The night my mom left to head back to Virginia after 3 months by my side was both scary and sad. My mom and I have always been close.... but it was like starting back over with a newborn when I came out of the coma. She was there to coax me out of my anesthesia-induced craziness. She was there to pray over me day after day, at my bedside in the hospital, and at my bedside once I was home. She was there to wash my hair in the hospital bed, paint my fingernails and toenails. Help me scrub off all the layers of skin that I lost in the hospital. (I lost several layers of skin on my hands, feet, and legs due to that part of my body being "shut off" when I was septic). She was the one who cried with me on the floor of the hospital hallway, when I first attempted PT and realized just how handicapped I really was. She was the one to help me shower when I was finally able to shower and help brush my teeth, and blow-dry my hair, and braid my hair. She was the one who held me like a baby when I was sobbing and shaking in that concentration camp-like bath. She was the one who spoon-fed me when I refused to eat for weeks and weeks in the hospital because nothing tasted good. And she was the one who brought in food from every fast food restaurant in the Chicago-land area, to see if what she brought that day would end up being the ONE THING I'd finally eat. She was the one (along with my dad) that made sure all my bills were paid while I was in the hospital and after I got home. She was the one who made sure I had short-term disability set up. She was the one who spent hours upon hours upon hours on the phone trying to get Medicaid to cover my un-insured medical bills. She was the one who took me to my doctors appointments, cheered me on in physical therapy, took me on outings to the grocery store in a wheelchair, just to get me feeling somewhat normal again.
We got so close in those 3 months, that as the day for her to finally leave approached, I started to get bad anxiety and panic attacks. I was afraid of what life was going to start looking like once she was gone. I had Jon, who was doing a great job supporting me too, but he was at work all day, and still living at his parents in Joliet, because we weren't yet married. I didn't know how to wake up and live with necrotizing fasciitis without my mom at my side.
The night she left, we held each other and sobbed for a good hour. We alternated between I love yous and thank yous and I'm so proud of yous and how am I gonna do this without yous. And prayers to God to keep me safe and healthy and brave. And hugs and sobs. It was such a precious moment. I'll never, ever forget it, as long as I live.
This 3 months with my mom will always bond us in a way that we wouldn't have had if I hadn't gotten sick. And for that, I thank God. I thank God that He gave me the most incredible, faithful, generous, caring, compassionate, Godly parents...who would drop anything for their daughter...and did.
After my mom left that night, I went inside where Jon was waiting for me. He knew I was gonna be a mess, and was there to hold me and let me cry for hours and hours. It felt like I was saying goodbye forever, even though I'd see her again in a month or so, and even though my Dad promised to fly her right back out immediately if I needed her for anything.
It was a sick and scary twist of fate that the worst part of my entire illness happened just a few days after she left. It happened slowly at first.
Jon always jokes with me about how much hair I lose....in the shower....on my brush....its everywhere. And it is so long and thick, that no matter how much I lose, you'd never notice.
The night after my mom left, I had taken a shower and washed my hair. I was sitting on the floor blowdrying my hair when I realized that a TON of it was coming out in the brush. I kept having to pull a chunk of hair out of the brush and keep blowdrying. By the end of the drying, I had a huge fistful of hair in my hands. I brought it to Jon, laughing, and said, "Oh my gosh, look at this! It's crazy how much hair I lose! haha!" I remember him telling me, "That's not normal." I laughed it off.
