Lights, Camera, Action

My hubby invited me to a lunch with his co-workers on Friday.  So I got dressed up with a little make-up and my new wig.  I told Mark I was coming in my wig and I think when it went well, he was happy.  He said no one knew it was a wig.  Next, I went to a doctor appointment.  My doctor loved it.  Today, we had our grandsons over.  I showed my oldest grandson this picture of me with the wig and he said I look normal.  So he approved of the wig.  ;-) 

We did our Thanksgiving craft of turkey hands made with sheet foam and feathers.  It always amazes me how much children grow year to year.  Last year I did not get to do turkey hands with the boys, but I am thankful I did this year.  Everett and I did a special picture together.  He did a turkey hand on paper and colored it.  Then I cut it out and we glued it to another picture we made together.  That picture was done with autumn leaves from the backyard that we put under a paper and then colored over the leaf getting the impression.  It turned out really nice and I do so adore children's artwork.  I am blessed because my fridge is covered with it.  :-)

Today I didn't wear a wig.  After wearing the wig for 6 or 7 hours yesterday with a wig grip, my head got a pressure sore.  The wig grip works if I only need to wear the wig for a couple hours.  In fact earlier in the week I went shopping in my wig.  It was a really windy day and my wig did not budge in that wind.  So wig grips work, but for all day I need to use the body glue so I don't get the pressure sores. 

New Wig!

Well, after a 3rd try, I finally found a wig that I feel confident and most comfortable in and that my husband likes.  Of course I would prefer my own hair, but the Lord has not allowed that so far.  However, He has allowed this wig.

This is called "Work It" from Raquel Welch straight out of the box.  Sorry, no make-up for this shot, been having a few facial issues and have had to limit my make-up.  Anyhow, this wig is the most comfortable wig I own (I have 3).  I don't like wigs at all, but if I have to wear one I will choose this one.  When I look in the mirror I feel it's "me" and that is important.  To lose my hair has been the hardest trial ever.  Sniff...tears.  I did not imagine this for my senior years.

Neither did I imagine losing relationship with my sons and pancreatic insufficiency.  Those together are bad enough without piling hair loss on top of it.  My hubby is convinced my hair will come back once I am healthy.  I pray that I do get healthy again.  So far I have been unable to get to 100 lbs.  However, the signs of health I do have are the condition of my fingernails.  Also, my eyebrows seem to be fuller and my eyelashes have definitely gotten longer.  Very amazing since for years my fingernails have easily snapped off (especially in the dry fall/winter season which is now upon us) and my eyebrows and eyelashes have been on the sparse side for years.  So maybe health will slowly but surely envelope me, I pray that it does.

Back to Wigs

Well, my hair seemed to stabilize for a bit, but recently has thinned enough that I am back to wigs. Wearing a wig in the autumn/winter season in Colorado should be fine.  Pictured below is my Julianne wig.  I am not happy about the situation I am in with my real hair and I hope and pray that my God given hair grows back.  For now a wig is going to have to do, and I know I am not alone, there are plenty of other women struggling through just as I am.

I got sick with a tummy bug and wasn't able to eat as usual.  Dropped back down to 97 lbs., but this morning weighed in at 98 lbs. which makes me feel better.  I am not a happy camper right now, but have to keep moving forward with life.

Autumn Update

Well, Autumn begins September 23rd.  Here in Colorado we've had a touch of Autumn, but still mostly warmer temps. Wind has been blowing a lot which I am not fond of.  I got my Autumn decor out and spent a day decorating which was fun.

Now on to how I am doing.  Last I left off I had made a decision to wear wigs.  I went on to purchase another wig and the wig equipment. I wore them for a short bit.  However, because of my husband I have stopped wearing them.  Just between you and me, he doesn't really like them.  He insists my real hair is good enough because he doesn't see bald spots the way I fix it.  Plus I've had a couple of friends tell me I look fine too.  So I have been going around with my headbands and thin hair.  In my opinion it takes guts to do it.

Since last writing I had to adjust my dose of Creon, my pancreatic enzyme prescription. Upping the dosage has been key to me doing better and stabilizing my hair loss.  There is some hair growing in, but not very much right now.  My weight has improved slightly since upping the dosage. I used to be 95 lbs. but now I don't go below 97.  I saw my endocrinologist in early September and she said I need to get my weight up to 105 to 110 range to be healthy.

