There is a saying: “Every cloud has a silver lining”. Well, chemotherapy is a bit of a cumulonimbus as far as clouds go, but it is a cloud nevertheless, and is no exception to the rule.

One of the most obvious side-effects to chemo is alopecia – hair loss. A friend of mine has a theory that it’s not actually necessary, and they just do the hair loss thing as a practical joke, but anyway, that’s missing the point.

The point is that you lose your hair. Now unless you didn’t have any hair anyway, that sucks.

There are two ways you can cope with this. The first, more conventional way, is to buy a load of hats/bandanas/wigs/stuffed animals to put on your head, and give people hard looks if they look at you weirdly.

The other, less conventional way, is to tattoo a barcode onto the back of your head and pretend that you’re Agent 47. Seriously, I’m not quite there yet, but with a bit more treatment and a garotte wire I reckon I could be scaring people quite easily.