Hair loss

[u/tylerdurdin58]

My wife is loosing hair during her chemo even with cold capping. She is absolutely traumatized and said she would rather die than loose her hair. She is blaming me loosing her hair by her temples because I put the tape to protect her scalp from frost bite, on the exposed scalp with thin hair and it all came out when she removed it. She is devastated beyond reason. I have no idea how to support her through this part? I love her more than anything in this world and I feel hopeless hearing her say she wants to die. I don't know what to do or how to support her, I am speechless other than I can say I'm sorry. This whole thing sux for everyone involved, it sux the worst for her. When I tell her she is still beautiful, my words mean nothing to her. How can I help when my words are empty to her even though I mean what I say? I try to make her laugh and that does not work. Nothing I do or say works. Sorry for the rant I just need to vent, I can't vent to my only friend, the love of my life , because she is fighting cancer.

[u/Original-Mention-357]

She's still in the denial stage if she thinks losing her hair is worse than dying. You don't 'just die' if you stop chemo because you couldn't bear to lose your hair. There's a whole hellscape of metastasis - failure of basic functions like eating, digesting food, excretion and being able to move without pain, muscle wasting, etc etc. She may think that losing her hair is the worst thing that could happen, but she is wrong. Losing your hair sucks, I get it, its not vanity that causes grief over lost hair but she needs to understand how bad cancer can get to accept the trade off. And its a temporary trade off, her hair will grow back once shes well enough to stop chemo. Best thing to do is to shave off the hair entirely - watching it go little by little just adds to the stress - then get her a nice wig and remind her it will all grow back once she's well.

[u/tylerdurdin58 → u/Original-Mention-357]

I've tried explaining this to her....like I said in my post ,my words are empty to her.

[u/BlackSwanZA → u/tylerdurdin58]

She really does need to speak to an oncology psychologist or counsellor because this is just the beginning of her treatment and my concern is that there is a whole lot more to come! Partners are generally ill equipped to console or reassure their wives as they themselves are also traumatised and may not have the information to help or reassure them.