The Hair Prosthesis

That's what the prescription said, 'hair prosthesis'. I will probably lose my hair in chemo, which my doctor said is the adverse affect people are most concerned about. Ruby Tuesday, who I met yesterday on the Hodgkins listserve (hi RubyTue! thanks for the mouthwash advice!) talks about it a little in her blog (rubytue.blogspot.com). I was really grateful to read her blog. It kind of gave me a map of the territory, if you know what I mean. Everyone has a different experience, but some of the major landmarks are the same.

Hair loss sounds like a major landmark. I mean, it marks women as different when they don't have hair or eyebrows or eyelashes. And I dread the kind of boiled egg look of no eyebrows or eyelashes. I plan to ask if people had any luck drawing eyebrows in before they went out in public. Afterall, women of my mother's generation plucked so vigorously that many of them had no eyebrows--they drew them in all the time. Those high arching lines like starlets. Anyway, I wear glasses, which should help, right?

I read that if I was going to get a wig, I should get it before I lost my hair. So I decided to do it before I had my first chemo, because I didn't know how ambitious I would be afterwards. I went to Kristi, who cuts my hair and told her I'd be having chemo and asked her advice and she sent me to a store that sells everything from custom human-hair wigs for thousands of dollars to $25.00 bright blue synthetic bobs. I don't want my 89 year old mother to know I have Hodgkins because with dementia, I'd have to tell her every time I saw her, and it would upset her. Although I have always had curly hair, and have always hated it, I put aside my chance to get long straight Cher hair, and told the woman at the wig store I wanted one pretty much like my own hair. That's when she told me that if I got a prescription from my doctor, I could take it off my taxes.

You know, I don't quite think of a hank of hair as a prosthesis. It just doesn't seem to rank up there with an artifical leg. But I guess I'm using it for the same reason. I bought it, brought it home, and set it up on its styrofoam head in the bathroom. I'll have it trimmed when I lose my hair--the woman at the wig and hat store said that many people have them trimmed a little too close if they do it before they lose their hair. I try it on every so often and it looks...different. Not just haircut different, but significantly different. I don't think I'll wear it every day. But it will be nice to have when I just don't want to be noticed as different.

People have told me about the character on Sex & the City who had a different wig each episode, and if I had the money, I swear that's what I'd do. And hats. I plan to wear hats. I've never worn hats before. Bob found a website run by a woman who had cancer who makes cancer hats, including a nifty soft fleece hat that says 'fuck cancer' on it. He ordered it for me. More proof I married the perfect man.