There are those moments in a woman's life in which we might sigh loudly about our split ends, moan that our conditioner has suddenly stopped working, or even describe a curling iron burn like it's a wound of war. Those moments happen, likely more often than we notice, but yes, we are aware we sound ridiculous, and that it is in fact, just hair.
Just last week, I had an appointment scheduled to get my hair colored with my stylist, Mary. She had recently received a "promotion" which in the salon world is code for a two month advance booking window and $30 increase in price. I had an attachment to this stylist, so I tolerated the increase, though the booking was difficult with my fluctuating work schedule. When something came up last week in which I had to reschedule, I stomped around the hotel complaining about grown out roots, split ends, tired locks, the works. I got a lot of withering stares. I get it, it's just hair.
For me, it isn't just hair. I don't think it is for any woman, really. I am sure there are many women (or men, for that matter) in the world who have accidentally dyed their hair too dark or cut it too short, and didn't end up crying, and I tip my hair brush to them. If you have had your hair fall out in clumps, in sizes as big as your fists, and you had no emotional reaction, however, then you are a stronger person than I, because that is what happened to me.
About two years ago, I had just gotten out of the shower after a long day of work. Wrapped in a towel in the steamy room, I began to brush my hair. Combing through the strands, I ran my fingers through to make sure I had pulled out all of the knots of my fine but thick hair. Where the normally thickest hair would be, I felt an odd bareness. I furrowed my brow as I ran my fingers along the area on the back of my scalp as my stomach began to turn. Dropping the towel, I used it to wipe the fog from the mirror as I grabbed a hand mirror with my other hand, trying to frantically and awkwardly grab a glimpse of the back of my head.
What I saw was as confusing as it was unsettling. A patch about the size of a dollar bill was completely bald on the back of my head. It was bare with no hair, almost as if there had never been hair in the first place. I felt it again, feeling sick to my stomach. Chris was still at work, so I texted him with a vague, "come home now." Obviously not thinking clearly, but more importantly on my mind was: where was the hair?
Having just had my hair cut three weeks before, I was certain that the haircutter never would have overlooked that a giant patch of hair had gone missing from my scalp. So, I began looking around my apartment for the hair. I looked at my brush; no more hair than normal. Pillow; same. I checked the floor, my sweaters, coats, everywhere. There was, what I thought, the normal shedding of a girl with long hair. When Chris got home, the kitchen looked like a crime lab for CSI in which I had laid out strands of hair for comparison as if that somehow had answers. If the man had walked out the door and never looked back, I would not have blamed him.
After he soothed me slightly, he inspected the rest of my scalp which revealed two more smaller bald patches on either side of my head. I cried. "I know it's just hair, but it's my hair," I said, as fat tears rolled into my mouth between sobs.
I called in sick to work for the following day. It was the first time I had called in sick to work since I had started, and between seventy hour work weeks, there was a slight panic in the feeling of not going to work when I needed to be there simply because of hair. Regardless, I set my alarm so I could start calling the doctor's office as soon as it opened to get in.
As my doctor read over my chart on his computer screen, I stared at the top of his head, wondering if he had had a similar moment of panic the first time he realized he was going bald. I was still staring when I realized he had been speaking to me for sometime. He rolled closer to me on his chair with my chart and pen in hand. I began to answer the same set of questions all doctors, family and friends would pose to me in near identical order after this first visit:
"Have you recently changed your diet?"
"No."
"No new supplements, any medications, anything like that?"
"No."
"Exercise more than usual?"
"No."
"Weight loss, weight gain?"
"No."
"Changed hair products, shampoos, conditioners, dyed it recently?"
"No, no, and no."
"How's your sleep?"
"It's fine, I guess."
"What's your stress level?"
"I mean, work is stressful. But work is always stressful."
With a heavy sigh, he checked something on the chart, rolled back over to the computer screen and began to type.
"It's probably alopecia. Here's a referral to dermatologist. Make an appointment at the desk." He stood up.
"Okay, what, wait," I stammered. "I don't even know what that is..alo, what, can you spell that? What causes it, what do I do, what's the dermatologist for, what's wrong with me?" He looked at me with a face that epitomized the statement: "it's just hair."
"It will be in your aftercare papers," he said carefully, as if I were a small child. "It is likely caused by stress. The dermatologist will decide what the next route is. Call me if you have any issues before you get in to see her."
And that was that. I made the appointment. The sad part of that experience was, with that little information, and the few questions I was able to have answered, I did have issues. I lost more hair in the two weeks between when I saw my doctor and when I saw the dermatologist. My doctor's nurse's response: "keep the appointment, try to reduce your stress levels."
