Phantom Hair

It's been a few times now that I go to wash my hair and I've forgotten that I don't have my long hair. In fact, when I'm in the shower and I bend over with water going down my scalp I then whisk my head back and overshoot the whisk with an unconscious full expectation of my hair being long drippy wet. But it's not.

It reminded me of phantom limbs we read about in neurology classes where an amputee would feel a limb that's actually not there.

Just today an article about this phenomena cams out of Sweden. It's at:
http://mobile.rawstory.com/therawstory/#!/entry/nonamputees-also-experience-phantom-limb-sensation,51670a34d7fc7b5670a95f3e

In this article, it talks about a study that doesn't limit the phantom feeling to missing limbs. I wonder how many chemo patients experience what I am experiencing. I'm not emotionally attached in any way -- it's just interesting how the brain has yet to catch on to the sensation part of reality.

Incidentally, body hair for me started falling out a couple of days ago on day 14 of chemo cycle. Today I took off my baseball cap and chunks of my shaved head stubble came out. So for me, scalp hair started coming off day 16. A friend asked me what it was like -- if it hurt or didn't. It didn't hurt, per se. It reminded me of my earlier years when I used a hair removal cream, Nair, on my legs. It tingles, then the hair just kind of slips out of its pore. Some just come off; some will gently glide out if you tugged at it just a bit.  It was weird. No matter how prepared one can be in terms of reading about it, one really has to go through it to really get it. Surreal.