Let's put the hair loss fear into perspective here.

Okay. I realize I am a cranky old vet and a mean obnoxious ***** *cackling heartily at the fiction*

Put that aside for a moment and participate with me, please, in this panic about hair loss.

Y'all know that I always say that I was dying, so what's a little hair? I'm also a happily married crankily surgically postmenopausal lady who doesn't give a whit about sex appeal. I recognize that this colors my opinion of my baldness.

Nonetheless, those who know me will agree that I am a clothes horse who pays close attention to appearances when not in the middle of hay fields or encamped at the grill in the middle of nowhere. I cut a figure that draws attention from anyone from whom I want to draw attention. So I think I'm not exactly a candidate for "What Not to Wear." Nor am I a granny, either in fact or in attitude. My husband is amused at how I get hit on and how I turn heads, in fact.

This head turning thing, ladies, has NOTHING to do with great body or fluffy hair. When I take off the outer trappings, I am bald on top, sagging everywhere, and worst of all IMHO, missing my two front teeth. (Not a DS thing BTW.) Ya know what? When I put on my bits and pieces, do my makeup, dress correctly and have GOOD ATTITUDE (and a wide smile and strong eye contact), it doesn't matter a whit. The people whose attention I WANT are the people whose attention I get, regardless of age or gender.

What's the secret? ATTITUDE. Good posture, good grooming, use of excellent language, sense of humor, etc. all play a role. But the bottom line is ATTITUDE.

Please look at my preop photos. My hair was almost to my waist and was my pride and joy. I had a brilliant, expensive (from years of orthodontia) smile. I still looked like ******g HELL. I still got treated like **** despite my people skills, command of language, education blah blah blah.

Losing the weight, the oxygen, etc. really transformed a lot of that....for a time. I still had to prove myself to new people. I'm getting better at it.

Ya know what? The hair virtually NEVER figured in. I went around bald in front for about three years before I decided it was time to visit a wig shop. And then it was for ME, not the world around me.

Folks, hair is NOT. THAT. IMPORTANT. I understand that if you are 22 and single and in the bar scene you'll have a different position, but I still say that if your ATTITUDE is that you are magnificent and prime human stuff, nobody will give a **** about your hair.

It's oh, so much harder to get good attitude than it is to get good hair. But good attitude goes person-deep, not just skin deep, which trust me is shallow indeed. YOU are so much more than your hair. It's okay to lose some or even ALL of your hair. Relax. It's gonna be okay. YOU are brilliant. Anybody who gets hung up on your hair is worthless. Blow them off and go buy more wigs. Come visit me and we will go have so much fun wig and hat and extension shopping.
 
Did you know that among some ethnic groups in the USA fake hair is totally normal? I didn't. I'm lily white from lily white America. Now I'm going to school in a fabulously multiethnic, almost all women place. Anybody whose skin is darker than mine LOVES my wig collection, comes up to me and asks me where I got the daily do cuz they want one like it. We exchange scarf tying tips. It's a whole new world for this rancher from Montana.

Relax. Your person and your life are SO MUCH MORE than some collagen fibers.

 Well said Lady! My hair is falling out and my only thought is
"its only hair, it will grow back or it wont"
I remember about 6 years ago, my sister was battling breast cancer and chemo was making her hair fall out. She knew it would grow back but was still heartbroken, by her waist length blonde locks coming out in clumps. We cut it to shoulder length and she was heartbroken, I told her it only hair sis, it will come back. She said Easy for you to say you have all yours, so I went in her bathroom and braided my hair, then cut off my braid and gave it to her. She passed away a few months later at the age of 36 and while cleaning out her dresser I found my braid she had braided it with the ponytail we cut off hers. I joke with my hubby that if it all falls out I'm gonna start a wig collection... He thinks it may be fun to have a blonde wife...or a redhead...

All I can say is if I could trade hairloss for healthy, healthy would win hands down every time...

****HUGE HUGS**** I'm so sorry for your loss. I spend lovely summers with my only sister, and I love her more than I can say. She's a few years older than I am, so it's possible that I might be attending her funeral rather than the other way around, which was guaranteed a few short years ago. I tear up just remotely considering it.

I know a dear lady who went through breast cancer hell twice and survived. Her outreach to other women in that boat is to go with them to the beautician and shave off the hair about the time it's gonna fall out. She's shaved her head with a few women now. It's hard and I am in no way minimizing the jolt. What I want to do is to encourage readers to look at it from a new angle, and to develop a sense of self independent of the mirage of hair being the whole picture.

Thank you for the hugs, Sherry has been gone for a little over 5yrs, still hurts. We were very close, she was 3 yrs older than me.  What your friend does is awesome. My sister kept a journal which I couldn't bring myself to read for a few years after she was gone, and she said me "showing her its only hair" was the only time during her battle she felt like she wasn't alone in her fight. It was something we shared. 
    Thank you for keeping it real for all of us baby DS'ers. I love that about you!

I really like this post Elizabeth :)  Thank you for taking the time to write this.  As a 26 year old who has struggled with PCOS for all of my "giving a **** about my hair" years, I have to say that it's still sometimes hard to take the attitude you are projecting here, but I try.  I've learned ways to style my hair that don't make it as noticeable that my hair is so thin on top that you can see about 80% of my scalp at any given time.  I've found that darker hair colors make my hair seem thicker than the blondes, and that layers are my friend.  Even still, I'd love to have thick silky hair like so many 20-somethings have.  Oh well.  Those aren't the cards I was dealt.  And you're right, fake hair is SOOOOOOO much more popular than most people think.  It's just that fake hair has become so high end and advanced that most people can't tell it's fake!  About 90% of super beautiful actresses and models use hair pieces.  I am going to wait to see how my hair reacts to my revision, but if I lose much more without growing it back, I'll be flying up to have you teach me a thing or two about wigs :)

PS- all statistics and percentages mentioned above were made up ;)  ....just saying.

 

Elizabeth,
Thank you for helping us keep perspective!  
I admit I do seem to fret about hair loss too much. Reading your post, helps me realize
how lucky I really am.  Though it took me almost 20 years.. I am finally on the DS loser
bench, and LOVING every minute.  It's the best thing I've ever done for my own health.  I guess losing my hair is a very small price to pay for being able to move and participate in my life again.
Thank you again, 

  Thank you SOOOOOO much, Elizabeth! You speak the truth, always, and we always appreciate it. So here's my 2 cents on the topic:
The way I think about hair loss is like this... at my high weight, my hair was a HUGE part of my sense of identity. It was my "best feature" (in my mind) and the one part of my looks that made me feel good about myself. But in all honesty, I was so big that no one but me ever noticed my hair. Would I trade my "beautiful, luxurious" hair so that I could not only be small enough that people would notice me (in the way I want to be noticed, not to point and stare at the SMO person), but also so that I could be healthy enough to CARE about my hair in my later years? EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!!