Connie E. Curry

Christmas was over. Decorations were put away, there were charge cards to pay, and my hair was thinning.

Shelley, my niece, had told me about a hair product called Bed Head after she saw my new short haircut.

“Aunt Connie, you should get Bed Head,” she suggested after seeing my new short “do.” “This girl I work with uses it, and it makes your hair spike up really cool.”

“Bed Head? What a crazy name,” I said. “OK, I’ll look for it.”

I needed a stronger hair gel to get my hair to spike out the way I was wearing the new short style De had cut. It had grown, and the top was a little too long. I put off getting it cut. “Isn’t that like paying to put a new roof on a house when you know the storm is going to blow the house down?” I said to many of my friends.

Each day since my very first chemo, I would feel my hair and tug on it, looking for signs of it falling out. When I bathed, I would check the drain as the water washed away, always looking for clumps of hair.

I knew I still had a few weeks to enjoy it, but I was obsessed with worry and hoping hair wouldn’t be in my hands as I continued tugging it. My treatments were three weeks apart. The nurse had forewarned me that it would start thinning out a week prior to my second treatment.

On week two after my chemo, like clockwork, it began, just like the nurse had told me. For some silly reason, I started thinking I might be different, and an unusual case. I actually thought I would be one of the lucky ones who would not suffer hair loss. I should have known better. I noticed I didn’t need to shave my legs as often. My unwanted chin hairs were gone.

People would tell me that they had friends or relatives who didn’t lose hair from cancer treatments. I knew those chemo patients were probably being treated with different kinds of chemo.

Adriamycin, the hair-thief-heartless-bastard-chemo, was pumped through my veins, and its reputation was brutal.

January 4, 2005, was a day that stands out in my mind as much as the day I was told I had breast cancer. The warnings I had heard from other cancer survivors were true.

“The toughest thing to deal with is when your hair falls out.”

 That Tuesday, on the fourth, I was preparing for work. I got up feeling good and eager to take on a new day. I had just bought the Bed Head product. I even mumbled to myself as I stood in the drugstore the day before, thinking how expensive it was.

Why am I wasting my money on this when I know my hair is leaving me any day?

I dressed for work and poured another cup of coffee. I sang with the radio, as Brooks and Dunn were playing.

I walked into the bathroom; I combed my hair and put the Bed Head in my hands to spread across my hair. I rubbed it in, spiking parts of my hair to give areas the defined look. It looked great. I looked chic.