Currently my weight has been hanging out in the 98 lbs. range.  I am eating several times a day.  I have breakfast, lunch and dinner and snacks.  I take supplements, keep sugar to a minimum and eat lots of protein.  I took the grandkids to Chick-fil-A on weekend and we enjoyed their yummy lemonade.  On our way home I felt funny.  When I got home I got my glucose meter out and checked my blood sugar.  I gasped...NO more sugary drinks or food for me.

I am still weak and resting.  If I do too much, which I have, I get super tired and then it upsets my sleep and my emotional state.  So can't have too much stress.  I also found a new Christian counselor.  The first appointment was good, but hard.  I talked about so much stuff and after the appointment I let out a big sigh.  However, when I got home I cried.  Deep down I know there is a cesspool of  traumatic emotions I've not dealt with in regards to health and my sons.  My counselor thinks that dealing with it will bring health to my body.  I certainly hope it does.

The picture below is of Mark and I in the beautiful Colorado mountains.  Some friends from Arkansas came to visit and we took a drive to the mountains with them.  They took this picture of us.  Well, this is all for now.

Happy Autumn Y'all!

Getting Wiggy with Change

Well, I know in my last post, I was down on wigs.  Well, I've had a change in heart.  I was out shopping yesterday and went past a mirror.  It was then that I realized how thin my hair is.  My husband keeps telling me my hair is going to grow back and that I look fine.  Well, I don't know if my hair will grow back and I realized I don't look fine.  I look pathetic.

So time to do something about it.  After looking at myself in that mirror I drove home.  I got my wig out and finally got it adjusted to where I could stand it.  Then went out in public.  I felt better.  I am devastated about my real hair, I can barely stand what has become of it.  I have cried and cried to the Lord, only to see more hair lost.

I am not particularly wild about my first wig so thus ordering a new one.  Hoping I like the look of #2 better.  This whole journey is so hard.  Change is always hard.  My oldest grandson is going through change.  In 2 weeks he will be going to school for the first time.  He doesn't want to.  I sat holding him and we cried together because we are both afraid of changes in our lives.  At least we can tell each other "I love you".

So Very Hard

This time in my life is so very hard.  I've been through some really rough times, but for some reason this trial is a killer.  Its one thing to lose relationship with both my sons, that's bad enough.  But to find out my pancreas is damaged and lose my hair on top of that is more than I can bear.  There are some days I feel I cannot go on at all.  I am seeing a counselor and have a med to help, but still, there are no words for the pain.  Right now I am going through grief.  Some days all I can do is housework and play a Bible game on my cell phone.

 My hair loss situation is bad.  Being that my hair was thin to begin with it makes it all the more unbearable.  I have less hair than in my last photo in my last post.  I have pretty much lost the bangs that I had in that photo.  Not wanting to take pictures at this point.  Looking at old pictures makes me want to cry.  My husband is not accepting the situation well.  He loves me and wants me to have my hair and it pains him that it is slipping away.  He prays all the time for my hair to come back and believes the Lord will restore it.  I see some new growth in areas, but I am not sure.  Only time will tell.

I did get a wig, as I may have mentioned in a previous post.  I've worn it enough times that I know I hate it.  I've also been to wig shops and tried on various wigs and even ordered wigs online only to send them back.  I've watched lovely women on You Tube who wear wigs.  They love them and get confidence from them.  I don't know why I can't.  There was one day I wore the wig I have for 4 hours straight and could not wait to take it off because I was in agony.  I've not really worn it since, although I've tried to.  Plus I am a BIG fan of comfort and wigs to me are not comfortable.  But then too, I've been dealing with scalp sensitivity and there have been some sores on my scalp.  Slowly, one by one these sores have been healing up making a more calm scalp.

As an alternative to wigs, I have been looking into chemo cap wear.  There is a lovely woman named Carly Severn with alopecia and she wears caps and head wraps.  She is a true inspiration. So I went ahead and bought a few caps just in case.  Two of them I like, but the other one although comfortable, is not my cup of tea.  Plus, there are pros to cap wearing.  Caps are cheaper, more comfortable and easier to take care of. Wigs, on the other hand are a couple hundred dollars a pop and they only last 4 to 6 months. 

