Walking around bald is scary....the first time. But then you realize the general public is actually more concerned with themselves than with you.
Realizing you are likely to be bald for the rest of your life hurts...for the first while. But then you remember that your hair isn't the reason that people love you.
Walking into a dermatologists office bald is ...intimidating, infuriating and heartbreaking 2 out of 3 times. Why? Because dermatologists suuuuuuuuuuuuuuck 2 out of 3 times.
But more on that next week.
After the boy shaved my head we decided to go see a movie and chill out for a bit. Despite the immediate relief I felt by not having any hair anymore, I was still hesitant and quite frankly terrified to walk out of my house with nothing on my head. So on went the scarf and off to the movie we went.
My head was feeling pretty hot and a bit itchy after the big shave so as soon as we got into the dark and sparsely populated movie theatre I decided to remove my scarf so that my head could cool off. Not long after the movie started my pea size bladder gave me the signal. As I went to put my scarf back on my head, the boy snatched it out of my hand and with a little smirk said 'go on then'.
I'm sure if I protested a little more the boy would have given me the scarf back but I really had to pee. Time was of the essence. And you know what? It wasn't so bad. Now this might have something to do with the fact that I only ran into a single person during my mad dash, but the world didn't end. Actually, she barely even looked at me.
I still wasn't ready to do this 'bald' thing totally so over the next couple of days I decided to try out the wigs. First there was a dinner out with my parents the night before the boy left.
Platinum blonde.
There were some looks, I'm not going to lie. Mostly from a family that was sat about two tables down from us. The father and son were facing me and the mother and daughter kept turning around to look. I was half tempted to march on over to their table, whip off my wig and say 'Is this better??!' But I didn't because a) it doesn't matter that much and b) my steak showed up.
The next day I had to take the boy to the airport.
Purple bob.
Maybe it was just the fact that m eyes were slightly watery the whole time but nobody made any sort of fuss over it. Sure people glanced as anyone would do if you saw someone with hair that wasn't a normal colour, but they certainly didn't stare.
Third day bald. Third wig to try out.
Blonde bob.
This was my first day back to work after 3 weeks off. I had gotten Paul to take some pictures of me in my wigs and posted a collage of them on Facebook the day before so that people wouldn't be quite as surprised when they saw me for the first time. I was still really nervous to see everyone though. It's one thing to walk around in wigs knowing that you'll probably never see anyone again, completely different story when it's people you see every day. I was secretly miserable inside but sooner or later it had to happen so I put on the wig and headed off to work.
For those of you who don't know me, I work as a Respiratory Therapist at a large trauma hospital in my city. That night I was scheduled to work on the wards which for the first time I was actually relieved to find out. It meant that I wasn't forced to hang out in one particular area with a set group of people but rather I could wander around and be by myself if I felt like I needed to.
The first part of the night went pretty well. Again, a few looks but nothing crazy. When my coworkers came down to the department for dinner break, my photos became the topic of conversation. My wig was getting pretty hot and a little bit itchy so I offered to take it off and show everyone my bald head.
I stayed like that for a while letting my head cool off when all of a sudden there was an overhead page....
'CODE BLUE UNIT 43
CODE BLUE UNIT 43
CODE BLUE UNIT 43'
*not the actual unit :)
(For all my non medical followers a code blue is what is paged overhead when someone's heart stops or there is some other type of medical emergency. Respiratory Therapists always respond to these calls).
There was no time to put my wig back on and do a proper job of it so I said 'screw it' and ran to the code.
Just like in the movie theatre, no one cared.
In fact, they LOVED it.
What I kind of failed to realize when I posted my wig montage on Facebook is that I hadn't really explained what had happened. One day I had all my hair and the next time I showed up I was bald. So when I stopped in the Intensive Care Unit later that night to grab some equipment, everyone who had responded to the code kept stopping me to comment about my new look.
'Oh my God, I LOVE it'
'That looks so cool!'
'You're head looks so perfect!'
Shortly followed by
'So what charity did you shave it for?'
'I thought that picture of you was photo shopped'
'Are you ok?'
Oh right...about that.... :)
(For the record if you were one of the people who felt bad about asking me why I shave my head, please DON'T. This kind of thing doesn't exactly happen every day).
Next week: Why Dermatologists Are Dicks
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