AC chemo 3 is officially over. The "ill" time is two days shorter this cycle, which leads me to believe that I had flu (brought home from work/school by both Napoleon and J during the week) last time. That would explain why I felt so flu-like, then.
Anyway, for whatever reason, it is a huge morale boost to have an unexpected two days of feeling good. And another huge morale boost to know that there is only one more of these horrible cycles before I move onto the easier weekly ones - although the idea of going to the Opium Den every week for 12 weeks fills me with absolute horror. I'm not thinking about the realities of that too much at the moment - it's easier to cope with one thing at a time and that is definitely tomorrow's worry.
Instead, I spend some time during the grotty days revising for my Singaporean driving license - reading the rules of the road and taking the practice tests - which suddenly explains a whole load about Singaporean driving standards. Two questions that spring to mind are:
"When should you use the middle lane of a 3-lane carriageway?"
A) when you are overtaking slow moving traffic in the left lane
B) when you don't know whether to turn left or right
C) when you are overtaking slow moving traffic in the right lane
The correct answer, somewhat surprisingly, is B. What's worrying is that both A and C have equal status.......
And another totally genuine question - had me stumped - "When waiting at a traffic signal, you should:..."
A) be alert for other road users
B) rev your engine to prepare for the green light
C) take the opportunity to sip your coffee
Luckily I have until July to master this.
This week I finally get over the whole hair thing - having definitely been in denial and then grieving, I reach acceptance. Well, I reach OK with it, and that's good enough for the moment. It helps that the kids are now relaxed enough about it to take the piss (they have started to call me Dobby, which I feel is unkind) - as always, laughing takes the sting away.
Unexpectedly, though, I have stubble on my head - it feels rather nice, like moleskin. I expect it will all fall out again in a few days time, but it's good to know it WILL come back.....
As zen-like and serene as ever, J xx
Tuesday 31 May 2011
Wednesday 25 May 2011
Another week goes by
We have a lovely week, from Weds onwards everything is totally back to pre The Thing levels. I rush around fitting two weeks worth of domestic trivia (bills, dry goods shopping, emergency supplies for the kids etc) into 3 days and feel like a normal person.
Anthea and I have our first outing - to great plaudits. Whilst she will never look like my hair - the general consensus is that after a few minutes of thinking "that's a wig" people forget about it completely. For those that haven't seen - here is a photo.
So we go out to a dinner party, I go to book club, we spend Sat night in the highest Alfresco cocktail bar in the world (1-Altitude) followed by a trip to an amazing pudding bar afterwards, which is a very cool evening out. Then another lovely family BBQ lunch on Sunday. Life is good.
We also have a new addition to the hat/hair family - here is a picture of it - I call it Soccer Mom, but the kids have christened it Jason, after their diving instructor.
I also lose my nose hair this week. You wouldn't think you'd notice, but it gets suprising after a hot curry, soup or eyedrops.
Then on Monday night is a dreadful back-to-school/Sunday night feeling - back to the Den on Tuesday.
All the Smurfs are as cheerful as ever, but is a dull, dull process - not helped by the fact that I have to have a blood test before - then hang around for 1.5 hours before I can see Papa Smurf to get the go ahead for the infusions. All blood things are at good levels, so we go ahead for AC Chemo Round 3.
The tedium is not helped by the arrival of a "new girl" who sits next to me and advises me (endlessly) to invite Jesus into my life. And then gives me healing recipes involving unmentionable Chinese ingredients. No thanks, I am happy with my fruit juices - I'll give the dried silverfish a miss, if it's all the same to you. I feign sleep (easy to do when you've got no hair and a drip in your arm) and she moves on to J, but not before using nearly all the forbidden Journey, Stay Strong, Keep Positive words. I hiss gently.
I watch nervously from beneath my eyelids and happily he manages to avoid mentioning that he thinks Jesus and God are being pretty shitty to us right now - he is smiling and pretending to write down recipes. And then they go away.