"Someone please explain to me how to reduce my stress levels to prevent my hair from falling out when I am stressed out because my hair is falling out," I remember shouting at my cellphone during the two week gap between appointments. There was no one on the other line, and I was alone sitting in my car outside of Target. I had just been speaking to a very kind nurse, and after I hung up the phone, I was debating whether I really felt like going in to shop. I did, but all I got when I went in were headbands and headscarves because the bald spots were beginning to show and I needed to do something to hide it at work.
Finally, the day of the appointment arrived, and all of my questions were answered by a reassuring and intelligent dermatologist. She sat patiently with me, made eye contact, nodded as I asked questions, handed me reading materials, and pulled up sites online, all to explain exactly what was happening to me:
Alopecia is an autoimmune disease in which the body, often without known cause, thinks that the hair follicles are foreign bodies and attempts to attack them to get them out of the body, much like it would attack a virus. Though the reasons are unknown, it can be stress related or due to trauma, such as a car wreck or tragedy. There are treatments for the disease which may make it go away, but it may return for no reason or never go away completely. The pamphlets she gave me showed people with missing eyebrows and eyelashes, so I assumed I wasn't forsaken. She did a large biopsy of two places on my scalp, and then stitched me back up, and though it was quite painful, I felt I had more answers that day.
After confirming it was alopecia with the biopsy, I was given three options. One, was nothing which was immediately dismissed considering I had already been perusing Jessica Simpson's line of wigs and had not found an appealing one yet. Two, was to use a follicle stimulating cream on my scalp. Three, was steroid shots directly into my scalp. The third option would be multiple shots all across my scalp every three weeks. Because of the size of my patches, it would take 45 minutes each time to get all of the shots. After conversing, we decided option three was the route with the best promise for regrowth, so I had my next appointment booked.
For this time, I brought Chris. As the nurse checked me in, she asked me if my "husband wanted anything to drink." We both giggled, because we weren't even engaged yet. In the room, I laid on my side on the bed. The doctor pulled out her large tray. I could hear a lot of noises, but couldn't see. I could tell she sensed my tension, because she asked Chris to come stand next to the bed to hold my hand. I couldn't tell if he was squeamish, but he came over and made small talk as if he was interested in the exact mechanics of the procedure. I felt like some restless farm animal that was being calmed down before euthanized.
The first needle went in and a tingle went through my scalp and down my neck. It felt as if my scalp was getting tattooed. A couple would go in without issue, and then one would go in that made me want to crawl out of my skin. Chris told me later that when the needle would insert and the doctor would push in the syringe, the skin in that area would puff up like a little balloon. I felt I had aged a year laying on that table, and when I saw the tiny scabs on the patches in my hand mirror, I realized how many shots there really were.
I had seven more appointments like that. They became more routine, and the pain dulled as well. On the fourth visit, my dad came because Chris had to work. I was okay to not have a hand to hold at this point and I think my dad was just fine not having a front row seat to watch the show. Each night, after I would shower, Chris would comb my hair, looking for new spots. If he found a new one, it would get added to the list of injection areas for the next procedure.
After awhile, the fifty dollar co-pays for specialty procedures, the insurance deductibles, the bland waiting room coffee, sterile procedure rooms and backless gowns started to make me resent the hair, and I often fantasized about shaving it all off. I scrolled through websites at night trying to find lightweight wigs or statement earrings. I recognized I wasn't anything close to a cancer patient, but I wanted to ask someone how they handled this. Thinking it was "just hair and not cancer" stopped me from seeking advice.
This was how I found my current stylist. I had been dragging around the same awful, uncut, undyed, raggedy, mangy hair for four months since I had gotten the diagnosis in fear of bringing it to some stranger to see how bad it was. When I pictured it getting cut at this point, it was me in the bathroom with a men's electric shaver. I needed to do something, however, so I called up a salon I used to go to when I lived near my dad's.
"Okay, so this is going to sound weird, but I have this condition, and I don't want someone asking a ton of questions, but do you have someone who can just cut my hair and make it look halfway decent?" I blurted into the phone.
The woman on the other line said as kindly as the first nurse who reassured me to ease my stress levels. "Sweetie, we see this stuff all the time. I'll give you Mary. She's a doll."
That's how I met Mary. And wouldn't you know, she gave me a beautiful cut, and when she spun me around to show how she styled it to cover the spots, I started to cry (which I don't think they see all the time). A few weeks later, she colored my hair. A couple months after that, she was the first to discover the first little baby hairs of regrowth. We hugged.
So you see, for some, it isn't "just hair" or "just stress". Sometimes our bodies manifest stress in physical and scary ways that are imperceptible until it's looking at you, baldfaced in the mirror. So, I keep those hair appointments, I do my self care, eat right and sleep well, see my friends and my family and try to get and give as much love as possible. There is joy to be had in the world, and if you don't have it, you've got to change so you can find it.
