Just When You Thought I Was Out Of Hair Stories...

I come up with another one.

I was the only one in the house today when I left for church. I changed my shoes twice, added another layer of hair spray, and grabbed my Bible on the way out the door. I made it through one stoplight when the thought occurred to me that I really didn't want to go. Driving through three more stoplights, I made a right when I should've went straight and headed back to the house. I swapped my nice, dark green sweater for a Falcon t-shirt and an old black cardigan and popped a chicken pot pie into the microwave. I fixed up a baby shower gift for later today and flipped on The Brady Bunch and wondered what the Lord might be thinking.

You know, I've never pretended to have it all together.

Anyway.

The daughter made the decision to cut her hair yesterday. Technically, she made the decision some time ago when she began growing her hair for the sole purpose of cutting it one day. That beautiful hair is now in the form of a ponytail waiting to be mailed to Locks of Love in honor of her own battle with alopecia areata. Seeing as how I've still got the ponytail of the middle waiting to be mailed, we'll probably just make it a dual mailing event. One thing's for sure... this family ought to be saving some money on shampoo and conditioner and drain cleaners.

And yes, she loves it.

No regrets, Mom, she said leaving the hair salon.



Not a bad way to live.

Alopecia Areata: Faith, Hair, and A Girl (#4)

Yesterday the girl asked me to help her dye her hair. Her long, thick, takes-two-boxes-to-even-hope-to-change-the-color kind of hair. Why she wants to change it is beyond me, but I guess she is like any other girl, myself included. We lightened it up a bit back in the summer. She wanted to try to go a little lighter (aka blonder) "just for a while, Mom." So we armed ourselves with old shirts, old towels, plastic gloves, and went to work. I didn't look at the clock to see what time we started, but by the time I wrapped her head in plastic, I was completely worn out. My goodness, that girl has a lot of hair.

She asked me a while back if I was ever going to write anymore about her and her hair. I wonder if this counts. There's not a whole lot more I can add to the hair story (click on the alopecia areata label at the bottom of this post if you have no idea what I'm talking about). I mean, her hair was there and then it wasn't and then it was. As I had my fingers in that head of hair yesterday, though, that same familiar feeling crept up from somewhere deep inside.

Please don't ever let that happen again.

She told me last week that she was losing some eyelashes. It wasn't so much of a statement, however; it was more of a question. I could see that look in her eye that was seeking reassurance. An answer. Do you think it's that again, Mom? She didn't speak those words, but they were there just under the thinly veiled surface. At least they were to me. I have to admit, that is always in the back of my mind. I gave her the first answer that popped into my head.

It's probably from washing off your eye make-up. I'm guessing you're not very gentle.

She smiled and sighed and said I was probably right. The girl doesn't wear much make-up at all, but she is a self-taught expert on the virtues of mascara. She can tell you which little tube will give you the most bang for your buck and provide detailed instructions on how to properly apply the black goop. She is all girl. So we settled on that explanation and moved on and talked about other things.

I'm telling you, though, I watch that girl's head like a hawk, probably more than she knows. There have been times when I have noticed a little receding of the hairline taking place. For instance, the husband and I both saw it again about four years ago after we moved and our beloved grandma died. Although not much is known about this unexplained hair loss, stress is believed to be some sort of a trigger. All I know to do is not make a big deal out of it and speak the same scripture from the second part of Nahum 1:9... this affliction shall not rise up a second time.

What more can you do? And what more can you say?
Her hair is beautiful, but her true beauty lies within. That's all any of us can hope for.

Alopecia Areata: Faith, Hair, and A Girl (#3)

After reading my last blog entry about my daughter and her hair, my mom said she was going to send me her most memorable memory (that's a mouthful) of that particular period in time. I looked and looked to find a picture of the youngest in the exact scarf my mom mentions, but the only one we could find featured not only a clear shot of the scarf, but also a nice, clear shot of blue teeth... thanks to what must have been some kind of blue candy. Being the girl that she is, the daughter said, "Thanks, but no thanks" to sharing it. Like I said back in the beginning of this series, we really don't have a lot of pictures from that time. I honestly thought I had more than I actually do... I guess the camera was the farthest thing from any of our minds back then.

It's funny because as much as I wanted to share this, I am finding I have a hard time not only reading what she and my mom have written, but also trying to put into words my own feelings about the whole ordeal. I was the one who rocked her while she cried and cried and her dad and brothers looked on helpless. I was the one who found her on more than one morning crying angry tears when she would stand before a mirror and no new hair was in sight. I was the one who kept a number of CDs about healing going in her room at all times (at her request) when there were moments I wanted to toss them all out the window.

Yes, indeed. The Lord had a lesson for us all in this.

And for the record, we did thank God everyday that the girl did not have anything terminally wrong with her. She was not sick; she was healthy. The frustration, though, at watching your young daughter go bald for no apparent reason... well, I suppose that's part of my problem in trying to find the right words. She's not the only one out there who has been in this particular fight, that's why we wanted to share it and I'm gonna be honest with you, I think it's always in the back of our minds.

But anyway.
Enough about that.
Moving forward.