So back onto the roller coaster for the next week - I feel great so far and decide to make the most of it - and am planning on going to an Art show tonight put on by two mates who I will call Georgia (O'Keefe) and Annie (Leibovitz). Very very bizarrely - Georgia did all the cartoons at Justin's stag party so some of you may remember her (relax, she remembers nothing....)!
Tiny Tim is now on one crutch only - and expected to be off that within a week. Napoleon is still in a sling for 2 more weeks and off rugby/contact sports for 6 more - guttingly both kids have been told that they can't complete their PADI courses until next term as they aren't fit enough to do the sea dives. So we decide to book a holiday instead.......
J is pretty much mended.
As zen-like and serene as ever, J xx
Anthea and I have our first outing - to great plaudits. Whilst she will never look like my hair - the general consensus is that after a few minutes of thinking "that's a wig" people forget about it completely. For those that haven't seen - here is a photo.
So we go out to a dinner party, I go to book club, we spend Sat night in the highest Alfresco cocktail bar in the world (1-Altitude) followed by a trip to an amazing pudding bar afterwards, which is a very cool evening out. Then another lovely family BBQ lunch on Sunday. Life is good.
We also have a new addition to the hat/hair family - here is a picture of it - I call it Soccer Mom, but the kids have christened it Jason, after their diving instructor.
I also lose my nose hair this week. You wouldn't think you'd notice, but it gets suprising after a hot curry, soup or eyedrops.
Then on Monday night is a dreadful back-to-school/Sunday night feeling - back to the Den on Tuesday.
All the Smurfs are as cheerful as ever, but is a dull, dull process - not helped by the fact that I have to have a blood test before - then hang around for 1.5 hours before I can see Papa Smurf to get the go ahead for the infusions. All blood things are at good levels, so we go ahead for AC Chemo Round 3.
The tedium is not helped by the arrival of a "new girl" who sits next to me and advises me (endlessly) to invite Jesus into my life. And then gives me healing recipes involving unmentionable Chinese ingredients. No thanks, I am happy with my fruit juices - I'll give the dried silverfish a miss, if it's all the same to you. I feign sleep (easy to do when you've got no hair and a drip in your arm) and she moves on to J, but not before using nearly all the forbidden Journey, Stay Strong, Keep Positive words. I hiss gently.
I watch nervously from beneath my eyelids and happily he manages to avoid mentioning that he thinks Jesus and God are being pretty shitty to us right now - he is smiling and pretending to write down recipes. And then they go away.
So back onto the roller coaster for the next week - I feel great so far and decide to make the most of it - and am planning on going to an Art show tonight put on by two mates who I will call Georgia (O'Keefe) and Annie (Leibovitz). Very very bizarrely - Georgia did all the cartoons at Justin's stag party so some of you may remember her (relax, she remembers nothing....)!
Tiny Tim is now on one crutch only - and expected to be off that within a week. Napoleon is still in a sling for 2 more weeks and off rugby/contact sports for 6 more - guttingly both kids have been told that they can't complete their PADI courses until next term as they aren't fit enough to do the sea dives. So we decide to book a holiday instead.......
J is pretty much mended.
As zen-like and serene as ever, J xx
Wednesday 18 May 2011
Half way through AC
Chemo cycle 2 is officially over - and is both longer and less unpleasant than the first cycle.
The first three days are almost completely side-effect free (apart from the whole hair thing, which I have droned on about enough) which is fantastic. Of course I don't appreciate it, because I am too busy getting used to being bald, but I feel normal and at any stage during this first week, normal is A Very Good Thing. So much of my hair has come out by this stage - in massive chunks - that I decide that the time has come to do a Britney and shave it off.
The only weapon I have at my disposal is my Epilady with shaving attachment, so I hand it over to the kids and ask them to do their worst. J jr can't bring himself to be involved and goes to kill people on COD instead, while Tiny Tim puts unmentionable rapper style zig-zags across my head. Thankfully she can't manage a Nike tick. Then J finishes off and I look like GI Jane without the muscles - but I am pleased to see that I do have rather an elegant head shape and long neck.........
