Amy's Cancer Story

With Chemo possibly starting this Wednesday, there are a number of days that I will have hair left on my head.  I had a friend snap a few photos this weekend.   The thing is at some point I am going to have to shave my head because it will be falling out like crazy, in clumps.  You find it in your bed, in your clothes, on the rugs, on the kitchen floor, in the car.  It gets everywhere.

Last time my hair started falling out pretty much two weeks after I started chemo.  My husband knew how upset I was about it, so as soon as it started falling out he set up an appointment for me to see a lady about wigs.  He also had read that if we had some satin sheets, it would not pull on my hair, therefore making it stay on my head longer.  So he ran out and got some for me.

So when we saw the wig lady named Pat, she was very understanding.  She deals with many cancer patients.  She also owns her own hair salon.  One thing I found out when I was there for the first time was, that there are people who have permanent alopecia.  She had photos in an album of people with no hair and with their wig.  You know kind of like before and after.  She had clients that were children that had never had hair in their life and had to wear a wig all through their childhood.  Can you imagine that?  For them it never grows back.  There were also woman who would just loose their hair and it never grew back.  Well the good thing about that is, you can change your style real easy as your budget allows.

So after she heard my story and heard how distraught I was, she suggested that she cut my hair to my shoulders (it was half way down my back).  She then would take the hair she cut off and use it to match my hair color to the wig that I picked out.  She said to come back Friday and would have it ready for me.  When I went back about 5 days later.  Half of my hair was gone.  She then shaved it off and fitted my wig.  It was a real hair wig and looked really nice.  She also had some synthetic hair pieces that were really cute so I was able to get two of those.

If I was not so upset about the whole ordeal, I may have been able to do something more generous.  I wish I had.  I am sure that I had enough hair to donate to “Locks of Love” before she had cut my hair the first time.  So this time I think I want to do that if it is actually long enough.  I am probably going to wait until the last minute again  in case some freak thing happens and “maybe it won’t really fall out” so why shave my head.  I wish.

Last time several people had suggested, I make a wig out of my own hair which really is a great idea.  Pat said that would cost at least $2000 and and a lot of hair.  Several heads of hair are needed to make a wig from real hair.  It was interesting to know that the real hair wigs are hand tied which is another reason they are more costly than synthetic.  They also look better and wear better.

I was very fortunate at that time.  My small church took up a  generous collection for our family.  It helped pay for this expense as well as several others.  It was a great blessing.  My husband had been unemployed for 8 months prior to that year so we were not in a good position for this trying time.

Everytime I have turned around God had provided for me.  Even if you are down to your last pennys it still works out.

Matthew 6:33,34