This spring, my choir is performing a tribute concert to Queen Elizabeth II for her Diamond Jubilee.  Thus, many of the songs we sing originate in the U.K.  One song by the Beatles, which has a rollicking beat, barbershop in nature, is called ‘When I’m Sixty-Four.’

During one of our recent rehearsals, I suddenly realized that the first line of the song...’When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now…,’ had already applied to me.  I had already lost my hair, even though I was younger than 64.  Not fully following our conductor’s instructions, I fell into a reverie about my days without hair.

You can’t help but notice in a cancer center all the various modes of hairstyles and adaptations to lack of hair.  A plethora of turbans, scarves, baseball caps, and brave bald domes grace the waiting room.  Some folks have hair that looks as if they have just stepped out of a hair salon, others have thinning locks.

During the time of my induction chemo, I observed all the hairdos with interest.  I had confidence that my hair would still be atop my head throughout my treatments. However, I didn’t realize just how powerful the chemo drugs I took during the stem cell transplant process would be on my rapidly dividing cells.  Cancer cells and hair follicle cells both fall into that category.  Of course,  I was very pleased to lose any cancer cells, but losing my hair was an unsettling experience.

At the beginning of November 2009, I received an injection of cyclophosphamide (Cytoxan), a strong chemotherapy agent, in preparation for stem cell harvesting. By mid-November, my hair was definitely falling out, in little wisps at first.  I cut a lock of hair and taped it into my journal to keep it just in case it would never grow back again.

I was, however, still doubtful that I would lose much of it and called the hair salon for an appointment to get a shorter, trendy haircut.  My husband Dilip took me in to see the stylist, who tried to give me a stylish cut.  The hair started to fall out in clumps as he pulled on the strands to cut it.  It was all over the floor of the salon – I was devastated. The cut I got could not conceal my loss of clumps of hair.  However, the stylist was very kind to me and did not charge me for that trim.  Soon after that appointment, the hair was all gone.

I didn’t get back in for a haircut until the following August.  In the interim, I went through an amazing journey without much hair.

Hair hurts as it is falling out, I noticed at first.  I lost all of my hair, with the exception of my eyelashes and eyebrows.  Bushy eyebrows run in my family, and for the first time, I appreciated their fullness.

Soon after my appointment at the hair salon, I was wandering around the cancer center one day, hooked up to a line with my bisphosphonate drip, which was being given over a four-hour interval. I entered in the center’s library and found an illustrated book about hair loss.  The gist of it was that a bald, female cancer patient drew a face with a great hairstyle in grease paints, like the ones that clowns use, on her bathroom mirror.  Then, every time she went to brush her teeth, she would pose in front of the mirror and get a completely new look with a great hairstyle!  That made me laugh indeed.

I had a nice collection of scarves that I used to cover my head. Dilip added to it with gifts, but I wasn’t happy without hair.  The thought of being bald for months was daunting to me.  It was also definitely a symbol of loss. At the time, I was also grieving the loss of my health and the need to receive such intense therapy.

My family prevailed upon me to go shopping for a wig in December, right before the start of the holiday season.

We shopped in a wig shop, which was part of a large department store.  The owner of this shop had worked with many cancer patients and was the soul of patience and encouragement.  I must have tried on almost every wig stocked, some made of synthetic hair and others of human hair.  Ninety minutes later, I had settled on a dark brown, synthetic wig in a page-boy style.  I instantly felt better; the wig was flattering and made me look younger too, since it did not have the strands of grey in it that I had started to get in my fifties.

The wig came with a little mesh cap, to be worn underneath the wig.  Both the wig and the cap were washable.  All you had to do to was to swish them in a sink with a special shampoo and put the wig on a styrofoam head shape to dry.  The style was set in place permanently. As for my own head, a little dab of shampoo was all that was needed.

In January 2011, I received melphalan (Alkeran) followed by the stem cell transplant.  This drug is so strong that it destroys the bone marrow.  Of course, my hair received another blow to re-growth.

As the winter wore on, I was glad to have a warm wig on my head.  It may have looked a little bizarre when I went out walking in freezing temps with no hat on, but a hat and the wig did not really work well together.

People I knew did not immediately recognize me with the wig, since it wasn’t exactly the same hairstyle and color as I had with my own hair.  The wig was fuller and kept its style better.

When I just used a scarf or a turban, people would comment ‘You have a nice shaped head,’ or ‘Don’t worry, your hair will grow back better than before!’  I had hoped that would be the case.  Family and friends realized that the wig was a temporary arrangement and were very polite about it, even though they found it a bit incongruous. I did get used to sleeping wearing a velveteen turban, since it was too cold to sleep otherwise.

As spring, the season of new growth, approached, my hair sprouted anew atop my head.  At first, it came out in curls. As anyone who has been through high-dose chemotherapy may know, ‘chemo’ hair is different from one’s usual hair; it tends to be curlier and of a different texture than the natural tresses.

I gradually left off the wig and let people see my new hair.

I was encouraged to do that by a woman I met at a needle arts seminar in May 2010 in Regina, Saskatchewan.  She was a recovering breast cancer patient who had lost her hair due to chemotherapy.  At the seminar, she had a very short hairstyle, which looked fantastic.  She urged me to leave off the wig and go out with just my short hair.  I had already been in class wearing the wig and felt that the contrast from chin length wig hair to ‘barely there’ real hair would be too much of a contrast overnight.  But when I got back to Calgary,I just showed and enjoyed my new hair.

The hair came back in just fine, and fortunately, I have not received any of the strong chemotherapies such as cyclophosphamide or melphalan since then, so I still have it.

However, I will never forget the experience of losing my hair.  And, I am keeping the wig just in case I need it again.

By the way, my husband looks great in it, too; just like back in the seventies, when he had a full head of hair!  It caused some hilarity when he posted a picture of himself wearing my wig on Facebook!

So now, when singing that old Beatles song, I think to myself that I hope I won’t be losing my hair again when turning 64, which is only a few short years from now!

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The quotation for this month is from Kahlil Gibran (1883 – 1931), who wrote, “Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.”