Why the Hair is No Big Deal...

Or at least why I’m telling myself it’s not...

So, I’ve been bracing myself. Optimist that I am, I had hoped that it wouldn’t fall out. At the end of last week, I had to face facts—my hair is one more collateral casualty in my ongoing conquering of cancer.

It was the oddest thing. I awoke in the middle of the night, because something was tickling my nose. I turned on the light, and noticed this chunk of hair was the culprit, and it was no longer attached to my head.

I was grateful that most of it was in this one single chunk, and that the splay of hair strewn across my pillow was at a minimum.

In the middle of that night, as I cleaned up the hair, and inspected the new bald spot near my temple, I came to some conclusions about my next moves. Practically speaking, I did not want to clean up a continuous shedding of hair. Emotionally speaking, I did not want the grief of watching my hair come out in stages. Spiritually speaking, I did not want the continuum of the shedding to give cancer more legitimacy that it deserves. It is an unwelcome, short-term presence that I intend to irradicate. Giving an ongoing acknowledgement to its side effects seems counter-productive to my objective of annihilating it from my body.

Hair is non-essential. Like hubcaps on a car, I can keep driving even if they fly off. And the hair, it in all probability, will grow back.

Early on Saturday, I went to Shopko and bought a baseball cap and some scarves for the short term.

Then, I went to one of the many quickie shops to get the rest of my locks shorn. I drove by several places, and tried to find one with as few customers as possible. I finally settled on one near the local Target store, and entered the shop. When it was my turn, I quickly sat down in the salon chair, pulled my hat off, and briefly told the stylist, “I’m going through medical treatment and am losing my hair. With a minimum of fanfare, I’d like you to just shave it off for me, please.”

The young stylist, sporting blonde locks halfway down her back, looked at me through the reflection in the mirror, horrified. “Really?”

“Yes,” I said, “really.”

She stammered some more. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

She turned the chair so that I was facing her, and said, “You’re positive?”

I began to tear up, without knowing why. I told her, “Look, if you can’t do this, I understand, but I need to get this over with. Is there someone else here who can help me?”

She grabbed her clippers, and keeping the chair turned away from the mirror, began to release my recently-dyed auburn locks from their station upon my head.

I’ve never had a ton of hair, and I’ve never really managed to find a style that works for me. It was too wavy to wear straight, and too straight to wear curly. It was, thanks to my mother’s genetic influence, frizzy, and not very thick.

Now, I’ve been released from a lot of fruitless and frustrating rituals. For the interim, no shampooing, conditioning, moussing, gelling, blowdrying, ironing, spraying, combing, fussing, etc. The loss and the liberty of it all exactly cancel each other out. Upon returning home from the salon and running my fingers over my head, I realized that I really had no feeling about it one way or the other.

What has gotten to me though, is everyone else. I was thoroughly unprepared for some people’s reactions. A close relative cried, saying that seeing me without hair makes my medical condition more real to him. Upon reflection, I guess I can understand that.

My daughter looks at me in a rather estranged way. She stands in doorways now, instead of talking to me up close. I guess I can appreciate that, too.

I had been extremely worried about appearances on the work front. I have an important meeting this week, and thought that the absence of hair would be a real distraction. I wound up looking at wigs on Saturday. My friend Maria came with me for moral support. I didn’t expect to find anything that would work for me. Surprisingly, four of the five I tried on all looked great. I settled on the one that had the most complementary color for my skin tone, and the one that most looks like my last hair style.

I think it looks great. I feel good in it, other than the discomfort of having something that hot on my head in August in Redding. I suspect that I will spend more time in scarves because of the weather. It’s what makes me comfortable in a time that is full of discomfort for myself, and apparently others around me as well.

I hope in time, others can be as comfortable with it all as I am.