How to Lose Your Hair
Today I am thinking about a 4th of July party at my local best friend's apartment 2O years ago. It was the host's first wedding anniversary and my make-shift End of Chemo celebration. My far-away best friend flew in for the occasion; I wore a necklace that said "Believe" and an ice blue wig sent to me by a high school boyfriend. Despite his enclosed note insisting I always looked good in blue, I don't think it was very flattering. It was the only time I wore a wig during that chemo baldness. Days at home were spent naked-headed, and excursions into the world featured basic bandana wraps that didn't quite hide my bony scalp or the lack of hair at the edges. I didn't really feel like I needed to hide it, my cancer experience was public from the get-go.
In between the first and second rounds of chemo, my sisters and I joined our mother on a girls’ weekend getaway to Quebec City. We walked crooked streets and shopped in quaint neighborhoods, we dined in charming cafés and marveled at the locals speaking French. One meal found us dining al fresco in what felt like a piazza, our table nestled up against a high rail that cordoned off a section of cobblestone. I sat at the outermost end, repeatedly stroked my hand across my shortened hair, and watched as clumps floated out across the stones. Over and over. I had cut it into a terrible pixie to make the transition less shocking, now it was happening. It was still shocking.
When I got home to John, he looked bald as he always did: he'd been shaving his head since before I knew him, in honor of his beloved grandfather Doc. Bald didn't scare me; I already knew it could be attractive, powerful, striking. John made a conscious choice to be bald in spite of what photographic evidence showed me was a lush head of warm brown hair. But it did something for him internally, it helped him be who he wanted to be. Surely I could be bald for a couple months and not let it ruin me.
It's not like I had ever been particularly proud of my hair. I am the laziest groomer, leaving the house with wet hair more often than not, telling every hair stylist that their brilliantly planned haircut had to require the minimum amount of upkeep. I hated its thin, limp texture as a kid, enduring years of perms to give it some kind of oomph. When I finally stopped perming in college, once-sunny highlights disappeared and the color committed to dishwater brown. I had just started experimenting with copper and red coloring when I met John; one last dye job was almost washed away by the trip to Quebec. I'm not sure if it would have been more or less jarring had the drifting clumps still been bright red.
The color didn't make a difference at all once I got to the next step, in the privacy of our tiny bathroom. I was going to shave it all off. I can't remember why I decided to go that route, if it was recommended by a doctor or talked about in my support group. But it seemed like an easy mission that offered tremendous relief. The slow loss of hair is torture both physically and emotionally; every follicle stings before it releases the hair, and if you reach up to scratch you come away with hair. It rubs and bothers when you lie down to sleep or relax, then you leave behind hair from the friction. Hair covers your pillowcase and clogs the shower drain and splays across your shoulders for constant evidence that chemo is coursing through your veins and attacking every cell. It hurts. Shaving shortens the torture, I was certain it would feel better once the losing was over. I had a bald man on hand who shaved his head nearly every day, how hard could it be?
The bathroom really was tiny, and didn't offer many set-up options when it came to the process. John would use his clippers to shave for me, moving around as he needed to while I stayed still and squeezed my eyes shut to endure it. He moved quickly, adept as he was, intending to get it over with for my sake. He put down his clippers and told me I could look. I couldn't open my eyes. John took my hands and placed them on his head. The same as on any other day, I felt his strong skull, adorned with only a tiny hint of stubble. He took one hand and moved it to my now naked scalp. We kept our heads close together so I could keep a hand on both. Same, same. I got in the shower to rinse off all the hairs. I cried. I soaped and rinsed, the tears abating as the lack of follicle stinging sent relief washing over my slick scalp. I did it. It felt better.
My approach to losing hair the second time around was different. I didn't want to be caught with falling clumps in public again. I didn't want to go to our local appointment-less salon for the initial hair chop and endure the explanation. My friend Cindy gamely offered to cut my hair; we sat outside on the patio and let the blunt inches fall for the birds to gather as needed. She gave me quite a chic haircut that lasted until I was able to pull out clumps at a time while a visiting friend watched in empathy. Time for shaving.
I knew it would be easier for me this time, I wasn't going to cry from the shock of a bald head. But now I had kids who would witness my illness and all its attendant side effects: Rennie was 12 and Tess was about to turn 11. I knew from my early teen experience during my mother's cancer that distance from the events is not helpful; coming home to a suddenly bald mother would likely be more upsetting than including them in the process. Rennie joked that I should sport a mohawk so the two of us could go strutting down the street in matching hairdos, but it was no joke to me. I would never have opted for such a radical haircut in real life. Cancer treatment offers new perspectives at every turn: some changes are temporary, hair grows back and out, stay in the moment. I would likely never have the chance again to match my hair to my silly son's.
Once again John grabbed his clippers and worked the shave deftly, this time to create a clean, sharp mohawk to match my son's. I giggled and marveled, I took selfies. My talented friend Liz came over for a photo shoot with the kids. We had fun as we watched it go. And then bald became normal for all of us. I graduated from basic bandanas to fancier scarves and wraps, donning brightly colored fabrics given by those close to me, providing warmth and specialness.
It's been four years now, and 2O years from the first shaving, and my hair has outwardly changed multiple times since. Both times my hair grew back curly after chemo, giving me soft corkscrews for over a year. I loved having the new texture, even as I cringed with the conversations it demanded. I wanted to retain some emotional privacy, but there is no way to escape casual comments and pointed questions, well-meaning as they may be. Having to talk about my hair was as hard as losing it, I couldn't just process it on my own. It was, by its very nature, a public experience that people reacted to, commented on, and reflected back to me every time we crossed paths. I grew to hate the interactions about my hair.
I didn't actually hate the hair loss itself; the slash-and-burn effect was ultimately positive. My hair is healthier, thicker, and softer than I remember it ever being before 1999. It still does wacky things when it wants to, and I am still the laziest personal groomer I know, leaving the house with wet hair more often than not. But I might finally feel proud of my hair, in all its publicly normal and internally death-defying glory. Maybe I am ready to talk about it again. Any questions?