The next two days are, frankly, grim. I have two states of play, "grotty" (sick, headache, tired, grumpy) and "asleep" which I can chose between - the pills switch me immediately from "grotty" to "asleep" for 3 hours, but I can only take them 3 times a day. I take a different set of pills to knock myself out at night too, and so the two days goes by. I suspect I'm not much fun during this time, but happily I use it to avoid having to see the cinema magic which is "Thor" - J takes the children on his own. I am planning on missing "Pirates of the Caribbean 25" in the same way next cycle.
The final two days are like being post-flu - I feel like I am walking through treacle - but there is no headache and no sickness, and each hour I feel a little bit better. I watch Tenko, Grays Anatomy and Heroes and love it all - a sure sign that my brain has, in fact, turned to mush..........
During this stage, I also develop The Hunger. I know I often surprise people with the amount I can put away at a normal meal time, but this is something else - in these two days, I just can't seem to get enough to eat. I am permanently with my head in the fridge, or making a marmite sandwich (lovely, lovely marmite), or fighting for scraps from the children's plates. We go out for a delicious family lunch and I eat everyones leftovers - normally J's job, but he doesn't get a look in. We go to the Polo club with the Gareth Edwards's for drinks and snacks, and I gobble everything in sight - huge shared plates of Satay GONE! Bruschettas GONE! Calamari NOT A HOPE!
And then suddenly - eight days after it started, I am completely back to normal again.
The fantastic thing is that I am now halfway through the AC cycles - these are the horrible ones - only two more to go. Then it's onto the weekly ones for 12 weeks, but the Smurfs promise that they will be a walk in the park, comparatively. They are known liars though, so we'll see........
As zen-like and serene as ever, J xx
The first three days are almost completely side-effect free (apart from the whole hair thing, which I have droned on about enough) which is fantastic. Of course I don't appreciate it, because I am too busy getting used to being bald, but I feel normal and at any stage during this first week, normal is A Very Good Thing. So much of my hair has come out by this stage - in massive chunks - that I decide that the time has come to do a Britney and shave it off.
The only weapon I have at my disposal is my Epilady with shaving attachment, so I hand it over to the kids and ask them to do their worst. J jr can't bring himself to be involved and goes to kill people on COD instead, while Tiny Tim puts unmentionable rapper style zig-zags across my head. Thankfully she can't manage a Nike tick. Then J finishes off and I look like GI Jane without the muscles - but I am pleased to see that I do have rather an elegant head shape and long neck.........
The next two days are, frankly, grim. I have two states of play, "grotty" (sick, headache, tired, grumpy) and "asleep" which I can chose between - the pills switch me immediately from "grotty" to "asleep" for 3 hours, but I can only take them 3 times a day. I take a different set of pills to knock myself out at night too, and so the two days goes by. I suspect I'm not much fun during this time, but happily I use it to avoid having to see the cinema magic which is "Thor" - J takes the children on his own. I am planning on missing "Pirates of the Caribbean 25" in the same way next cycle.
The final two days are like being post-flu - I feel like I am walking through treacle - but there is no headache and no sickness, and each hour I feel a little bit better. I watch Tenko, Grays Anatomy and Heroes and love it all - a sure sign that my brain has, in fact, turned to mush..........
During this stage, I also develop The Hunger. I know I often surprise people with the amount I can put away at a normal meal time, but this is something else - in these two days, I just can't seem to get enough to eat. I am permanently with my head in the fridge, or making a marmite sandwich (lovely, lovely marmite), or fighting for scraps from the children's plates. We go out for a delicious family lunch and I eat everyones leftovers - normally J's job, but he doesn't get a look in. We go to the Polo club with the Gareth Edwards's for drinks and snacks, and I gobble everything in sight - huge shared plates of Satay GONE! Bruschettas GONE! Calamari NOT A HOPE!
And then suddenly - eight days after it started, I am completely back to normal again.
The fantastic thing is that I am now halfway through the AC cycles - these are the horrible ones - only two more to go. Then it's onto the weekly ones for 12 weeks, but the Smurfs promise that they will be a walk in the park, comparatively. They are known liars though, so we'll see........
