Hair Confetti and Other Joys of Baldness

Whew. We made it through two weeks of intense combined radiation/chemotherapy and Michaela was amazing.  She ended up having minimal side effects, and her spirit remained strong through it all.  In fact, most of the time it was harder on her parents to watch what she was going through than it seemed to be for her to go through it.  She has been handling it all with joy, and she has taught us much about letting laughter bring healing.  The best example I can give is her recent "Hair Confetti party".


Over the past few weeks Michaela has slowly been losing her hair, but because she had so much of it to start with, it was really hard to tell.  All of a sudden yesterday it started coming out in clumps -- every time one of us ran our hand through her beautiful locks, we would end up with a huge chunk in our hands.  Well, last night Jon and I got out for our first date in a long time.  We came home to two giddy girls waiting to surprise us with Michaela's beautiful bald head.  Apparently, while we were gone, the girls had a hair confetti party where Michaela pulled out the rest of her hair (pulled is too strong a word for how easily it came out), and giggled hysterically.  They collected all the hair in Michaela's radiation mask that we brought home from the hospital as a keepsake.  


As we anticipated this side effect for many weeks, we have had lots of conversation around it.  Michaela decided a while ago that when she lost her hair, she also wanted daddy to lose his.  Her reasoning was that if daddy also went bald, everyone would be looking at him instead of her.  And so the time came today for Jon to make good on his promise.  We all trekked to the barber shop this morning for Jon to lose it all.  It was another chance for us to laugh hysterically while the barber shaved his head in long stripes and then eventually bald.


Now that three out of five Werners are bald (if you include Emily who only has baby fuzz right now), we have been learning about the benefits of going without hair:  (1) Bathing is much easier; (2) You stay cooler on hot days; and (3) You get to wear beautiful hats and other accessories!  Thanks to all of you who have contributed to Michaela's hat collection.  She has had so much fun trying on her different hats today and planning which ones to wear with certain outfits.  I can see now that this will provide endless accessory possibilities for her in the weeks and months to come.


We are continuing with chemotherapy through this phase of Consolidation.  The medicine is still pretty intense, and so Michaela's blood counts are down again, requiring her to be in isolation right now.  It seems to be harder for her this time around as she is feeling better and doesn't understand why she can't go to the park or spend time with friends.  Hopefully when this phase is through (in May), she will be able to be out and about more and return to her normal and very busy social life.  We are grateful for the continued prayers and love for our family.  Pictures of our recent adventures follow below:

 Mommy, Michaela and Emily on our last day of radiation at UW

Hair confetti party!

Before

After