Goodbye hair

My hair is falling out. Not quite in clumps but if I keep pecking at it I'm sure I can make that happen. I'm having another dose of chemo in two days time so I expect it'll all be gone by the end of the week.

I wasn't expecting this moulting to happen so quickly, not least because I feel so good today - a week off chemo does wonders. But here was the proof: I had run my hand through my hair and what came back was too many strands of hair wrapping, clinging and cleaving to my fingers. My heart went into overdrive and I raced up to the shower, madly shampooed my hair, jumped out and peered in the mirror. My hair was still there and I felt a huge rush of relief. I know in the scheme of things losing my hair is nothing because chemo is curing me but I'm going to be sad to lose my hair. It will also make me visually look like a cancer patient - I know that's vain - but I dread people looking at me differently. Feeling sorry for me. I'm already noticing bald women and wondering what their stories are. Now I'm about to join them.

It also crossed my mind that I wouldn't be using the big bottle of shampoo again until probably March next year..... that's a lot of hats. I wasn't always going to go down the hat route.

I had a meeting with Jill, the wig woman at the Royal Marsden. But it wasn't a complete success and to be honest, I was luke warm about the idea of a wig in any case. I just wanted to test out my options and for her to have a look at me with hair for a possible style match (or improvement!). I was really hoping for a classy Cleopatra look, fake but sexy. No such luck.

Jill works in a small room in the rehab ward at the Royal Marsden, watched over by faceless Mr Pierre polystyrene wig heads that line one wall. The wigs are all called various women's names and are styled in everything from faux modern - does anyone woman really blow dry their hair forward onto their face a la Justin Beiber??? - to deeply suburban. The wigs are all shiny, nylon and soundlessly scream at me I'M EXTREMELY HOT AND ITCHY.

B and I sit down and Jill - a vivacious woman who by a cruel coincidence has the exact colour hair that I've always wanted - takes a good look at me.

'Hmmm,' she says.

'What do you think?' I prompt eagerly.

'Well,' she pauses, 'Sometimes when a client walks through the door I immediately think: "You're a Cheryll" or "You're a Paula".

'Great,' I say. 'Who am I?'

'It didn't happen with you.' 

'Oh.'

'It's your curly hair. All the curly wigs are a bit poodley.'

This is unexpected but I won't be knocked off course so easily.

'I'm happy to go with straight,' I wheedle. The desire to have a wig - to be a Carol or a Tanya is overwhelming. 'I could have a completely different wig - a new me.'

'Have a look through the catalogue, see what you think' says Jill, handing me a thumb thick catologue.

I flick through an array of wigs, short and long, all styled in ways I've never desired. The models don't look too bad or too weird, although I note they all have eyebrows and eyelashes. None of them look like me, but in a few weeks time I'll be in a different land and I won't look like myself anyway.

'The trouble is, they all have fringes and you have a tiny face,' says Jill.

Now, this is new information. Ever since being first hospitalised back in April, I have become accustomed to my physical body being commented on in casually definite terms.

'I have a tiny face?' I say incredulously.

'Yes, but you can see a lot of it,' explains Jill.

Incredible. How had I never noticed?

I choose a style and it quickly becomes apparent that Jill is absolutely right. My tiny faced is dwarfed by the wig and its accompanying fringe. I can hardly see me due to the wig's intense wigginess.

Eventually we decided on two acceptably bad styles and I'm now waiting for them to arrive to see if I want them. I don't have to take them, which is a relief, but I still want to try them on before saying no. Perhaps, just perhaps, they'll look fabulous and real. I do sneak looks at other women on the chemo ward to see if they are wig wearers. I've only seen one really bad wig, but then maybe it made the woman wearing it feel better - and that's wigtastic if it does.

Jill also signed me up for a Look Good Feel Better afternoon, which is a makeup and makeover clinic for cancer patients. Here I will be taught how to draw on eyebrows - something I've been curious about ever since I shaved the middle half of my eyebrow off when I used my dad's razor as an improvised eyebrow tweezer. Big mistake. I had to colour my missing eyebrow in for weeks with a black texta pen that would turn blue in the rain. Freak! I'll also be taught how to blend foundation into my neck, face and head! Apparently you even get a goodie bag! Free eyebrows!! I may even find out something new about my tiny face...