Four to six weeks after your last chemotherapy treatment, your hair follicles will recover and begin to produce hair. Typically, hair grows about a quarter inch per month. When your hair first comes back in, you may think it's someone else's hair. If you had curly hair, it may come in straight. If you had straight hair, you may end up with a head full of curls. The texture may be different, and your new hair may show up in a shade of rodent gray that really doesn't suit you at all.

Be patient. After growing for three or four months, your hair may revert to the texture and color you expected. If it doesn't, this is no time to break out a bottle of sparkling burgundy hair color bought at the grocery. This is new hair on your head -- delicate, fragile, baby-soft hair. Soon the day will come -- maybe six months from that first growth -- when you can color, perm, or even straighten your hair so you will truly feel like yourself again. Or, you may decide you prefer your new look.

Meanwhile, treat your new hair gently. And think about this: Eventually, the day will come when your hair will be long and scraggly, and you will make an appointment to have it cut. Imagine that!