Covid Hair, Chemo Hair
Are they similar??
The first time I noticed that a mild case of Covid in the fall of 2021 really did something not so great to my body was when my hair began falling out. Every time I washed it, I cleaned a handful of it out of the shower drain. This happened while I was in a hair change growing out process, and I was determined not to let this little bump in the road mess with my plans. During that time, I was driving an elderly lady in her early 90s around and doing some shopping for her. I’m quite sure Miss Faye aka Miss Independant would have been the one driving herself to the beauty salon if she hadn’t fallen and broken her hip, but she did, and that increased her dependance on other people. I’m glad she had a family to help her with her needs. As I sat waiting for her appointment to be finished one day, I noticed just how thin her white hair was when it was in rollers and how bald the top of her head was. I couldn’t help thinking that if my hair didn’t stop falling out, I was going to be looking like Miss Faye a lot sooner than I expected to.
#Vanity
Miss Faye was a real spit fire and determined to stay out of the nursing home and she planned on doing it mostly by eating a healthy diet. We were getting ready to start going through a book on the Mediterranean Diet when she had a stroke and our short friendship came to an end. She made it a long way before she had to give up her home. #Determination
On a relevant side note, I’ve heard that a Mediterranean Diet is quite good for your skin and hair.
The day after dad’s first chemo treatment his hair began to change. Mom described it as feeling like doll’s hair, crispy, so they switched to a moisturizing shampoo. His hair fell out gradually over the course of chemo and has thinned by almost half of what it was before.
In addition to falling out in copious amounts, my hair felt damaged as well. I used shampoos and conditioners with either castor oil, argan oil, or coconut oil and rotated between them; and my stylist recommended a product called Nighttime Nectar by Wise Owl Apothecary for my hair. It’s for the face, but 3-4 drops rubbed through my hair after blow drying worked miracles. Interestingly enough, her family moved into our area to be closer to St. Jude because her daughter had a brain tumor. I also took some B vitamins, biotin, and dissolved a little sprinkle of gelatin in with my coffee for a while to help with hair growth. Quite a bit of my hair grew back, but it’s not the same as it was before, and it’s a bit thinner in the crown which gave me thoughts of old monks in very old monastery days. I played around with different haircuts trying to find something that would behave, but I ended up cutting it off in January because my new hairs seemed a bit wild and had a mind of their own. Back to the pixie cut I went, and my hair growing out efforts quickly fell to the floor.
Hair has always been important, it’s an expression of ourselves, and it has a spiritual quality that often gets overlooked by our modern minds. For the ancient human, hair represented channels for divine abundance and reflected supernatural divine qualities, internal and external qualities that are natural. In times of affliction and purification, the hair was cut off, so I suppose if my short covid hair and dad’s chemo hair could speak, they would say- we’ve been through some life changing stuff that chip the rough edges off, sort of like diamonds aka living stones.
Put off the natural, put on the new (spiritual)……
When you are weak, you are strong……
Hope is the beginning of healing………
Yes, long-covid has aged me. I have more gray hairs than I did before and my skin has aged a lot as well, but I’ve heard that gray hair is associated with snowcapped mountains, something sacred, a place where pilgrims often go to find something.
#Wisdom It’s about the journey…….
I have short hair and I don’t care.
As much as I love the Wise Owl nectar (oil) mentioned above, it’s a little pricey, so I looked at the ingredients on the label, invested in some oils, played around with them a bit, and came up with a more affordable and yet still healing oil blend that I love because it is free of cancer-causing chemicals and specifically formulated just for me and my own skin and hair needs. If you’re a paid subscriber, hang tight, my next newsletter will explain how I came up with my own recipe, so that you can do it too.
Thank you for reading, joining our little corner of the interwebs, taking a walk through the valley with us, and letting us share some things with you along the way.
P.S. Don’t forget to pray and use your hands.
Sustenance for the journey-
Recipes That Nourish and Heal - by Stephanie Schaible (substack.com)
*Leaving Death in the Dust is a newsletter and is not a replacement for professional, regulated, medical, healthcare. It is informational and educational. Some of us in this community may have worked in the healthcare system, but we are not your medical provider and whatever you find here is not the establishment of a professional medical relationship or medical advice.