Over the next two days, I started noticing that my ponytail started feeling a little thinner. Not too noticeable though. I figured it was the conditioner I had used. That night when I took out my ponytail, a handful of my hair came out with it. What the heck? I thought. I started brushing my fingers through my hair and with my fingers came handfuls upon handfuls of hair. I started screaming. It was literally like a nightmare that you're just praying is a nightmare, because there is no way it could ever be real. We were 3 months away from my wedding, and my hair was coming out in huge chunks, completely out of nowhere. I had no clue it was coming, and I had no clue why. I remember just shaking and screaming. Eventually I got into the shower and started washing it....and that's when the nightmare took a turn for the worse. All of my hair was falling out. And it was so long that the hair that was falling out got tangled in the little hair that was left, resulting in one big knot. I got out of the shower and called my parents, screaming. At first, they didn't realize how bad it was, and just thought I was overreacting. My mom said, just put some detangler in it and try to comb it out gently. "You don't understand!!" I screamed. "It's all falling out. Oh my god, I'm losing all my hair!!" I sobbed like I've never cried before in my life. I was shocked and terrified. The only thing worse than losing all of your hair, is not knowing it's going to happen. No one had warned me about this. I hadn't been able to come to terms with it, like a chemo patient does. At least they know it's coming. I tried for about 4 hours to untangle the huge knot of fallen hair and hair that was still in place, but it wouldn't budge. Eventually, I took a scissors and cut off my hair to above my shoulders (about 18 inches total). I combed out the rest....which was very little. I fell asleep on the bathroom floor, crying my eyes out.
When I woke up the next morning, I went through the whole tragedy all over again, as I realized it wasn't just a nightmare. More hair was falling out, and by this time, about 75% of it was gone. I ran to the beauty supply store to buy hair vitamins, rogaine, and this $100 shampoo that was supposed to help with hair loss. Over the next few days, I took tons and tons of vitamins, ate protein at every meal, and used all the products. I didn't notice a ton of hair loss, so I started to have a little hope. I refused to wash my hair, because I was afraid that it would add stress to the hair.
When I finally had to wash it, the nightmare began again. It came out in handfuls with the shampoo and I just sobbed and screamed in the shower as I watched it all go down the drain. With most of my hair now gone, I laid on the bathroom floor and cried for hours. Uncontrollable sobs. It felt like a death. Part of me was gone. Necrotizing fasciitis had taken something else away from me. Now, not only would I have scars all over my body on my wedding day, but I'd be bald. Just when I had thought that things couldn't possibly get any worse, they had. The hair loss sunk me. "Why??" I cried to Jon. "Why this...why now?? Haven't I gone through enough? I just can't handle this. I can't get over this." He held me on that bathroom floor for a long time. One thing I remember him saying, and it's something I'll never, ever forget.... "You've never looked more beautiful to me." I knew then, that I had a partner in this battle. I knew he still loved me, even though I was at the lowest of lows. Even with scars covering my body, an almost bald head, and red, swollen cry eyes, he loved me. Damn I am lucky.
If you've never had cancer and lost your hair, it's hard to understand why this was the hardest part for me. Why it seems so dramatic. all I can say is that a woman's hair is what makes her, her. It's what makes a woman feel like a woman. When I lost my hair, I felt like I had lost all my beauty, I had lost my sense of femininity. I had lost myself. If it hadn't been 3 months before my wedding, I may have handled it a little better. But this was just a blow that was too hard for me to take.
I locked myself in the house for two weeks before I decided to do something about it. I hid in my misery and didn't talk to anyone except Jon, my parents, and some angry prayers to God. This, I didn't understand. I had taken everything that had been thrown at me and handled it with bravery and full faith in Him, but this I didn't understand.
We don't always understand why God allows horrible things to happen to us or our loved ones. Sometimes it just doesn't make any damn sense. And it freakin hurts. And we scream and cry and pound our fists and lock ourselves in the bathroom for a week. And I don't have all the answers.... I'm not supposed to. We aren't going to have those answers until He allows us to, in Heaven. But I know that everything that comes our way happens for a purpose. Whether it's to test our faith, or grow our trust in God, or prepare us for a larger storm later. Maybe for me, I lost my hair so that I could learn that outer beauty isn't the most important thing in life. The most important thing in life is our love for God and for each other. My husband loved me, hair or not. My God loves me, hair or not. And knowing that I have that kind of love in my life taught me that I can get through anything.
It took a long time to come to the point where I could write about this pain and the wounds that are still quite fresh in my heart. I cried as I typed every word of this.
My hair has now (5 months later) started to grow back. I still have to wear a hair piece, but hopefully it will be back completely in a year.
I survived. I am stronger now. I am God's chosen miracle.
In the next chapter of this story, I'll recount how God set it up so that I'd end up in the exact right place with a solution for my hair loss. Because while He sometimes "taketh away", He aways "Giveth." Exactly what we need.
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