It’s much less obvious when the rest of the hair on your body starts falling out.
It took me 3 weeks to notice.
I looked down at my legs one day, counted back to the day that I had dropped the boy off at the airport, and my heart sank.
But I was in denial.
‘Its not falling out, its just not growing’ I told myself ‘There’s still hair there, its just stunted but it will come back’.
Now you may be thinking to yourself ‘Why is she complaining about not having to shave her legs?? That sounds amazing!’
Not going to lie, it is rather convenient. The problem is I knew what would come next...the rest of it. And I mean everything.
I decided to bring a friend to my final dermatologist appointment and gave her strict instructions to not let the doctor leave the room until I had all my questions answered (even if it meant she had to stand in front of the door). I just wanted some answers, and I wanted someone to tell me the truth.
We sat down in the office and in walked the resident. After explaining my story to him, he went out to get the Attending (can I still call him the Attending if its in an office and not a hospital??). He shook my hand and then made me sit in the dentist-esque chair. And then....get this...he LOOKED at me. Imagine that?!!! He looked at my head, he looked at my face, he looked at my arms, he looked at my legs and then he sat down beside my friend. And then we had a chat. A real honest conversation about what was going on.
‘Well its definitely alopecia. We know that. You seem like you’ve done your research. I’ll try whatever treatment you would like to do but you know its not likely to work right?’
What? No scalp biopsy? No steroids? No injections? No products to sell?
But of course I knew none of it would work and it was honestly a huge relief to have someone of a credible background (aka not just my own research) finally tell me the same thing.
‘Again, if you want to try something, anything, you can come by my office anytime. Just let me know if you change your mind. And there are a few ongoing studies now that are showing some promising results so its not like people aren’t working on it. I just don’t have much to offer at the moment.’
‘And the rest of my hair?’
‘It will likely fall out too’
He let me look over my list of questions and made sure I had nothing else to ask him before he left the room.
And then I cried. Ugly cried in the parking lot of Tim Hortons for an hour. Straight up. All the while my friend tried desperately to make me feel better. (Sorrrrrry MA ;) )
I knew the hair on my legs was already starting to fall out but about a week earlier I had taken a look at my eyebrows and noticed some thinning. I had a bit of a panic attack/full on ‘why me’ session and tried to convince myself that it wasn’t true. But after this appointment I knew that it was. Even though I knew in my heart of hearts that it didn’t matter what I did, I have no control over my hair growth, it took me a full month before I started washing my face normally again and not being super careful around my eyebrows so as to not ‘disturb’ the hairs that were holding on.
I had told Paul after he shaved my head that I could live with being bald, but heaven help me if my eyebrows fell out. Anything but the brows.
It may seem stupid but I’m very attached to my eyebrows. I’ve always been quite proud of them. I never really had to do anything to them, very minimal plucking, no shaping, they were just right. And they framed my eyes well and they made me look like me. When I realized that they were going to fall out too I straight out lost my mind. I cried at the drop of a hat and didn’t want to leave the house. It got so bad that the boy was considering flying for another visit. I couldn’t handle it and I didn’t want it to be true.
I know it all sounds a bit dramatic but I dare you to try it. Being bald is one thing. Not having any eyebrows is one thing. Not having any lashes, ok. All three? It’s shit. Complete and utter shit.
My biggest fear was if I would be able to draw on my eyebrows and not make them look like a disaster. I knew people already would be looking at me because I was bald and I’m quite comfortable knowing that people are likely talking about it. But I really didn’t want them saying rude things about my feeble attempts at making myself look a bit more ‘normal’.
I don’t know, I’m having a hard time putting this into words. Could be because this is where we finally get up to present day me and I’m still trying to figure out how I feel and where I’m at. Maybe that’s why its taken me so long to write this post. Because its finally wrapping up my journey thus far and I can start to write about current events, but I don’t know how to properly ‘wrap’ it up.
Hmmmmmm
Well lets go with this:
-I am done with dermatologists and don’t really feel the need to ever see one again (unless its for a prescription for a wig to see if Blue Cross will cover something)
-I’ve gotten to be ok at drawing on my brows. (I have 3 hairs left on my right brow and about 10 on my left brow). Up close you can absolutely tell that they aren’t real but I feel like from farther away they seem to blend in to my face.
-That being said I HATE waking up without eyebrows so I am seriously looking at getting them tattooed (not the block tattoos, a newer technique called micro-blading that creates realistic looking hair strokes.)
-I’m unimpressed with my eyelashes at the moment. Again, I knew it was coming. I was prepared. But in the last week or so they’ve decided to vacate the premises. I told myself that losing my eyelashes wouldn’t be that big of a deal because I can glue on fake ones every day, but lets be real, that’s not happening. I am hella lazy and do not have enough time to be worrying about fake eyelashes when I start work at 6:45.
-I’m comfortable with the unpredictable pattern of alopecia. At one point a couple of months ago I had a ton of hair growing back and now its all fallen out again. That is what alopecia does and why I say that hair growth means nothing to me for the rest of my life. Even if I were to have all my hair grow back again, I’d be happy sure, but I would never attach myself to it like I had been before. It takes waaaay longer for hair to grow back than it does to fall out. And fall out it may and likely will.
-It is amazing to me how quickly you forget what it was like to have hair. I don’t remember what its like to wash my hair or brush it. I don’t remember what it feels like to have wet hair or have to dry and style it. I don’t remember what it feels like to have my hair brush my shoulders or tie it up in a ponytail. It’s kind of sad, but more just weird.
-I love the amount of support that everyone has given me and I am truly grateful for it. It has made this process a hell of a lot easier. However, please do not be offended if I don’t try your suggestions for how to make my hair grow back. There is no magic pill, no shampoo and no special food that I can eat that will make my body decide to stop attacking itself. If there were, there’s about 150 million other people that would know about it. This is an internal and complicated problem.
-I’m ok. Really. I HATE being bald. Its not an easy thing. It makes my life a bit easier when it comes to everyday maintenance but I don’t like it. I don’t have to like it to be ok with it though. And I am ok.
-I’m looking into making my own wigs (if I ever get some time off). I took a wig maintenance class a couple weeks ago that I will write about, it was really good. I’d like to maybe create my own line of cool, sort of funky wigs that could be an alternative for other people going through similar things (or just wanting a rad new look).
-I have other ideas too that I’m super stoked about so stay tuned :)
Next time I’ll talk about what the heck alopecia actually is since I haven’t really told you that much aside from the fact that its an auto-immune disease that makes your hair fall out. I’ll talk a bit more too about treatment options and why I’ve decided to stay clear of them. Other than that, the continuation of my blog will be that of my everyday life as an alopecian. Stories, opinions and projects. If you have any questions I haven’t answered yet or something you would like me to talk about please feel free to send me a message, I love feedback :)
Thanks for reading my sob stories friends. Much love x
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