Curl Waiting

Ahhhh, the joys of hair!

Hair is one of those things that defines and identifies us, at least on the outside. When it’s taken away, you feel like you’ve lost some of your femininity – I should be used to that after breast surgery and being given drugs that stop the female body doing what it’s still supposed to be doing, perhaps that’s asking too much.

When I was a little girl, my mother used to put “Curly Pet” on my hair to encourage curls. She didn’t want me to have a lifelong battle with dead straight hair. I vividly remember that yellow bottle with the blue sketch of a smiling Shirley Temple look-alike, and my screaming as Mum endeavoured to remove all the tangles – and I had shortish hair!

Well, all that work was in vein, the best I ever had were some “kinks” with longer hair.

As a child, like most girls, I wanted long hair. I had a stumbling block to my ambitions, Mum. Mum had long hair which she wore plated and wrapped around her crown. Every time I’d try to plead my case, I’d get the same answer, “one with long hair in the family is enough!” Definitely the immovable object.

Mum ran out of excuses when I was around 10 when she had her hair cut short for the first time in her life. She had it permed, so was finally granted her wish for curls.

For a large swag of the next 33 years I had glorious long hair. There were a couple of “hiccups”, one while at uni when I had a cut and very curly perm, another not long after we married when I grew tired of long hair and went to shoulder length for a couple of years. Long hair was so easy to look after. Just wash it and leave it, or give it a quick partial dry.

Then came breast cancer and the ensuing chemo.

Due to the drugs used, I was told I’d lose my hair, yes, a 100% certainty. It was not a happy thought. I couldn’t stand the thought of turbans. For me, I might as well have “cancer” tattooed across my forehead. I still had to mix with people every day, something that’s unavoidable when you have a young child at school. Being the person I am, I’d rather blend in than stand out.

So I went out and bought myself a wig, and 7 days into my first chemo, gathered a couple of friends, some canapés, bubbly and headed off to the hairdresser to get all my hair cut off. I wanted to make it an event, but it didn’t stop me from crying the whole time.

11 days later my hair started falling out in large clumps in the shower. Wash hair, wash hair off body, towel dry hair, use hair dryer to blow hair off body, and then get dressed.

The worst part of hair loss was actually waiting for it all to fall out. When it does, it’s almost a relief, which is just as well as it was all gone in 4 days.

One thing I delighted in was that I didn’t get a dose of head lice when the rest of the family did, although guess who had to treat everyone! Yes there are advantages to being carefree hair free.

After 3 months of chemo, they changed my drugs and ensured me that my hair would start to grow back. It took a while as it has to grow from the follicle and push its way up through the scalp before you see anything.

Another 4 months on, I felt I had enough hair covering to brave the public without my wig. It was liberating. And wouldn’t you know it, it was coming back curly!!!

So life had come full circle and Mum had a curly haired daughter.

I never could understand Mum’s total lack of enthusiasm when asked “Are you happy now?” heck I now had what she’d always wanted for me.

Do you know how hard it is to get used to curls when “hey presto” they appear unsolicitored? And just when you’re getting used to them, it starts coming through straighter and then you really don’t know what to do with your hair, the whole thing is so unpredictable.

13 months after I lost it all, I had my first haircut and 5 months further on, another 2 cuts and am still trying to decide what to do with my locks. Do I grow long tresses again, do I keep it shorter, or do I go somewhere in between? I guess I have a little time to decide while waiting for it to make up its mind whether it’s going to kink like it did as a little girl, or push me in a new direction.