As zen-like and serene as ever, J xx
Wednesday 11 May 2011
....gone tomorrow
So now we all know that your hair doesn't magically explode during the first session of chemo, how does it happen?
Well, I find out pretty fast, faster than I was hoping to.
I wash my hair on Sunday and notice that there is rather more clogging up the shower than normal. Nothing really unusual in that - J can never believe the amount of hair I can manage to lose during a normal hair wash - but somehow I know this isn't right. So I carry on combing with my fingers, and more and more comes out. Oh God - this is it. I am not one of the 1%. My inner self was right all along.
I decide to stop pulling it out and go for a blow dry instead. I realize this seems counter-intuitive - I mean do I want it to stay in or not - but I would rather be bald than Michael Keaton, which is what happens without the help of a hair dryer. Blow drying does make things look normal - and actually not too much comes out, so I relax a little.
My pubes start coming out too. Not entirely unwelcome. But a little odd. Eyebrows and eyelashes hanging in there - please please may they stay......
Later that evening I pull out an entire curl from the back of my head. It's quite a trick so I do it again to show J. He looks appalled and I decide not to repeat in front of the children.
Curiously I am not particularly unhappy - more resigned than upset.
The next day, I start to moult like an old Labrador. You just have to touch my head and it goes up in a puff of hair. Everywhere I go, I leave a little trail of hair - it's gross and it's starting to freak me out. Then I look in a mirror and Bill Bailey looks out at me - I have developed the widest parting ever aaaaarrrrrghhh. I panic and scrape what's left into a ponytail (mistake, as a whole load more falls out) but the parting is covered and I rush off to the shops for emergency wide headband buying.
The wide headband seems to do the trick - hopefully this look will last a few more days as it makes it clear I do still have some hair. Then we will have to move onto Anthea and my other new purchase - ponytail hat. Ponytail hat is a baseball hat with a ponytail and "bangs" which I have ordered. I think it may be answer for casual wear - but I have become a wig junkie - S-I-L (US) has put me in touch with an amazing looking wig shop which has wigs you can put under scarves, hats etc. Watch this space but no pics.....yet
Then today, things take a turn for the worse. J gives me my shot to boost white blood cells (he WAS watching Triangle Nurse last time, thankfully) and I see myself in the mirror, finally looking like someone with The Thing, and the tears come.
I have tried so hard to let it all flow over me, and prepare mentally - but suddenly seeing myself was a shock - I think everything else we have been through has been so quick and relatively easy (I healed so well from both ops, nothing has been visible to the outside world, life continues as normal) that suddenly seeing a baldie looking out at me - albeit with enough for a teeny ponytail and a wide hairband, hit me hard.
I am not going to be pretty for the next 6 months at least. A toughie to get your head round.
J of course is totally wonderful and says I'll be beautiful to him - and also makes me promise not to hide my baldness from him (yes, I had been considering trying). That makes me cry more. Dammit I hate this.
Then we get up and go our separate ways - me to my dog walk and J to work. A quick text later HE IS OK BEFORE I START THIS to let me know he has come off his bike (pedal, not motor) and is being checked out at A&E. He is fine - a few nasty scrapes and a bent bike - but please, enough now OK?
Apart from all that - chemo 2 has so far been kinder than chemo 1 - not even car sickness yet. I have taken more drugs, more religiously (even the just in case ones) and plan to carry on.
Marginally less zen-like and serene today, J xx
Well, I find out pretty fast, faster than I was hoping to.
I wash my hair on Sunday and notice that there is rather more clogging up the shower than normal. Nothing really unusual in that - J can never believe the amount of hair I can manage to lose during a normal hair wash - but somehow I know this isn't right. So I carry on combing with my fingers, and more and more comes out. Oh God - this is it. I am not one of the 1%. My inner self was right all along.
I decide to stop pulling it out and go for a blow dry instead. I realize this seems counter-intuitive - I mean do I want it to stay in or not - but I would rather be bald than Michael Keaton, which is what happens without the help of a hair dryer. Blow drying does make things look normal - and actually not too much comes out, so I relax a little.
