Balding at 13.

I'll never forget the day we shaved off Jacob's full head of hair. It was pretty long at the time and still very thick.  It had not even started thinning or falling out at all, but they told us it would only take a week or so before it would and it had already been about 10 days or so I think.  Jacob didn't want it to make a mess all over his bed and pillows so we thought it would be better to just shave it all off.  Since he's a boy and has shaved his head before for football and wrestling, this wasn't much of a big deal to him and he figured it would be easier and feel good anyway.  Well, it was hard for me...I tried to just think of it as another haircut, but I couldn't do it.  It just made everything so real.  As I started buzzing away at it and watched it fall to the floor and the patches grew around his perfectly shaped head, I knew this time, it wasn't coming back for a very long time. No matter what we tried to do, it was going to come off and it was going to stay gone...Jacob has cancer. I cried as I buzzed away his hair, but tried to be quiet because I just didn't want him to know I was crying.  I cried so much that month. I know Jacob was getting tired of seeing me cry.  He is so strong, so confident, so brave and well, I'm just not all those things...but he is teaching me alot.
We didn't take pictures that day, probably because Dad was the one who could have taken them and probably looking at the scene of me crying as I buzzed away his hair wasn't a scene that he or Jacob wanted to remember.
So, the pictures I will share of this memory are these... It turns out that a whole bunch of his friends shaved their heads for him to show their support.  I was absolutely awestruck at the love these kids have for him. 

This is Aubrey...yes, "Aubrey" SHE is a girl and she is Jacob's cousin in California!  So, she shaved her head completely bald and donated her hair to Locks of Love in honor of Jacob.  Aubrey is 13 years old, but she was just 12 when this picture was taken.  She has the same birthday as Jacob - 1 year younger.  She was Jacob's first birthday present! She looks a lot like her brothers with her head shaved.  What is so brave about this girl is that she doesn't go to the same school with Jacob where a whole bunch of other kids did this and everyone knew why they were doing it.  She was the only girl in her school to do it and it had to be a really big deal!  I love you Aubrey!!!

See that kid on the right with the patch of hair growing out of the side of his head?  That is Tyler Owen.  I guess he didn't think it would be wierd enough to just shave his head because he's had it shaved before too.  He left a funky little patch on the side in the shape of two letters... J.W.

This is Chase Shutt.  He had another way to make that haircut truly honor Jacob so everyone would know why he was bald.  I think you can see the letters of Jacob's name shaved into the back of his head!  Thank you Chase!

And this is another friend, Gavin.  He did an awesome job getting that head as smooth as a true chemo kid! He must have used a razor to get it that close! ...lookin' good :)

Joey also buzzed  his head and so did Dad.  Josh's head is still shaved.  He keeps it bald as he can whenever it starts to grow a bit, he just shaves it off again.  I think he plans to keep that up until Jacob's grows back in.

Finally, Jericho just had to shave his too the first time he saw Jacob after his hair came out.  He hadn't seen him in over a month and on Mother's day, the whole family finally got to come and see him.  Jericho went straight home after that and asked Daddy to cut his hair "just like Jacob's".  Daddy didn't want him to be totally bald so he just buzzed it down to about 1/4 inch.  Jericho looked in the mirror and felt his head with his little hands and said, "nooooo, I want it just like Jacob's! It's not like Jacob's"! 

When it finally did start falling out, this is what it did.  The hair came out in little patches and the patches just grew bigger. The back of his head went bald first because it was rubbing against his pillow.  He found that he could just grab some with his fingertips and it would come out without hurting at all.  So, he tried sticking some medical tape to his head and ripping it off.  That worked and it came out in strips!  He asked me to help and by now I wasn't such a big crybaby...we laughed and laughed as we made stripes all over his head with the tape.  Where's the ducktape when you need it?

Eventually, it all came out and he was officially bald at the ripe old age of 13.