My Pink Wig
Its been about six months since my last round of chemo. Like many, the idea of losing my hair almost seemed harder to face than losing my breast even though it grows back. (The hair that is!)
For me, the worst thing about losing my hair was how public it made my illness. Mainly I just wanted to get on with the treatment without the sympathy of others.
Here's me and my hair after the diagnosis but before chemo began.
This is me preparing for hair loss. I googled "short curly hair styles" and found a gorgeous picture of Audrey Tatou. Obvs don't look like her but I was glad I at least had a bit of an idea for a short hairdo to transition to losing it all.
A friend and I went to the Cancer Council and tried on all the wigs there and they mainly looked terrible - super shiny and screaming "I've got breast cancer and I've lost my hair and now I'm making a pathetic attempt to hide it", or at least that's what it felt like to me.
I also went to a salon and tried on some $500 wigs but they still didn't look very good. Most of them made me feel like a man at a singles night in a bad toupee!
Anyway, I ended up following the lead of a friend who had had BC the previous year and who had ordered a stack of fun wigs from ebay. As she pointed out, it was more about going "yeah, I've got Breast Cancer, check out my groovy wig" than trying to pretend that that thing on my head is actually my hair.
I ended up buying about a dozen wigs on ebay, none of them cost more than $20 delivered (they all came from China). Some worked better than others, but at that price I didn't mind if they didn't work so well - I can still use them for dress ups!
This one was my favourite - I had a lot of compliments in it and even wore it to a music festival. Best of all, i didn't get any sympathy from strangers!
There was also the blonde bob that my partner christened "Olivia Newton John's mum"
Which I always wore with a headband as it was just so 'wiggy'
This one was a bit of a go-to. I mainly wore it under a crochet hat in pigtails.
I also had a claret bob, a rose coloured curly wig and several black and brown wigs! If I was felling uncomfortable in them I would put a hat or headband over them - for some reason people don't seem to think you're wearing a wig if it has an accessory on it!
As soon as i had enough hair, I ditched the wigs altogether. But I'm glad I was able to get some comfort out of them when I needed it.
