Wig Time

Ashton stood at the end of his crib, mesmerized by the hair he clutched in his chubby hand.  He looked from my bare head to his fist, trying to figure out what just happened. I had successfully dodged his hair-pulling for weeks but that morning I was just too tired.  My gut tumbled over.  I felt my throat tighten and fought to keep a neutral expression.   

My baffled toddler watched me to see how he should react.  We stared at each other for a long minute.  Then I heard myself inhale sharply – and we broke into wild giggles.  What a crazy thing!  Grabbing Mommy’s hair! “Hat.” He told me. “Hair.” I corrected.  “Hairy Hat!” He sang and that’s what we called the wig from then on.

I tickled him into letting go of the hairy hat and helped him climb out of his crib. I still couldn’t lift him after my surgery.  He was late walking and missed crawling altogether which Stephen and I called precocious. We’d learn later that crawling is a critical developmental stage and skipping it is a big red flag. 

In the meantime, though, a bigger red flag went up.  My annual checkup revealed two cancerous lumps growing deep inside my right breast, directly under the nipple. Recommended treatment - Radical Mastectomy, with optional follow-up Chemotherapy.  I was forty-two.  Ashton was two. I opted for the chemo. 

Dr. Solow, my gentleman oncologist, had twinkling eyes and a selection of unique bow ties.  He recommended a specific toxic cocktail for the type of cancer I had – Doxorubicin with a chaser of Cyclophosphamide.  It would kill any rogue cancer cells that might be lurking.  It would also make me lose my hair.  I put that thought aside; maybe I’d be the exception.  Still, when the first round of chemo left tufts of hair on my morning pillow I knew.  It was Wig Time.

Online shopping wasn’t a thing yet in 1999, so I called the Canadian Cancer Society for their list of recommended wig specialists and chose the closest one. Marcelle worked out of his suburban basement, a forty-minute drive from my house.  The salon chair by his furnace room looked a bit dodgy but I was exhausted, and he produced a wig that I liked.  Like my own brunette style, it was simple and short, with sassy bangs - not too wiggy looking.  And it was an affordable mix of artificial and human hair which my insurance plan would mostly cover.  As I paid, Marcelle offered tips on the wig’s care and feeding, ominously cautioning me to keep it away from heat sources.  What did he think I was going to do, host a community bonfire?  Start glass blowing?  I could barely get out of bed in the morning.

The wig stayed in its box until Easter Sunday morning when I saw alarmingly big clumps of hair gathering at my feet as I showered.  I cried.  My husband Stephen tenderly shaved my head.  We joked half-heartedly about painting it like an Easter Egg. I felt naked and cold, which I expected. I also felt ashamed, which I hadn’t expected. Losing my hair mattered to me more than I’d thought. 

The wig was uncomfortable right from the start.  The silicone strip to keep it in place at the back rubbed my skin raw.  On my tinier-than-ever head, it no longer gripped my scalp and the wig slowly shifted clockwise, like a furry sundial. Every few hours, I’d “reset” it.  On the rare day it stayed put, it felt like a grumpy cat perched nervously on my head, ready to leap off at the slightest startle.

When the first spring sun finally flooded the kitchen, I was inspired to bake chocolate chip cookies. My son was at the babysitter, and I just wanted to do something normal.  I put on my apron. And my wig.

I was exhausted when I finally got the cookies in the oven. I rested my head on my arms at the kitchen table as they baked. I came to with the rich aroma of chocolate and sugar infusing the whole house and a buzzing timer.  As I bent and removed my cookies from the oven, I felt triumphant; they were done to a perfect shade of light brown. But at that same moment, I experienced a strange sensation; the kitchen now looked brighter, clearer.  I checked my reflection in the little mirror over the sink to see my sassy bangs completely fried and sticking out, horizontally, from my hairline. I could have cooled the cookies on there.  Too late, I now remembered Marcelle’s caution not to wear the wig close to a heat source.  Like a hot oven.

Without taking a breath, I whipped the hairy hat off and flung it across the kitchen.  It landed on top of the fridge, lifeless and crispy. As I experimented with different head coverings later that day, I thought about what to do with the wig.  I couldn’t give it away.  Who wants someone’s used frizzled hair? 

I finally stuffed the wig into a plastic Bay bag and, on our first trip to the mall in months, Ashton and I tossed it into a garbage can by the Mmmmmuffins kiosk. “Goodbye Hairy Hat!”

After, we went to the food court to celebrate with some ice cream.  An eastern-European-looking grandma sat nearby with her grandchildren. The kids stared at my head. I stared back. “I really like your blue scarf” their grandma offered kindly, pointing at my beaded headwrap.  “Thanks,” I replied, “It’s a new look for me.”