Mohican

Catherine ran into our bedroom this morning shouting 'mummy, I've left all my hair in the bed'. We opened our eyes to see that, sure enough, all that was left of Catherine's hair was a mohican style. Basically, as she tossed and turned in her sleep, it has rubbed off all the hair around the sides and back of her head. She was shocked, but when I opened my eyes, all I could see was how amazingly big and beautiful and blue her eyes were. So the first response she had from her mummy was 'wow, you look beautiful'. This totally calmed her and she started to giggle whilst pulling out remaining bits of hair. However, when she saw the long mohican bit in the mirror, she wanted that bit to go away. So this morning we shaved off the remaining hair and her scalp feels better now and less tender.

She looks so beautiful without her hair. Now that her face has matured, being hairless looks even better on her than it did when she was three-years-old. The only problem, of course, is the reaction she gets from others, particularly other children. If she doesn't wear a wig, she gets lots of stares from children and puzzled comments (see http://catherineisgreat.blogspot.com/2009/02/shes-got-no-hair.html). This is why I wanted her to have her own hair for school. But today we are phoning the Princess Trust to try and arrange new hair for her, as we didn't use them last time because we had hair supplied. She is also seeing the Consultant to see if he has any more NHS hair available for her.

I think the Consultant might be a bit shocked to see her today. Last week she was with hair and this week it has all, unexpectedly, disappeared again. Also she now has a 'Methotrexate rash' - a little red rash on her cheeks. So she looks very different from 7 days ago, bless her.

At the moment, it looks like the Vincristine probably caused the hairloss, but we are not sure whether this has happened as a cumulative effect of taking the drug, or whether the dose increased. Mark will find out today, as unfortunately I can't get to the hospital. Catherine will also have her bloods taken to check that her neutrophils have bounced back.

Please pray that her hairlessness is well accepted by the children at her school. This is a real worry for me as she has had her confidence knocked enough through this treatment.