My pubes start coming out too. Not entirely unwelcome. But a little odd. Eyebrows and eyelashes hanging in there - please please may they stay......
Later that evening I pull out an entire curl from the back of my head. It's quite a trick so I do it again to show J. He looks appalled and I decide not to repeat in front of the children.
Curiously I am not particularly unhappy - more resigned than upset.
The next day, I start to moult like an old Labrador. You just have to touch my head and it goes up in a puff of hair. Everywhere I go, I leave a little trail of hair - it's gross and it's starting to freak me out. Then I look in a mirror and Bill Bailey looks out at me - I have developed the widest parting ever aaaaarrrrrghhh. I panic and scrape what's left into a ponytail (mistake, as a whole load more falls out) but the parting is covered and I rush off to the shops for emergency wide headband buying.
The wide headband seems to do the trick - hopefully this look will last a few more days as it makes it clear I do still have some hair. Then we will have to move onto Anthea and my other new purchase - ponytail hat. Ponytail hat is a baseball hat with a ponytail and "bangs" which I have ordered. I think it may be answer for casual wear - but I have become a wig junkie - S-I-L (US) has put me in touch with an amazing looking wig shop which has wigs you can put under scarves, hats etc. Watch this space but no pics.....yet
Then today, things take a turn for the worse. J gives me my shot to boost white blood cells (he WAS watching Triangle Nurse last time, thankfully) and I see myself in the mirror, finally looking like someone with The Thing, and the tears come.
I have tried so hard to let it all flow over me, and prepare mentally - but suddenly seeing myself was a shock - I think everything else we have been through has been so quick and relatively easy (I healed so well from both ops, nothing has been visible to the outside world, life continues as normal) that suddenly seeing a baldie looking out at me - albeit with enough for a teeny ponytail and a wide hairband, hit me hard.
I am not going to be pretty for the next 6 months at least. A toughie to get your head round.
J of course is totally wonderful and says I'll be beautiful to him - and also makes me promise not to hide my baldness from him (yes, I had been considering trying). That makes me cry more. Dammit I hate this.
Then we get up and go our separate ways - me to my dog walk and J to work. A quick text later HE IS OK BEFORE I START THIS to let me know he has come off his bike (pedal, not motor) and is being checked out at A&E. He is fine - a few nasty scrapes and a bent bike - but please, enough now OK?
Apart from all that - chemo 2 has so far been kinder than chemo 1 - not even car sickness yet. I have taken more drugs, more religiously (even the just in case ones) and plan to carry on.
Marginally less zen-like and serene today, J xx
Sunday 8 May 2011
Thursday 5 May 2011
Finding the right Syrup
Before The Thing happened to me, I assumed that the minute you started to have chemo, suddenly all your hair fell off. This is THE BIG THING that everyone knows about cancer - and how you can tell if someone has it - they have no hair. Obviously there are exceptions to this rule - lots of 44 year old men without The Thing have no hair - but generally baldness (especially on a woman or child) stamps "sick person" across their forehead. And then people start saying words like "Journey" and "How ARE you" a lot.
I still have hair, even in places I don't want it.
The weird thing is that while I absolutely know it is going to fall out (in a week or two), I continue to pretend to myself that it isn't - because, genuinely, I think that will be the single worst thing, mentally, about this whole bullshit. Hair is pretty much the only thing you can really change about your physical appearance without surgery (OK, and dieting/exercise, given) - and as such, it defines how you want others to see you.
Clearly, I have always wanted people to see me as a crazy person with frizzy Cornwall hair, who makes no effort at all about her appearance - but you know what I mean. I guess the thing is that I have always known that if I put a bit of effort into a blow-dry, and splash some cash on highlights, I can make it look halfway decent and that I can scrub up OK. I am vain and I admit it.
As a result, I find it almost impossible to believe that I am soon going to be Duncan Goodhew/George Dawes/Yul Brunner style bald. I can't get my head round the practicalities of baldness (wigs or scarves? On or off in bed? God - false eyelashes?) and it seems surreal to think about it. I practice with scarves and look hideous - and tell myself to get used to it.
