My hair was falling out, so I buzzed it short.
A few days ago I noticed a small bald spot on the top of my head, along the surgery scar. It grew as I traced the itchy scar absentmindedly. Then I noticed I could pull out a few dozen hairs from the top or side of my head without even a mild tug. In the shower it washed out in clumps. It drifted into my dinner.
The radiation oncologists said this would happen. I wasn’t worried about my appearance — I just didn’t want to scare my son — so I began to wear my Bruins cap at home.
Yesterday’s buzz cut to a quarter-inch dulls the contrast of dark hair and pale scalp. I don’t look quite so mangy, but my hair is still falling out and my scalp is still itchy. I have some hydrocortisone cream to treat the itch, but haven’t bothered to use it much.
We also trimmed my unkempt and greying beard. But first we snapped these pix:
News of the effort inspired our friend Garen Tolkin (a hairstylist, coincidentally) to share this comparison to Beowulf, which she recently read:
Please tell Bogart I bid farewell to the Gnarly Beard and await its return from its journeys to the Fifth Circle. May it return Burly. I will bow in joy and gratitude at its battle-worn magnificence! I can already see it wreathed and woven with the victor’s flowers!
He is more than Bog. He is BOG THE CONQUEROR, BOGWULF. His Thanes, Chemo and Radio his trusty sword and shield.
It’s fun to be compared generously to a hero. Losing some of my (once merely normal) agility to a brain injury makes the comparison seem absurd. But I am often the subject of magical treatments, which is a hero trope. I fit better in a comic book superhero role, perhaps, considering the radiation. Heroic acts pending.
My wife and I joked that my superhero costume should include the bizarre plastic mesh mask I wear during radiation treatments. I suggested a superhero name of “Captain Gray”, a reference to the standard unit of measurement of absorbed radiation, the gray. You could also say I’m “capped in gray”. And gray is neutral and bland, which describes my dress and manner fairly well.
Hi! I’m so glad to have found your blog because my brother-in-law is 28 years old and just found out he has stage IV gliosarcoma. He is a single father to a 7 months old baby boy. Having found your blog brings some comfort to learn some things you’ve gone through before he starts radiation & chemotherapy. I wish you the best of luck in recovery and hope that both of you will beat this ugly cancer!
here is something interesting:
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/hmn/W05/feature3.cfm
and some more:
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/130/10/2596.full.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10350253
this one i cant even understand, its too scientific but maybe someone can translate this?:
http://lib.bioinfo.pl/pmid:8610141
and this : basically what i’m getting from this is that you can do all this chemo but really your own immune system needs to get stimulated to attack it. the new direction they are headed in trials is this immunotherapy combined with directed radiotherapy:
http://www.mgm.ufl.edu/GMS6059/Reviews/Mandel-review1.pdf
ok just one more then i’ll stop being “helpful” : just some info on the mechanisms by which cannabinoids may be useful to kill cancers like gliomas.:
—Level of endocannabinoids may be altered in brain tumors, however, discrepancies exist in the litera- ture. One study found that endocannabinoids were decreased in human meningioma and GBM in comparison to normal brain as measured by GC/MS (Maccarrone et al., 2001). On the other hand, Petersen et al. (2005) found that GBMs have enhanced levels of anandamide while meningiomas have increased 2‐arachidonoyl glycerol.
Nevertheless, agreement exists that cannabinoids are antiproliferative and apoptotic for glioma cells while sparing or even protecting nontumor brain cells. D9‐tetrahydrocannabinol, the cannabinoid found in
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Lipids in neural tumors 10 3
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4 10 Lipids in neural tumors
the cannabis plant, induced apoptosis of C6 glioma and human glioma cells but not primary astrocytes or neurons (Sanchez et al., 1998; McAllister et al., 2005). Several other cannabinoids including the endocan- nabinoids anandamide, and 1‐arachidonoyl glycerol (Fowler et al., 2003), nonpsychoactive synthetic cannabinoids that work through the CB2 receptor (Recht et al., 2001; Sanchez et al., 2001), stearoyletha- nolamide (Maccarrone et al., 2002), and the cannabinoid cannabidiol (Massi et al., 2004) also kills glioma cells and decrease growth of glioma xenografts in nude mice. In addition, the cannabinoid KM‐233, which is selective for CB2 receptors, inhibits growth of U‐87 MG tumors in SCID mice with minimal toxicity (Duntsch et al., 2005).
The mechanism of cannabinoid induced apoptosis in glioma cells appears to involve generation of the proapoptotic lipid ceramide (Velasco et al., 2004). Cannabinoids activate sphingomyelin hydrolysis in C6 glioma cells (Sanchez et al., 1998), and result in sustained ceramide accumulation (Galve‐Roperh et al., 2000). In addition, cannabinoid‐induced apoptosis was blocked by an inhibitor of ceramide synthesis fumonisin‐B1 (Hinz et al., 2004). Interestingly, cannabinoids also block proliferative and survival signaling by the extracellular signal‐regulated kinase (ERK), mitogen‐activated protein (MAP) kinase, and Akt and activate the proapototic function of Bad by decreasing its phosphorylation in C6 glioma cells (Ellert‐Miklaszewska et al., 2005). In contrast however, one study found that cannabinoids enhanced the proliferation of U‐373 MG glioma cells via transactivation of the epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor (Hart et al., 2004), and cannabinoids protect primary astrocytes from apoptosis induced by exogenously added ceramide (Gomez Del Pulgar et al., 2002).
Cannabinoids may also decrease glioma angiogenesis. Cannabinoids decreased vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) production in glioma cells in vitro and in mice, and this response was also blocked by fumonisin‐B1 (Blazquez et al., 2004). Cannabinoids also decreased vascular growth in gliomas growing in nude mice (Blazquez et al., 2003). Addition of exogenous ceramide also decreased VEGF production (Blazquez et al., 2004). Furthermore, cannabidiol blocks migration of U‐87 MG cells by a cannabinoid receptor‐independent mechanism (Vaccani et al., 2005).—
this was extracted from : http://www.pathology.med.ohio-state.edu/ext/expath/EXPERIMENTAL/van%20brocklyn/publications/7.pdf
I’m troubled by the statistics and yet if i had a one in ten chance of winning a ten million dollar lottery I’d definitely buy that dollar ticket.
Hey Bogart–
I am so sorry you’re going through this. My heart aches for you and your family. Yet I am awed by the grace, courage and even humor with which you appear to be facing the unimaginable. You are an amazing human and I feel honored to know you. All my love to you, Ava and Sam.
Andrea
Hm, I would not have characterized your manner as gray at all. More like, maybe, a gray squirrel… quick, quiet, and curious. Thank you for keeping a blog. I know you have your own reasons, but it’s also a relief to be able to follow how you’re doing without bothering you!
Love from all of us…Meg, Jai, Agustin, & Ziggy