Thursday, May 31, 2012

The Day Filled with Laughter and The One Day I Cried (Part 4)

(Read Part 1, Part 2, & Part 3)

Shannon:

"I had gone through my chemo and the doctors were telling me that my hair would start to fall out within the next few days. I decided to schedule having my head shaved instead of going through the experience of having clumps of hair fall out in my hand. Then I decided that if I was going to shave my head, I wanted to have some fun in the process.

I came up with a series of hairstyles that I would never normally don. First, I wanted a mullet. Yes, that business in the front- party in the back redneck golden hairdo that Billy Ray made famous was the first I wanted."

 


"Next, I wanted a hardcore mo hawk. Punk Rock here I come!"


 


"Finally, I wanted it shaved down to my final hair falling out style of Sinead O'Conner."

 


"I asked my current nurse- who I had named Rosie Nurse- (more on names I gave my doctors and nurses later)- who shaved heads frequently and was willing to have fun with it. I went ahead and scheduled the day.

Over the next two days that I was waiting for my head shaving, I started to have doubts. It really seemed like my hair was holding in and not really falling out. Then, the night before the shave I noticed so much hair coming out as I washed it in the shower. Then as I brushed it out even more strands starting coming out. By shave day morning I would run my hand gently through my hair and at least twenty strands were attached to my fingers. I am glad now I listened and scheduled my head shaving.

The day before my shaving day, I had been mostly untethered from my IV pole. I was looking forward to the fun of my hair shaving experience and anticipated a day of freedom and fun. In the morning, my best laid plans were definitely laid to waste as doctors informed me that I was scheduled for platelets, two blood infusions, antibiotics, and potassium. Basically, I was to be tethered to my IV pole and to my room all day. Then they dropped the news on me that while my counts were up the cells that were up were lymphocytes- cancer fighting cells and not the neutrophils count which would let me go home. My release date changed from Wednesday to Thursday to Sunday in an instant. I shouldn't have been upset at all. My cancer fighting cells were growing- expanding! But after three weeks of being at NIH I was so homesick. I wanted to go home."

Part 5

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

The Day Filled with Laughter and The One Day I Cried (Part 3)

(Read Part 1 & Part 2.)
 
Shannon:

"We went in and started looking around at the different wigs that were in the display room. After picking out a couple of styles that we thought might suit me we ventured on in search of more selection. "Can I help you?" came out of no where it was a rough and rude sounding female voice. My mom replied "we were just looking." To which the voice replied, " well, I'm in the middle of a consultation; wait out front. That is my stock room!"

 
"Looking at each other my mom and I trudged back to the waiting room area like chastised school children. Our Mason DNA enacted (my mom's side) and we were ready to throw down and give some stink eye. I'm glad my mom had the wisdom to just give it a chance because the store owner where the disembodied voice came from, turned out to be an extremely nice and helpful person."


"I know I lucked out with my wig. The shop owner pulled a box down that had just come in two days before and hadn't even opened yet but she thought it might suit me. We tried on one of the selections and it didn't really look right. Then I tired on the wig fresh out of the box. It was perfect. From the side I looked my mom's sister, Cindy. I tried one more wig on, but both my mother and I knew in our hearts that the second wig was the one."



"So after taking some funny pictures in the wig shop, we left wig in hand."

Susan:

Next we will jump ahead to chemo and the one day that Shannon cried. Then I am going to back track to the beginning of this tragedy. I think it will be fun to go back and forth from her present writing the journal and me telling you what really happened to Shannon and how she was diagnosed and what that entailed from the beginning.

Part 4
Part 5

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

The Day Filled with Laughter and The One Day I Cried (Part 2)

(Start by reading Part 1 here.)
 

Shannon:

"The first thing I went about doing after giving my hair to Locks of Love was to go wig shopping. It really is not an easy thing for most people to find a wig. My mom and I looked up where the local-- real good-- wig place was, and then ventured out to wig shop together. We drove to where the GPS said it was, and all we saw was a Comic Store with Star Wars Storm troopers outside. I remembered that the wig shop used to be located by one of my doctor's offices, so we drove over to the medical center. We parked in the tiny garage, walked through the hospital lobby, and finally through the building where I remembered it being. Nothing! Not a trace of it remained."


"We tried our last resort, calling our dear friend who is an oncology nurse for years (Peggy Holston). Surely if anyone knew where this place was it was her. She immediately directed us back to our first destination. So through the building, through the hospital, back into the parking garage we trekked. Feeling like the children of Israel circling the desert for 40 years we rerouted to our original destination. We pulled up again and there were still just Storm troopers, balloons, and a copy place. We felt at a loss of what to do. Finally, my mom had the brilliant idea of driving just further down the parking lot to look at the row of buildings sitting to the left of where we were looking. Sure enough, there it was, the illusive wig shop that we had hunted down so thoroughly."

Susan:

Tomorrow the story of our wig shop adventure. Nothing ran smoothly for us. But there is some comedy in the story for tomorrow and a good outcome.

Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Monday, May 28, 2012

The Day Filled with Laughter and The One Day I Cried (Part 1)

Shannon:

"When I knew I was going to be accepted into the clinical trial at NIH for treatment, I asked the doctors what chances of my hair falling out would be. When I received a firm, not to be objected to, 100%, I started toying with the idea of donating my hair. My hair came down to about my waist, and I was raised and came to believe for myself that , "... if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering".



"I thought about leaving it the way it was and just seeing if it might fall out, but the more the doctors affirmed that of over 300 patients only 1 didn't lose all their hair the less I wanted my glory to go to waste. If I was going to donate my hair it had to be done before any chemo or drugs were administered. So I finally decided to donate my hair to Locks of Love before I was to go into the hospital."

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5