Hair...

As probably all of you are aware, most people lose their hair during chemo treatments.  This is due to the drugs trying to kill off fast dividing cells i.e. cancer cells.  Hair is also fast dividing and so the drugs cause death of the hair cells as well.

I'm expecting to lose my hair but I wasn't sure what to do about it.  I planned already to chop my hair off to reduce the trauma of having handfuls of long hair come out. But do I stay bald or get a wig?

I don't think I'm going to mind having no hair but wearing a wig is something recommended.  Makes a person feel more normal when they are out.

So last Thursday after all my appointments, David and I stopped by The Wig Boutique to check out their stock.  Suzan kindly helped me out asking good questions to try and narrow my choices down.  I thought initially I wanted a really long wig.  I have never had Rapuzel hair so why not buy it?  That would certainly be Madeleine's choice for me.  Suzan explained that long hair wears out a lot faster so I would only get about 3 months out of it.  At $300-$400 that is not good value for money.  I tried quite a few on, short and medium length.  Most of them were quite easy to say no to.  I looked like a drag queen in quite a few!  We settled on an inverted bob which gives me some length but also preserves the wig longer.

Now for colour.  Suzan asked if I wanted to stay grey.  I don't dye my hair for a lot of reasons mainly because I want to age gracefully and I'm too cheap to pay the salon prices.  I'm proud of my grey hair and most people say they really like it.  But after some thought....NAH!!!!  If I'm going to wear a wig, lets make it fun.  So now I'm in possession of a dark strawberry blonde wig.  I would have to remortgage my house to pay for the delicious highlights in this wig.  Madeleine thinks I now look like her which pleases her to no end.

Oh and that's another thing, I was worried about how losing my hair would affect Madeleine.  She is emotional but tough too.  She has seen me with purple leopard spots before but she was noticeably disturbed by it.  So I started to talk about how the drugs would make me bald and that I would still be the same inside...blah, blah, blah.  She burst out laughing, "Mama's going to be bald.  I'm going to laugh at you when you're bald."  She went on hooting for quite some time.  Well, never mind, she will be fine!

I'm glad she can keep a sense of humour about it.  I suspect she will want to put temporary tattoos on my head...might be fun!

I've put the pictures in and when I lose my hair, I'll add some more so everyone can have a good giggle!

 Not as short as I had planned but my hairdresser refused to go any shorter!

I don't recognize myself with a wig on.  I really feel like an impostor LOL!

Lots of hugs and love,

E