by Laura Strebel

Created on: October 27, 2008

"I'd rather die than be bald!" Can she be serious? Oh, my! Yes, she is. That's an easy response from someone that has always viewed their hair as their "shining glory". The problem is that when one has cancer and the best possibility for fighting back the cancer is chemotherapy and its side effects, that's an awfully short list of options.

Side effects vary widely from patient to patient and drug to drug. Perhaps she is one that won't lose their hair or only some of it. Dare she hope? She'd not be likely to even hope for that result unless she consents to treatment. How do I convince her to try? Being her only daughter must give me some latitude in voicing an argument.

I called my half-brother. Did you hear that Mother might not allow chemotherapy? "Well, Sis, it is her decision. If she values quality of life against quantity and knowing how sick chemo treatments make some people, you should be encouraging her to stick with whatever she decides. You were just lucky that you didn't get as sick as some others".

I'm aghast and speechless, but only momentarily. "Listen, brother dear, I just don't accept her argument that she'd rather die and be seen in her coffin with a full head of hair! That's a ridiculous argument". She didn't get to raise me and I'd only gotten to know her after I'd reached adulthood. Losing her this quickly was not an option for me. There had to be a way to encourage her to fight.

(Ring.. ring) "Hello?". She answered hesitantly as though knowing I was about to talk bluntly to her. I had finished chemotherapy treatments a year before and had my hair back. The cancer is in remission and I'm doing fine. I reminded her of these facts and then kept going. "Mother, you helped me through with your almost daily phone calls. You kept constant tabs on me and encouraged me along when things looked bleak. You know we found each other late and we're still making up for lost time. You have to fight as hard as I did".

From that opening statement I continued with the different choices of wigs, scarves, hats and even just doing bald'. It's hard to look in the mirror and finding out that your hair might hide an odd shaped head or it's not there to hide your funny looking ears or whatever the individual "flaw" might be that you never knew existed before.

"I don't want to be sick", she added. A more rational argument and I knew she would throw them all at me. I reminded her that I had very few sick days' because there are so many new treatments for the nausea type

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