Drug Testing Sucked!
Big Time. And that's an understatement. Orders of magnitude worse than last time. They "nurse" or lab tech or whatever you call her cutting my hair sucked.
Last time it was very orderly and the nice man put me at ease. He gathered up all the hair on the top of my head (for those of you who have ever had any sort of layers, it's the hair that is the layers) and clipped it up(just like my hair stylist does when cutting the bottom half of my hair). Then he carefully and meticulously cut 4 small chunks of hair out - all along the crown of your head (you know where people, even bald old men, never lose hair). Don't get me wrong, it looked like a decent chunk of hair and I winced looking at it, but when it was all gathered up, it was probably the size of the tip of a shoelace, which as I understand is the official amount of hair needed. The truth was that after he cut my hair, I couldn't even tell where it had been cut.
Today's experience...completely different. The "nurse" pretty much just said "lean your head forward" and started snipping - cutting huge chunks of hair out at VERY noticeable places, like the top back of my head (where my hair is already incredibly thin). It makes me sick to my stomach to even think about it. And I can feel all of the chunks when I run my fingers over my head - it feels awful. Thinking about how long it's going to take to grow out these mistakes makes me even more sad. I was crying before I even walked out of the lab, crying when I called Chris, and my mom, and then VP to tell him that I would NEVER be going through this process again and that he shouldn't make anyone ever go through this process.
Chris says it looks like someone cut gum out of my hair, he's right. How much does that suck? I can't stop putting my hand back there to feel all the hair that was cut. The "nurse" kept telling me that's how much she HAS to cut, otherwise they'll send me back. I told her after the first cut (which was the worst since it's at the top of my head) that that was way more than last time and I asked her not to cut from the top of my head where my hair was thinning. She kept saying "this is the way the video says to do it" - really fucking great. I shouldn't have let her cut my hair, but I didn't know how bad it was going to be. After it was done, I wanted to take a picture with my cell phone so I could show my company how wrong the whole process was, but she wouldn't let me.
So I was leaving and the nice lady at the desk who had checked me in asked me a question and I couldn't even talk, it was obvious I was crying, so she pulled me back in and opened up the FedEx envelope and looked at the sample. Both she and another man there were saying yes, that was how much they needed to take, despite the fact that I'd had it done before and they didn't need to take that much and they certainly didn't need to take it from the top of my head - "that's how we're trained to do it" they kept saying. But what she did do was photocopy the hair sample (I'm not sure why). But I did get to take a picture of it w/ my cell and I got a copy of the photocopy, so I can at least make them realize just how much hair it was. I swear it's like the same shape as the tip of my pinkie finger. I'll attach the picture, but realize that what you're seeing is only 2 dimensional and almost the DIAMETER of the chunk of hair they took. It was so much hair and it just makes me want to cry thinking about it.
And some asshole guy there was saying "it'll grow back". Fuck you, your hair will grow back in 4 weeks, it could take me 4 years! So yeah it was a rough day and I feel completely defeated and sad. I don't know why this affects me so much. I mean 2 people in my life right now are ACTIVELY on chemo and have lost all of their hair and I'm crying over the indignity of having a few chunks of hair cut. So I know it's irrational, but it still sucks.
The second lady did let me take a cell phone pic and I just figured out how to e-mail it to myself...
Last time it was very orderly and the nice man put me at ease. He gathered up all the hair on the top of my head (for those of you who have ever had any sort of layers, it's the hair that is the layers) and clipped it up(just like my hair stylist does when cutting the bottom half of my hair). Then he carefully and meticulously cut 4 small chunks of hair out - all along the crown of your head (you know where people, even bald old men, never lose hair). Don't get me wrong, it looked like a decent chunk of hair and I winced looking at it, but when it was all gathered up, it was probably the size of the tip of a shoelace, which as I understand is the official amount of hair needed. The truth was that after he cut my hair, I couldn't even tell where it had been cut.
Today's experience...completely different. The "nurse" pretty much just said "lean your head forward" and started snipping - cutting huge chunks of hair out at VERY noticeable places, like the top back of my head (where my hair is already incredibly thin). It makes me sick to my stomach to even think about it. And I can feel all of the chunks when I run my fingers over my head - it feels awful. Thinking about how long it's going to take to grow out these mistakes makes me even more sad. I was crying before I even walked out of the lab, crying when I called Chris, and my mom, and then VP to tell him that I would NEVER be going through this process again and that he shouldn't make anyone ever go through this process.
Chris says it looks like someone cut gum out of my hair, he's right. How much does that suck? I can't stop putting my hand back there to feel all the hair that was cut. The "nurse" kept telling me that's how much she HAS to cut, otherwise they'll send me back. I told her after the first cut (which was the worst since it's at the top of my head) that that was way more than last time and I asked her not to cut from the top of my head where my hair was thinning. She kept saying "this is the way the video says to do it" - really fucking great. I shouldn't have let her cut my hair, but I didn't know how bad it was going to be. After it was done, I wanted to take a picture with my cell phone so I could show my company how wrong the whole process was, but she wouldn't let me.
So I was leaving and the nice lady at the desk who had checked me in asked me a question and I couldn't even talk, it was obvious I was crying, so she pulled me back in and opened up the FedEx envelope and looked at the sample. Both she and another man there were saying yes, that was how much they needed to take, despite the fact that I'd had it done before and they didn't need to take that much and they certainly didn't need to take it from the top of my head - "that's how we're trained to do it" they kept saying. But what she did do was photocopy the hair sample (I'm not sure why). But I did get to take a picture of it w/ my cell and I got a copy of the photocopy, so I can at least make them realize just how much hair it was. I swear it's like the same shape as the tip of my pinkie finger. I'll attach the picture, but realize that what you're seeing is only 2 dimensional and almost the DIAMETER of the chunk of hair they took. It was so much hair and it just makes me want to cry thinking about it.
And some asshole guy there was saying "it'll grow back". Fuck you, your hair will grow back in 4 weeks, it could take me 4 years! So yeah it was a rough day and I feel completely defeated and sad. I don't know why this affects me so much. I mean 2 people in my life right now are ACTIVELY on chemo and have lost all of their hair and I'm crying over the indignity of having a few chunks of hair cut. So I know it's irrational, but it still sucks.
The second lady did let me take a cell phone pic and I just figured out how to e-mail it to myself...