The stories she shares reveal, in her words, “how difficult it can be to lose your hair as a by-product of saving your own life.” Of course, each patient reacts to treatment-related hair loss in their own personal way, as reader’s comments on the blog illustrate:

“I had chemo last year and loved being bald. My son and I went together to have our heads shaved and our local paper made a video of it,” says one woman. Another writes, “I lost my hair twice due to different treatment regimens and each time there were emotions associated that I did not expect.”

CancerCare social workers offer the following tips to individuals coping with hair loss:

• Buy a wig before all of your hair falls out. This way, you will have a good match to your own hair color.
• Get a professional fitting. There are full-service wig salons that fit and style wigs.
• Find out if your health insurance company covers the cost of wigs. If so, remember to save your receipt.

For additional tips, read CancerCare’s fact sheet, “Tips for Managing Hair Loss.”

One commentator to the “Well” blog offers the following helpful advice to parents with cancer who are contemplating going bald:

“Parents with school aged children should talk to their kids and set expectations with them. Our kids were fine with their Mom being bald AT HOME, but when she was at school they requested that she wear a wig so she would look normal.”

Do you have some tips of your own? We invite you to share them with our readers by leaving a comment on this page.

Much has been written recently about the positive impact of HPV vaccinations in preventing cervical cancer. The human papilloma virus, or HPV, is the most common sexually transmitted infection, usually occurring when a person first becomes sexually active. There are many HPV strains, which can be spread simultaneously; some are related to genital warts, others to cancers. HPV has been found to be responsible for a majority of cervical cancers and is also implicated as the cause of some oropharyngeal cancers, about half of all penile cancers, and most anal cancers. Although the body’s immune system clears up most HPV infections, about 10% remain, which can then lead to a disease state.

Yet, controversy persists about the effectiveness of HPV vaccinations as a preventive measure against cancer, particularly cervical cancer. The debate involves how the vaccine is marketed and the risk of side effects outweighing its potential to protect girls and young women from developing cancer later in life. Some critics accuse the pharmaceutical industry of creating a “market out of thin air” and question the ethics of claiming that HPV vaccines guard against cancer, as opposed to being a vaccine against a sexually transmitted disease.  The debate continues.

These were the issues weighing on the mind of my caller that day. Often, the kind of counseling an oncology social worker provides is supporting people caught in the midst of this kind of debate, weighing conflicting and sometimes contradictory information, and then helping that individual decide the best course of action to take for his or her situation. This is so true of this topic. We can help you get the information you need to make the right decision for you. Call us at 1-800-813-HOPE (4673).

[NOTE: On Sept. 9, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel of independent medical experts endorsed the use of a second vaccine -- Cevarix -- to protect against cervical cancer in women; and to expand the use of the first approved vaccine, Gardasil, in preventing genital warts in males. The panel's endorsement is expected to lead to the FDA's approval of Cevarix. Gardasil was approved in 2006. Source: The Wall Street Journal]

William Goeren, LCSW-R, is a professional oncology social worker and director of quality assurance of the social services division of CancerCare.

Co-authored by Idelle Davidson, an award-winning health and medicine journalist; and UCLA’s Dan Silverman, MD, PhD, Your Brain After Chemo gives readers practical tips for coping with fatigue, inattention, poor concentration and other chemobrain symptoms; it also lists organizations, websites and other resources that can help.

Also see  CancerCare’s Chemobrain Information Series, for more information. These fact sheets cover cognitive problems after chemotherapy, how to talk to your doctor about chemobrain, ways to improve your concentration, and techniques for sharpening your memory.