At first I was so stressed, panicked and upset about the whole hair loss situation. I literally thought it was going to be the worst thing in the world and one of the hardest things about going through cancer. I feared that for one, I would look ugly, however the main issue for me was the fact that by being bald you would be branded as a cancer patient. I was worried that if I ever went anywhere with no hair on my head I would be stared at, judged and people would feel sorry for me (something I really hate).
I was very lucky that after through the first round of chemo, I didn’t lose my hair. I ended up having over 2 months extra time with it than expected! I think this was because my first round of chemo was called the ‘induction phase’ and is a lighter treatment than others. My hair fell out during in my second round of much more intense chemo, however still took over 2 weeks to come out from the day I started the second treatment. Your hair falls out at a different times, depending on the follicle cycles. Sometimes it can come out within days of beginning chemo and others a few weeks. Once it does start to come out, however, it will be a matter of days before it thins to almost nothing. Due to my diagnosis I was not able to try out the cold cap, as blood cancer is all over your body because it’s in your blood. The cold cap works by reducing the amount of chemotherapy to the area, so for a leukaemia patient this wouldn’t be a very good idea.
Once my hair did start to fall out, despite all my anxieties, it turned out I really wasn’t that bothered as I thought I would be. I was still very apprehensive and nervous about the whole process, however I had just gone through a very tough couple of weeks and by that point something like losing my hair didn’t seem that important anymore.
The way I tackled the process of this drastic change, was that once I started to notice the thinning, I got it cut to a short bob. One reason for doing this was to buffer the transition from long hair to no hair. Doing it this way also allowed me to donate it to the Little Princess Trust, from whom I also got a wig later on. For me, this part where 8 inches of my hair was cut off, was the scariest part. One thing that really shocked me was the new feeling of a lot less hair. You don’t realise how much your hair weighs and it took a while to get used to my head being a lot lighter. Doing it in stages and getting one big step out of the way allowed me to accept the change easier. So, by the time it came to shaving it, it wasn’t as scary at all.
As being part of the Teenage Cancer Trust, I was eligible for a synthetic wig and a real hair wig. The synthetic one was brought to me by the hair support worker in the hospital and she brought a massive selection of wigs for me to try on. The real hair wig was from The Little Princess Trust. I sent them a selection of pictures of colours and styles that I liked and a selection of pictures of my own hair, so that they could make it just for me. You can go to one of their salons where they style it for you however I ended up not being able to this due to treatment and being neutropenic.
Although both wigs were great, I soon found out it wasn’t for me. I tried them on quite a lot at home trying them on with different outfits, however I always found myself to scared to leave the house in case people noticed I had a wig on and it wasn’t real hair. I didn’t feel natural with it on, as I myself knew it wasn’t real anyway and knew that all my friends and family knew this too. In a way, from my perspective, it made me somehow look more bald and I decided that I just felt a lot more comfortable without it.
Despite saying this, I still wasn’t confident enough to go out in public without something on my head and to be honest with it being the middle of winter it was far too cold to go out completely bald anyway. If I didn’t I literally froze to death. I never realised how much your hair actually keeps you warm as I had never really worn a hat ever because I never felt the need to. For the first few months I used some lovely stylish ‘bandana hats’. I bought them from a website called Annabandana and absolutely loved them! They are all really reasonably priced (at about £8 per hat) so I bought a few that I knew would go with different outfits and match things for both day and night.
When I first lost my hair I was quite nervous for not only people, but myself too, to see me without hair. I gave myself a shock every time I looked in the mirror because I was would forget what I actually looked like. However, as time went on I grew more and more used to it myself and more and more confident with my new look. A few months on, although my hair has grown a tiny bit, I now go out all the time with nothing on my head and feel completely fine. I think confidence is the main thing and once you have got used to it, because the transition is a lot to take in, you realise how much it actually doesn’t matter. I just try and pull it off as an edgy look, which is quite difficult as its absolutely not my style. I also never see people staring at me like I imagined they would which really did make me feel better about things. People actually don’t care and for me I don’t think they even notice. I had so many compliments from strangers about my bandanas who genuinely thought it was just some sort of fashion statement.My eyebrows and eyelashes did fall out on and off a few times, quite randomly. They never completely came out however, and tended to grow back as soon as they went. Eyelashes were easy to sort out with some false ones, however I only ever did this if I was going somewhere nice and for normal day to just sucked it up. Since I have very fair coloured lashes anyway it wasn't much of a change for me and just looked like I hadn't put on any a mascara. For my eyebrows I would highly recommend some sort of brow pen (I use Soap and Glory Archery Brow Precision and would really recommend). After drawing them on with a pencil and then filling them in a bit more, having a pen really helped to make it look like you had proper brow hairs and, unless I was being really picky, once I had finished they looked like they normally would after doing them.
Obviously, I do massively miss my hair and what girl wouldn’t! Sometimes I get a bit down when I am with a group of friends who all have long, thick, gorgeous hair or when I go on nights out and everyone has their hair done perfectly. I do feel a little bit left out in these moments. However, at these times I try and put it in perspective and remember that it will come back at some point and it’s really not the end of the world or effecting my life dramatically. On another note there a few little perks. You save so much time and never have a bad hair day to worry about. Those days when you can’t be bothered to wash your hair and then regret the rest of the day because the dry shampoo didn’t really do what you wanted it to, never happen! And most of all I save myself £100 every 6 weeks from getting my hair done. 
