In layman’s terms, Taxotere works by killing anything that grows quickly.
The good news is that this includes cancer cells.
The bad news is that this includes healthy cells, too—notably blood cells and the cells that line your gastrointestinal tract—as well as the most visible healthy cells of all: your hair.
It took a few weeks, but the hair on my head slowly but surely started coming out—mostly in clumps in the shower. At first, hardly noticeable to the casual observer, but eventually looking awful enough that it all had to come out.
I shaved my head the Sunday after Thanksgiving 2021.
As a man this was no big deal. In fact, I was kind of curious to see what I’d look like bald. (I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a woman in the same circumstance)
And so I decided to make a celebration of it—to do it with a smile, to see my baldness as a badge of honor, to rock it with pride next time I saw another human being. Here are my actual before and after pix…
But most of all, I took it as a sign that the chemo was doing exactly what it was supposed to do.
Continue… My Prostate Cancer, Part 11
