Cold-Capping and Chemo

The day before treatment my best friend came to visit. We went to Dahlonega for lunch and then we got a mani-pedi along with my daughter. It was a nice relaxing day trying not to think about what was to come. My daughter came over and we practiced putting on the cold-cap. The cap had arrived 2 days before treatment started. The bag included the inner blue cold cap and the outer cap; shampoo and conditioner; the tangle teaser brush and a water bottle. The instructions on the website explained that you wet your hair at the treatment center with the spray bottle and then put the blue inner cap on. You have to protect your forehead so I used a panty liner on my forehead under the blue cap. Then you put the outer cap on and tighten the bungee cords. My daughter and I watched many videos to learn how to do it. After reading the wonderful posts on the Paxman Facebook account and practicing I felt prepared when I arrived. My husband was able to stay with me on the first visit. We took a large bag with a blanket, fuzzy socks, ginger candies, an Ipad, my kindle, water bottle, chapstick, ginger snap crackers, peanut butter crackers and a few other small things. It looked like we were moving in. After meeting with the Dr and having my blood drawn and checked, we moved to the treatment room. I went to the restroom to get my cap on. I was able to wet my hair and get my cap on by myself. They hooked me to the machine and then added Ativan to help with the pain and to help me sleep. After 30 minute pre-cooling they started the drugs. That took about an hour. Then we moved to the 90 minute post cool. The first 10 minutes that the cold cap was on was pretty painful. It was like a constant brain freeze but eventually got better. I was able to use the Ipad to distract me during that time. Thankfully I didn’t have any reactions to the medication and was able to sleep during the entire post cool process. My poor husband had to sit and watch me sleep. Once it was over I removed the cap and put my wet hair in a turban for the drive home. I was very hungry so we ate lunch and I slept for most of the day. 1 down and 7 to go!