Granny's Memory

(my mom and grandmother of the youngest)

I wish I could remember the date, but I don't.  I think that girl spent every Friday night with us for as long as I can remember, then it became Friday and Saturday nights.  The boys would usually join in on the Saturday nights.  They knew Granny would get them McDonalds for supper and Pa would go for chocolate milk and donuts the next morning.  One particular Friday night she was over and it was when she was losing her hair pretty bad, the poor little thing had so many bald spots on her little head.  She always wore a scarf or sometimes a hat, mostly scarves.  I begin to notice she was wearing the same scarf all the time, she never changed it…never took that scarf off, even would sleep in it.  This particular night she had taken a bubble bath. I told her she did not have to wear that scarf around her Pa and I.  I had told her that many times, but this night she sat in the middle of our bed after her bath and said, “Granny, sit down here, I have something to tell you.”  I sat down not having any idea what she wanted to talk about. 

 She said, “Granny you see this scarf, Mrs. R. (her 2nd grade teacher) took this scarf all the way to Oklahoma so they could pray over it. Granny, God reached down from heaven and laid his hand on this very scarf. Isn't that something Granny? God touched my scarf. I knew that God was going to heal me and give my hair back to me.  So you see Granny that is why I leave this scarf on all the time because God touched it and I will be healed.” 

Out of the mouths of babes.

Those are her words not mine. I can still see her sitting in our bed cross legged telling me this.  I remember her being out and the wind blowing her scarf up and exposing her hair and people looking, but they didn't know what was going on, that is just human nature to stare. She had faith and she knew God was going to take care of her.  I think that is when I learned what faith was all about. Your Granny loves you.

Alopecia Areata: Faith, Hair, and A Girl (#2)

I asked. She delivered. It's funny how she remembers things that I don't. She told me I could add the ending, but I honestly have nothing more to say to her final statement. Thanks for sharing, Daughter.

Oh, and if you missed the opener to this particular theme, you might want to back up and read it first: Part One

From {The Daughter's} Point of View: How the Story Began

First off I apologize for my writing skills.  This is why I would like to be a Social Studies teacher- not an English one.

When I was five years old, I remember going to the doctor because I had lost an eyebrow.  I had on a yellow sundress with veggie tales on it. (Larry the Cucumber anyone?)   I received a shot, and “tada!” my eyebrow grew back.  For a few years, everything was fine.  One night I was at my grandparents’ house sitting on the armchair by my Granny.  She noticed I had bald spots on my head and I was sent across the room to my mother for her to have a look.  We went to the doctor and discovered that I had alopecia areata.  I didn’t know what that word meant.  Too complicated.  Many things were tried.  Pills, special conditioner………..? Needless to say nothing worked.  Every day I wore a scarf on my head to cover the spots.  One day I got sick of hiding it.  I got up in front of my 1^st and 2^nd grade class with my teacher and told them.  All the kids gathered around me, laid hands and prayed.  That summer I went to camp; I did not enjoy it that year.  At one point, I was out in the lake canoeing with a friend, my scarf had fallen off and I saw people pointing and laughing.  Maybe I was paranoid and thought they were laughing at my hair, I’m not sure.  I do know that no pills, conditioner, or anything else helped me.  It was praying.  I have all my hair now, but I could wake up one morning and lose it again.  I suppose it’s all up to God.  

Daughter Approved Picture of That Time In Her Life

Alopecia Areata: Faith, Hair, and A Girl (#1)



Age 5



The youngest has given me permission to share her story, and share her story I will. It's a story of loss and faith and hair. In fact, on the outside, it is mostly about hair, but when you look closer, you'll see it's more about faith. The faith of a child.

And alopecia areata.

That's unexplained baldness to you and me.

Her story will take more than one post, that's for sure. I'm gonna get her to write at least one entry herself. She's a writer, that one. There's also the viewpoint from her granny and her second grade teacher and her brothers and her dad. You see, what affected one affected us all.

The picture above is a bit deceiving. Once when we shared her testimony with an evangelist, he wanted to publish her story if we had pictures of the before and after. Now I'm not knocking the man... his preaching and words of faith played a big part in the young lady we see today, but pictures of the before we just don't have. Pictures of bandanas and scarves and hats we have (and boy, did we ever have a collection!), but pictures of baldness we did not take. I have no regrets there. Besides, photographs fade; memories do not.

In the beginning, though, we didn't need many scarves. In fact, I think the bandana she is wearing in the picture above was just one of a few. It started off pretty mild. She was four when we first noticed an eyebrow missing. Gone. Completely vanished. Then we saw thinning eyelashes and the slight receding of the hairline. A dime-sized bald spot on the left side of her scalp sent us to the doctor who sent us to a specialist. The specialist sent us to a medical college where a group of learning students requested our permission to perform a biopsy on the bald spot because a brain tumor was a possible explanation for the unexplained loss of hair.

We never went back.

What we did do was take her immediately to our pastor, who along with another pastor and a mighty prayer warrior, surrounded that little girl, anointed her with oil, and prayed against whatever affliction was in the process of attacking her. If you look really close in the above picture, you can see the eyebrow in question filling back in (and the other one was oddly never affected). It wasn't too long after this picture that she went without a bandana because all signs of hair loss were practically gone.

And it would stay that way for another year or so, but like most challenges in life, the problem would come back with a vengeance. We had no idea how many scarves and bandanas and hats we would eventually need.

Or how many prayers and boxes of kleenex and pep talks it would take.

Interested?

Watch for the same title in future posts.

We'll see where this little journey takes us.