Me, some years ago, with the hair I miss so much!

Lately, since I discovered my bald spots, I have been thinking way to much about hair, about what it means, about what would I do without it, about how to fix my situation and about how much this disease has disrupted me.

I have been remembering a lot an episode with my friend Inocencia, in Houston. She had breast cancer and she underwent a successful mastectomy, radiation and chemotherapy and after several years she is still cancer free.

As it usually happens in these cases, during the chemotherapy treatment she lost all her hair. Unlike me (with alopecia areata), Inocencia was battling a deadly disease; one that could have easily taken her life. She knew that the hair loss was a result of the treatment and therefore it was temporary. She was certain that the hair was going to grow back. That is a certainty that patients with alopecia areata don’t have; we know it is likely the hair will grow back but we don’t know it for sure, we don’t know when it could happen, we don’t know when the bald spots will stop growing and we don’t know if we would loose our hair again once we have recovered.

I read once that the only certain thing about alopecia areata is its uncertainty.

Going back to Inocencia I remember well a conversation we had with a mutual friend, Sandra. Inocencia was happy the treatments were over and the hair was slowly growing back. Still she was wearing a wig. We asked her to show us her new hair and she did. She removed her wig and showed us her bald head filled with little hairs starting to show. She looked beautiful!

After that she told us that the worst part of her illness had been loosing her hair, it have been even worse than loosing her breast.

I was stunned. How can someone be focusing in the hair (that will come back)?! Instead of her breast (that will never come back)?! Or the illness (that could come back)?!

It was just beyond me, I couldn’t understand it. Besides, she looked beautiful bald.

After the first night, the first day and the first week carrying my bald spots and doing everything to conceal them I have understood (the hard way) the importance Inocencia gave to her hair. The breast is not visible, neither is the cancer, but the baldness is the first thing someone will notice… it is the first thing that tells the world that something is not right.

I know I am not going to die from alopecia areata, I know that it is likely the hair will grow back, but still I am grieving for the lost hair. I understand now.