*diagnosed in 2016 and am resharing my story to raise awareness.
All updates are easily located on my blog which is linked in my bio.
My very first ever chemotherapy treatment of TCHP (Taxotere, Carboplatin, Herceptin and Perjeta) began on August 2, 2016 at the Wexford Health and Wellness Pavilion Cancer Institute.
I was doing Cold Capping through Arctic Cold Caps. This was a preventative hair loss measure that was intended to help me not lose my hair during treatment.
The day before treatment, I had to begin prepping my cold caps. Kelly's Dry Ice graciously donated dry ice for me to use for every single treatment week to keep my caps cool. We had to scoop the ice into Ziplock bags and place them into the caps and keep them stored in a cooler. This was essential in keeping the caps at the proper temperature.
The next day my mom and sister in law and I headed out super early. We arrived at 8am with our two large coolers in tow. At the time, I was a rare patient who was trailblazing the cold cap trend in my dr. office. Most of the feedback they gave to me was that it didn't work or that it wasn't in line with protocol. I pushed back a bit, as I do because I like to do research and I know my stuff!
The day was full of a lot of emotions as well as distractions as you are constantly in motion to keep the cold caps rotating on your head with one cold one ready on deck for the 15 minute switch. This continued from 8:30am until 5pm. Even switching the caps in the car on the way home. If you notice in the pictures I have a scarf hanging from my chin, that was to pull down on so that I could talk. Everything was very tight to keep the cap as secure to my scalp as possible. We survived and I couldn't have done it without the support of my army who surrounded me in every dimension of that day.
Cold capping works because it freezes the hair follicles on your scalp preventing the chemo to touch the hair on your head. Your frozen scalp basically stops the treatment from sending the signal to your scalp to kill the cells there. One of the things that I had read ahead of time was that the freezing of the scalp would hurt but thankfully for me, it didn't. It felt mostly like I had just spent an entire day out in the snow. I was chilled but not in pain.
This is just a little insight to my cold capping journey and the beginning of chemo. Round 1 complete!
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