I also carry on half believing that I am going to be the 1% who only experiences partial hair loss, whilst telling myself that I know I'm being ridiculous, and that I am going to have to grow up and face facts. God - it's so boring to argue with yourself.
So I plan a couple of wig finding sessions, one with Heavenly H for a serious wig (for formal occasions) and one with the Lorna Doone, who I suspect of secretly planning to turn me into a Ginger, for a fun one or two.
***********
Wig day arrives and I head off to meet HH at Lucky Plaza, where there are two proper wig shops. In Singapore, most of the shopping malls are like Westfield - modern, full of high end designer/high street shops, packed with people of all nationalities, shopping with a purpose that frankly both escapes and frightens me. In Orchard Road alone there are 20+ of these malls - all the size of Westfield and connecting through underground tunnels which are also full of shops.
Lucky Plaza is not like that.
It is one of the much older original Singaporean malls - full of little Mom and Pop stores and $5 watches. The clientele is VERY local, and on a Sunday is it packed to the rafters with Phillipina maids - two floors are dedicated entirely to random Phillipino foodstuffs...... Predictably, I love it there.
I get a text from HH saying she's delayed, so I go to the first shop and check it out. This is going to be harder than I was anticipating - Asian wigs come in black, platinum or grey (discarding, for the moment, the fluo pink and purple). Not a shade of mouse - sorry, "eagle" - to be seen. I decide to push on and settle into the hairdressers chair, at which point she rather rudely asks me which of my two colours I would like to match. I should add here that I am currently sporting the duracell battery look - there is simply no point in spending any money on doing my roots, so they are about 4 inches long now............
I settle on the blonde option, and she immediately puts a beige stocking on my head and tucks all my hair into it. This is NOT a good look. a) I am bald and this confirms it's not a look I should aspire towards b) it looks as though I am about to rob a bank.
Things don't improve much pulls when she pulls out Jan Leemings hair, then Dolly Partons (tempting....) and explains that all the rest are darker. So I agree to try on some darker ones and immediately get Justin Hawkins/Morticia Addams. Not Halle Berry then. Short dark ones are equally hideous - so feeling a bit flat, I go downstairs to try shop number 2. Thankfully HH says she'll be there in 5 mins...
Same deal in shop 2 - although the bank robber look is in a fetching fishnet this time which makes me feel and look Iike a drag queen. I select a few wigs to try on and they line up on their stands like an audience.
HH arrives and immediately dismisses "the audience" as being totally wrong. Somehow she gets Madame to open a drawer that wasn't offered to me and yea! Shades of non-platinum blonde hair poke out! Still nothing is right (could be something to do with the fact that I have no make-up on and am sitting under a fluorescent light - the problem might be with the face, not the hair?).
Suddenly Madame produces Anthea Turners hair - same colour, same rather jaunty flicky bits at the back - and it works! It actually suits me and is fun. It needs a bit of a trim but it's fine. So we buy it and go and have a coffee to celebrate.
*****************
We have all tried Anthea on now - and I look the best in her. This is gratifying on many levels (imagine if she suited J better than she suited me) and everyone agrees that won't be embarrassing to see me in her. So she goes on her stand, ready for a trim when the time comes. I feel so much better that she is there - I now know that I will only be bald now out of choice - and that is a huge huge relief.
So I call Lorna Doone (ha, foiled with the redhead plan) and we decide to go and have a pissy lunch on the river instead.
As zen-like and serene as ever, J xx
I still have hair, even in places I don't want it.
The weird thing is that while I absolutely know it is going to fall out (in a week or two), I continue to pretend to myself that it isn't - because, genuinely, I think that will be the single worst thing, mentally, about this whole bullshit. Hair is pretty much the only thing you can really change about your physical appearance without surgery (OK, and dieting/exercise, given) - and as such, it defines how you want others to see you.
