ABOUT

If someone told me at 23 that I would be rocking a tatted up bald head by age 53, I probably would have found the closest rock to hide under.  I was diagnosed with alopecia areata at the tender age of eight  after losing nearly three quarters of my hair.  My hair eventually grew back after various dermatological treatments, (more on treatments later).  About 6 years later a smooth, round patch showed up on my scalp in the winter of my ninth grade year I was ready to die.  This year was so important because I would be trying out for the cheerleading squad at my high school.   In 1981 who wanted a bald cheerleader?  Didn't stop me though from practicing everyday, competing, then earning top scores and a place on the squad. I didn't know it then but that inner strength was there, and I had an awesome mama who did everything within her power to get the help her child needed.  As I mentioned earlier there were a battery of treatments and little was known as to why this disease would wreak havoc on some people and not others. Treatments included, ultra violet light therapy, anthraline cream and finally steroid injections.  The injections were the worse and I have received up to 30 shots in one session.  Over the next thirty years I would go to college, get married and have children.  Bald spots would come and go but my hair would always grow back.  It wasn't until in my late 40's and the dreaded M-word (Menopause) unleashed it's hell hot inferno in my body!  And it was  during this time that I cut off my long albeit thinning hair. I was fed up with the thinning of my hair and feeling sorry for myself one night, cut it all off and took a hot bath.  My husband got in from work, came up to say hello and I'm sure I was a sight to see with my tear stained face after sobbing into my washcloth, panicked because he thought someone had died.  When I rehashed my desperate situation he hugged me and told me everything was going to be alright.  Well that didn't make me feel any better, because while he meant well, deep down inside I knew that my hair was going to continue falling out and I was going to have to find a way to deal with this reality on my own.