My Story – Basal Cell Carcinoma of the Scalp: Shorn on the First Full Day of Spring

Skin Cancer-Related Posts:

• November 21, 2013: Yet Another Cancer–Basal Cell Carcinoma of the Scalp
• December 31, 2013: …Skin Cancer No More: Lessons from the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come
• January 1, 2014: Baby New Year 2014 Arrives with Baby Shampoo…& the Promise of a Fresh Start – Part 1
• January 2, 2014: Baby New Year 2014 Arrives with Baby Shampoo…& the Promise of a Fresh Start – Part 2
• January 13, 2014: Bye-Bye Basal Cell & Baby Shampoo

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Although I have a small egg-shaped bald spot on the front left of my scalp where my part used to be, I celebrated the first full day of spring by getting my hair done–finally, after more than six months! Not only did it desperately need to be cut–almost four inches worth–but it took two applications of color to cover all the gray. We applied skin cream to the still-tender wound and worked around it, and this worked just fine. Now I look much less like Grandmama Addams. (If you’re too young to know who that is . . . good!)

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been frustrated by having to look at this bald area and trying to find ways of covering it up. Oddly, when I had my Mohs micrographic surgery on December 30, 2013, the doctor did not cut or shave any of the hair in the area first. It wasn’t until the sutures were removed two weeks later that strands started falling out with the scab. So, two months since losing this patch of hair, I’m still looking at a little oval naked area–which feels like a crater beneath my fingertips despite the paper-thin incision.

For the past few weeks, I have felt some stubble. But I can’t really see any hair, even with double mirrors. Besides, the hair growing in is not the color of hair–at least not the color of my hair as I remember it. Whatever growth is there evidently is either invisible or very gray. I asked my stylist about it today, and she confirmed that gray hair is indeed growing back. Under normal circumstances, hair grows half an inch per month, but my shocked follicles are just now coming back to life, so I guess I have to expect slow repopulation of this portion of my scalp. An Internet search and a call to the doctor corroborated this. My stylist recommended Biotin, so I picked up a bottle today and will see whether it helps.

In the meantime, I am parting my hair on the opposite side, which is a little like learning to use my nondominant hand–it feels backward and awkward. But my healthy hair is doing quite a good job of masking what I hope will become a tiny egg-shaped memory in the not-too-distant future.

RESOURCES:

• Skin Cancer Foundation 
• – Skin Cancer Information
• – Carcinoma, Basal Cell (BCC)
• – Carcinoma, Squamous Cell (SCC)
• – Melanoma
• American College of Mohs Surgery
• Mayo Clinic – Mohs Surgery
• MedicineNet – Mohs Surgery
• Wikipedia – Mohs Surgery