For right now, I am still wearing headbands as that is what pleases my hubby. Since I don't have any bald spots hubby thinks its okay.  And I've had friends graciously say they can't tell I have hair loss.  What I do have are thin spots and some that look fuzzy because there is some hair growing in.  What hair I do have is soft, shiny and lovely.  I just wish I had more of it, but right now the Lord sees otherwise.  I don't know what I am learning from all of this, but my hubby says patience.  ;-)

Always as we walk through heavy trials there are the little flowers in among the weeds. So on a happy note, Mark and I are celebrating our 36th wedding anniversary.  My precious husband took me jewelry shopping and purchased me a lovely plain gold band.  It is absolutely delightful to wear.  So thankful to the Lord for all His blessings. 

Dark Tunnel

Well, between my last post and now, things went down hill.  This has been a very hard trial and where I thought I saw light before has since disappeared.  Prayers are greatly appreciated.

In my last post I mentioned about a wig.  Well, I finally found one and got it styled and wore it out a few different times.  Unfortunately, it has come about that wigs are not quite for me.  The longest I wore it was to my ladies Bible study.  We meet at 9 a.m. and usually wrap up by 11 or noon.  I think that day we wrapped up at noon so I wore it for 4 hours straight.  Everyone loved the wig and thought it was great, but by the time I got home my scalp was in so much pain I couldn't stand it.  I haven't really worn the wig since.  So if I go bald, I am probably going to be wearing a Buff on my head.

May and June have shown more hair loss and weight too.  Down to 96 lbs even though I am eating more.  And I have been having what I call cortisol attacks.  Others might call them panic attacks.  Whatever, I began having these attacks.  One May morning after not sleeping most of the night I went and got the blood test my endocrinologist ordered for me back in February.  I had not been able to do it because of getting so ill in February.  Anyway, that test came back with a high cortisol reading and the A1C was up to 5.7.  So my endocrinologist (Dr. Kim) sent me a letter with the test results saying I need to schedule an appointment.  What alarmed me in the letter was that she said I have pancreatic insufficiency.

Back in February she had given me a prescription for a digestive enzyme called Creon.  I filled the prescription, but did not take it because of all the mess I was going through.  Finally in May I took my first couple of pills and it seemed to instantly calm my cortisol attack.  But my tummy seemed to get upset by the pills so I stopped them.  A few weeks later I was having another bad cortisol attack and decided to take the Creon again to see if it would calm the attack.  It did the same thing again minus the tummy upset. So I have been taking them ever since and it has really made a difference in my digestion.  I can eat without the pain which has plagued me for years.  After seeing Dr. Kim she assured me I don't need to worry about diabetes right now, so that is a load off.  And we decided that my pancreas most likely got damaged from the sepsis in 2007.  And she said with how sick I got in February I should have gone to ER.  She said I could have been septic.

Unfortunately, the cortisol attacks returned after a few days of taking the Creon.  And more hair fell out making my hair even thinner.  I also went to Dr. Lara, and she seems to think that if I can get some good sleep under my belt that all this will go away.  She gave me some pills that were supposed to help me sleep, but I didn't like them.  So I just been sticking with my regular Xanax to help me sleep and taking the herb Ashwaganda which is supposed to help balance cortisol and it really has been helping.  Except I think it might be the cause of my loose stools.  Sigh, always something.

Thankfully, in all this mess, one evening my sweet hubby came home with a big bouquet of flowers for me.  It was so wonderful because I had been having a cortisol attack all day.  So he took me to urgent care.  There they told me they couldn't do anything for me, but then I asked them if I could get a scan of my adrenal glands to make sure there isn't a tumor or something.  So they ordered me a CT scan of my adrenal glands.  So I am getting that tomorrow.  Hoping if there is something wrong that it will show up.  If all is well, then I will have to trod the "mental" route.  Which I have my first counseling appointment this Thursday, sigh. 

Latest pic of me with my thinning hair.

Doesn't look bad with all the hair pushed forward.