Hi @jtee great to hear you are getting through chemo. This is going to be long because I want cheer you on! Losing our hair is tough, but then come the first sprouts - it’s almost like a little signal that a new phase is beginning.
Watching and waiting for my hair to sprout became a pastime for me, forget watching paint dry! My hair was definitely growing back by week 7 of taxol. At first I thought I was imagining it, but once it started, it kept growing. My nurses said that it often happens. When I left hospital after my surgery in June last year, which was 6 weeks after my last chemo, I stopped wearing my wig/caps as I felt I had enough soft regrowth to look a bit rock chick. I didn’t have much but hey, I was just happy to see it coming back.
I had about 4 eyebrow hairs that held on until the end of chemo and I think I even had a couple of lashes, but then they gave up. I hope you are having better luck than me with brows and lashes. The good news is, they came back too and pretty quickly. I just let everything grow, but I also used a couple of products to try to speed up the process. Oh yes, even those pesky chin hairs came back exactly how they were before. You would think after everything, we could have a win in that department!
My sister-in-law is a hairdresser so she is great for advice. She suggested just giving my scalp a gentle massage just to stimulate the circulation. She only trimmed the back of my hair as I was getting a mullet - think Joe Dirt - so I just get it trimmed while I wait for the top to catch up. When it first started growing, it was really grey - I am 54 - so not really a surprise as I was going grey before my DX. However, my hair is now pretty much the same colour as it was before - dark underneath with grey hair coming through. Oh, and I got the curls too, but they have now started to settle down.
You will most likely get the fine peachy fuzz and maybe you could just let that grow and trim off any uneven bits. I totally recommend doing whatever you want and whatever makes you feel good. I even got a really mild semipermanent colour quite early and it was fine - mind you I did have the attitude of - what’s the worst that can happen? I am now one week off exactly of finishing chemo 1 year ago. My hair is back, I have had foils, I have played around with a pink toner to give it a pink colour and I am back using all the appliances to tame it.
You are going to have your hair back, it may pass through a few phases, but it will be back. Invest in some funky clips and headbands - you will be using them in no time! Mx