. My eyebrows have so far shown no signs of shedding, so with thick dark eyebrows and no hair, the downside is that I'm looking very like The Hood, the chief villain from Thunderbirds.
Irene and I went to Exmouth today, so I got to try out the new style in public. As I'd suspected, even though it feels strange to me - it was odd catching a glimpse of myself in shop windows - it didn't attract any attention whatsoever. But, as it was a vividly bright but distinctly chilly autumn afternoon, I kept swinging between hat on and hat off, very warm and very chilly by turns. If only for temperature regulation, it's going to take some getting used to.
- James
