The thing on my head called "The Wig"

I've looked and looked but this is the only picture I have on my computer of me wearing my wig. This is me and my niece, Sivanah, in May of 2006. Don't we look like mother and daughter with this hair cut?

Of course, I did not like my wig. There will be very few people that will actually like their wig. Just like most cancer patients, losing my hair was very, very traumatic since I usually sported a long length. Everyone told me they liked my wig and that was very sweet of them.

I chose to finish out my 2005-2006 school year with a wig because I felt my students went through enough transition with me already. They didn't need a daily reminder that I was fighting cancer or for me to look sickly. I wanted to give them as much normalcy as possible.

I still remember walking in that first day with my wig. Thankfully, I went from my long hair to short before getting my wig. I had a little girl that had curly hair compliment me on my new "cut." She even asked me how I styled it.

A parent I spoke to a year later told me that she had a conversation with her son about my wig. He never even realized that it was a wig. Of course, all the adults knew but I guess and hope that my kids never knew. I was very open with them about most aspects of my treatments except the part that I lost my hair.

I used to be a bangs person. I hated the bangs but Bonnie, my wig person, told me that bangs created a most natural look. The wig felt like a helmet. It usually came off the moment I got home.

One positive thing about the wig is that I simply slipped it on in the mornings and I was done. I didn't need to style it or even comb it. Bonnie "styled" it for me. One bad thing was that I could have easily destroyed my wig if I came into close contact with fire or from heat from the oven.

I have two wig stories to share. I washed my wig and I had it out to dry. I had a plastic form that I laid my wig on and stuck it in our tub to dry. RJ was working late that night. He went into the bathroom and thought I drowned. I was sleeping peacefully in bed.

The temperature was easily in the 90's and 100's in May. I remember waiting at the 620 and Parmer light. I was two minutes from home but just couldn't take it anymore. I was dying of heat even with the AC running. I took off my wig in the car and remember seeing the shocked expression on the man's face in the car next to me.

The wig made it much more difficult when my hot flashes came. It felt as if it retained a minimum of 10 degrees more heat.

I would recommend anyone that losses their hair to get a wig, even an inexpensive one. After that patch of children, I never wore my wig much. However, it is nice to have for special occasions because I was a bride's maid at Maria's wedding. I had my students' graduation. I grew to love my bandanna and scarves but the wig was a nice insurance. It was nice for the days that I wanted to walk around feeling like a non cancer patient.