Of Wigs and Other Sins

For the past six weeks, I have been receiving Taxol and Herceptin (the former every week, the latter every third week), and my scalp has turned into an infant’s weed garden-like head, hairy with something that is not quite hair yet.

To be honest, I should probably be happy – for many cancer patients hair does not start to grow back until after the chemotherapy has finished. While my current regrowth can hardly be described as “aesthetically pleasing”, it is more or less uniform all over my head, and the longer it gets, the more the transparent white turns into a darker gray.

I do not really mind being bald, it suits me. I started loosing my hair two weeks after my first chemo session and three weeks after my diagnosis. I shaved it off in a rather ceremonious fashion before it started going patchy and looking bad. Loosing the hair did not really traumatize me at all, but that’s another story for another time. The point is that I was ok with being bald. Not so much with having fluff all over my scalp.

I recently had to attend a concert with my boyfriend. That morning, I tried several outfits, scarves, turbans, my bear head – I could not find anything I felt comfortable in, it all got on my nerves, and I felt like not going. After a good half hour of frustration, I pulled out the box with my wig that had been standing untouched on my dresser for the past couple of months. I don’t remember the last time I wore it, but I remember the last time I had put it on – it felt strange. I had been hauling it with me to weddings and events, never actually wearing it for any of the events. I preferred going au naturel, letting my bald head shine. The wig felt wrong.

Not this time. I put it on and it felt good.  It fer right. It felt like me. I also felt like a sell-out.

The truth is that the picture below looks more like “me” than what I currently look like. I’m the big, bold girl with long, thick hair, I always have been. Having a shaved head was alright because I could pull it off, it just added to my persona. I definitely can’t say the same about this new hair.

One of the guys that works at the printing department of my firm saw me today and gave me an approving/encouraging look when he saw me. He’s perfectly lovely and I am sure he meant to be nice but somehow it rubbed me the wrong way. As if it added to me feeling bad for wearing the wig. But you know what, it’s my head, it’s my wig and I will bloody well wear it if and when I fucking want to.

And I swear that once this shit is over, I will grow my hair down to my knees and keep it that way until the day I hit the bucket.