Some thoughts on hair

Today I am sitting in a chair at the Ricky Knowles Hair and Wellness. My long blond wig sits on the floor is a red and black bag. It was only four months ago that I ceremoniously took it off the desk in my bedroom and placed in box on the top shelf of my closet. “Done,” I thought. This long blond wig would only be used for Halloween. But of course, plans do not always unfold in the way that we think. Scarcely a month after I had deemed myself “safe” from a recurrence; I began to spot. Just a little, not much, “Maybe,” I thought,” it’s just dryness.” It continued and then one day it was more. Anxious, I made an appointment with my doctor.

The recurrence was a mere eleven months after I had joyfully rung the bell, celebrating the end of chemo and the beginning of life in remission. Eleven months was not long enough; but it was what I was given.

So here I am again, recovered from a second successful surgery, one round of chemo down. Again, we are hopeful, again we hope the chemo will knock any remaining remnants of this dreadful disease from my body.

Today my thoughts are more, “here we go again, no more hair.” It’s not fallen out yet…but soon. For those of you who do not know, hair begins to fall out somewhere between 14 and 19 days after the first chemo. I’m at day 14. I still have hair. But, for the last two mornings I have awakened to sore hair. That’s the best way I can describe it. Technically, I think it is my hair follicles that are tender. It’s like when you’ve had your hair pulled back in a pony tail all day and you take it the rubber band out. You’re hair feels sore; this is the same feeling. So I know, my hair is on its way out.

Honestly, I’m sad to lose my hair. It’s the tangible and visible confirmation that the cancer has not left me. I did not win the last battle as I thought I had. But, I’m ready to fight again. I’m ready to win this time, win the war not the battle. This reality is not easy to face, but face it I must.

So, I sit in the chair, sharing my story with Ricky. Asking him to cut this long blond wig in a style that looks more like what I looked like before my life was rocked with a diagnosis of cancer. He’s kind, he listens as he cuts the wig that is now on my head. He asks how I wore my hair, am I a hair tucker; that is do I tuck my hair behind my ears. Since I’ve not had hair long enough to do that in more than a year, I have to think. “Yes,” I say, “I do tuck my hair behind my ears.”

Foreign, that is the word I would use to describe the feeling of a wig on your head. I was never really comfortable with one on. I never tucked the synthetic hair of the wig behind my ears during the last bald period of my life. It did not feel normal. Ricky is cutting the hair so that I can do this. Maybe, just maybe, this time I will feel more like me with this wig on my hair. Today, this is my hope.