Clearly, I have always wanted people to see me as a crazy person with frizzy Cornwall hair, who makes no effort at all about her appearance - but you know what I mean. I guess the thing is that I have always known that if I put a bit of effort into a blow-dry, and splash some cash on highlights, I can make it look halfway decent and that I can scrub up OK. I am vain and I admit it.
As a result, I find it almost impossible to believe that I am soon going to be Duncan Goodhew/George Dawes/Yul Brunner style bald. I can't get my head round the practicalities of baldness (wigs or scarves? On or off in bed? God - false eyelashes?) and it seems surreal to think about it. I practice with scarves and look hideous - and tell myself to get used to it.
I also carry on half believing that I am going to be the 1% who only experiences partial hair loss, whilst telling myself that I know I'm being ridiculous, and that I am going to have to grow up and face facts. God - it's so boring to argue with yourself.
So I plan a couple of wig finding sessions, one with Heavenly H for a serious wig (for formal occasions) and one with the Lorna Doone, who I suspect of secretly planning to turn me into a Ginger, for a fun one or two.
***********
Wig day arrives and I head off to meet HH at Lucky Plaza, where there are two proper wig shops. In Singapore, most of the shopping malls are like Westfield - modern, full of high end designer/high street shops, packed with people of all nationalities, shopping with a purpose that frankly both escapes and frightens me. In Orchard Road alone there are 20+ of these malls - all the size of Westfield and connecting through underground tunnels which are also full of shops.
Lucky Plaza is not like that.
It is one of the much older original Singaporean malls - full of little Mom and Pop stores and $5 watches. The clientele is VERY local, and on a Sunday is it packed to the rafters with Phillipina maids - two floors are dedicated entirely to random Phillipino foodstuffs...... Predictably, I love it there.
I get a text from HH saying she's delayed, so I go to the first shop and check it out. This is going to be harder than I was anticipating - Asian wigs come in black, platinum or grey (discarding, for the moment, the fluo pink and purple). Not a shade of mouse - sorry, "eagle" - to be seen. I decide to push on and settle into the hairdressers chair, at which point she rather rudely asks me which of my two colours I would like to match. I should add here that I am currently sporting the duracell battery look - there is simply no point in spending any money on doing my roots, so they are about 4 inches long now............
I settle on the blonde option, and she immediately puts a beige stocking on my head and tucks all my hair into it. This is NOT a good look. a) I am bald and this confirms it's not a look I should aspire towards b) it looks as though I am about to rob a bank.
Things don't improve much pulls when she pulls out Jan Leemings hair, then Dolly Partons (tempting....) and explains that all the rest are darker. So I agree to try on some darker ones and immediately get Justin Hawkins/Morticia Addams. Not Halle Berry then. Short dark ones are equally hideous - so feeling a bit flat, I go downstairs to try shop number 2. Thankfully HH says she'll be there in 5 mins...
Same deal in shop 2 - although the bank robber look is in a fetching fishnet this time which makes me feel and look Iike a drag queen. I select a few wigs to try on and they line up on their stands like an audience.
HH arrives and immediately dismisses "the audience" as being totally wrong. Somehow she gets Madame to open a drawer that wasn't offered to me and yea! Shades of non-platinum blonde hair poke out! Still nothing is right (could be something to do with the fact that I have no make-up on and am sitting under a fluorescent light - the problem might be with the face, not the hair?).
Suddenly Madame produces Anthea Turners hair - same colour, same rather jaunty flicky bits at the back - and it works! It actually suits me and is fun. It needs a bit of a trim but it's fine. So we buy it and go and have a coffee to celebrate.
*****************
We have all tried Anthea on now - and I look the best in her. This is gratifying on many levels (imagine if she suited J better than she suited me) and everyone agrees that won't be embarrassing to see me in her. So she goes on her stand, ready for a trim when the time comes. I feel so much better that she is there - I now know that I will only be bald now out of choice - and that is a huge huge relief.
So I call Lorna Doone (ha, foiled with the redhead plan) and we decide to go and have a pissy lunch on the river instead.
As zen-like and serene as ever, J xx
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