The Lint Roller: Ground-breaking Cancer Technology

OK people, I'm all about cutting edge discoveries that aid in dealing with cancer and the effects of cancer treatment. I'll be telling you more about my personal discoveries and the people who use them in just a short while.

First a little understanding of hair loss during chemo. Chemo is a nasty drug that aims to kill those nasty cancer cells. Unfortunately, chemo doesn't descriminate and tends to kill a variety of cells. It attacks cells that grow rapidly, like cancer cells and hair cells. Judging by my ability to grow a 5 o'clock shadow 20 minutes after shaving my legs, I am not surprised I lost my hair.

I was expecting the hair loss and I was OK with it. What I wasn't expecting was to look like a dog with mange during the process. I thought it would fall out evenly. I was wrong. Because I'm here to give you my experience with cancer, because in this sense I have no shame, because I find these pictures funny and endearing, I'm showing them to you. These were taken on a different day in a different place but they are quite pretty!



After the initial hair loss and shaving of the head I was left with this. My hair was short and patchy. One night a few weeks later my mom and I were in my North Hollywood apartment (I really loved this apartment and can't find a single photo of it). I was lint rolling all the little wayward hairs off of my shoulders and complaining loudly about how I just wanted it all gone. "Oh my God, this is so annoying, I just want to be bald. At least when I'm bald I can go around being bald. But this is just weird."

As I changed the paper on the lint roller the light went on. Of course, why didn't I think of this earlier?! I ran the lint roller across the top of my head and looked happily at the paper full of hair. You see, the hair was ready, it just needed a little help. I couldn't even feel anything, it was coming out so easily. Certain hairs were meant to stay and so they did, but others were practically leaping off my head.



"Mom look at this!" And so our night began. My mom sat on the couch and I sat on the floor between her legs as we watched Nanny McPhee and she did my hair. It was probably the type of thing we've done countless times before. Its a scene that plays out between mothers and daughters around the world.



Only on this particular day we just so happened to be removing what was left of my hair. We laughed at the absurdity of it. We rotated between lint rolling my head, rubbing the little patches to loosen the hair and grasping it in our fingers to see which ones came out and back to lint rolling. In the end we were able to rid of most of the patchiness. It would be a few more weeks until I was completely bald, but I felt much more comfortable. In the end we had a waste basket full of lint roller papers covered in hair. Gross! Eeeew! Eeek! No doubt I've traumatized some of you :)

It was a good night.

Spanakopita! You hungry?


I love B in the background- so obviously traumatized by my appearance. :)