12th of July 2022

What is a cold cap? For those starting chemotherapy and are terrified of loosing their hair, there is the option of wearing a cold cap, a squishy helmet which freezes your head. The idea is that it reduces blood flow to the scalp, therefore reducing the amount of chemo in that area. Please note that it doesn’t always work and most people have patchy and thinned hair at best after it. Plus it depends on what type of chemo you’re on.

Nevertheless, for my first session of chemo last week, my oncologist put it on my regimen to give it a try.🤷‍♀️

Here is my review:

The cold wasn’t a problem at all. In a heatwave you welcome a freezing helmet I guess.

However, it is heavy, it is uncomfortable, it felt like a mixture of what Keanu Reeves would have unplugged from the back of his head in the Matrix in combination with one of those long ponytails in Avatar… and it has to be turned on and off depending on what you are getting infused with, so when it’s turned off, you have a sticky, sweaty, itchy (because of my now spiky hair) head cramped in a plastic jellyfish hood with a wetsuit hat on top and then a brace under your chin to keep it in place. When I drank or ate, everything was so loud! And the medicine made me sleepy, but I couldn’t lie comfortably as I had a tube poking out of the back of my head and I couldn’t put my glasses back on to see where I was going (trips to the loo, where you have to be unplugged from it too) unless the nurse held the flaps open for me to slide them on.. 😑

So, one out of five stars.👎

I will beat this bald and happy thank you very much, not maybe patchy and miserable😅❤️

On to tomorrow’s chemo cold cap free!💪